I learnt about Tom Petty after 11 million people watched Victor Meldrew die.
On 20th November 2000 the last episode of the hit UK sitcom "One Foot in the Grave" aired, in which the main character, grumpy pensioner Victor Meldrew, is killed in a hit and run accident. When the credits started to roll,"The End of The Line" by the Traveling Wilburys played.
Except, I don't know that's what the song is called, I've never heard of the Traveling Wilburys. I don't catch it in the credits, if it's written there. Still I remember the song; it's upbeat, cheery (unlike Meldrew) and looking back with satisfaction on life.
Next day in school I ask if anyone knows what the song was1, almost everyone had watched this final episode2, but most had no idea. One classmate, S, did know, and said the band's name, of which his dad owned the album. I tried desperately to remember the band name, but that's not how my memory works. He also said he'd make me a mix tape. Now, we were friendly, but not close friends, so I wasn't expecting him to actually make me a tape.
But he did.
A couple of days later, to my great surprise, S presented me with a tape; and this was no quick job. It had a home designed and ink jet printed paper insert that listed all the songs3 and artists.
On the first side was The Traveling Wilburys Vol. 1, this was the album from which The End of The Line came. I'd never heard of them, but he explained they were a 'supergroup', consisting of already famous musicians, playing together mostly for fun. The Wilburys were: George Harrison (a Beatle, heard of him), Jeff Lynne (from ELO, a band name I'd heard), Bob Dylan (yes, him I knew, and I even owned a best of), Roy Orbison (everyone knows "Oh, Pretty Woman" and "I Drove All Night"), and finally Tom Petty (who?).
As there was still room on the tape, S also filled it with other, similar albums his dad had. Perhaps anticipating my blank response to Tom Petty, next came Tom's first solo album, Full Moon Fever, split across the two sides, and squeezed onto the last part of the tape's side 2 are the first three and a half songs from Jackson Browne's Lives in the Balance.
Vol. 1 was a strange album to me. The songs were catchy, well put together, but most were in no way serious. It was clearly done as a fun project, and everyone involved was enjoying themselves. Songs like "Tweeter and the Monkey Man" seemed like Bob Dylan making fun of his own long story songs4, and "Dirty World" where they're singing the praises of either a woman or a car - it's deliberately confused. It felt almost like a comedy album in places.
Full Moon Fever was something else. Uncharitably I would have said it was mid-tempo dad rock; not Punk, not Metal, and almost not worth bothering with. At the time I would mostly have been listening to Nirvana, The Offspring, Green Day, Foo Fighters and Metallica.
Still it had something, something that spoke directly to me. In "Free Fallin' " I could imagine floating over the sunny Hollywood Hills, all light and airy from those sparkling chords, while our protagonist's mind drifts between the good and bad parts of their character, and the world around them, letting their mind wander.
"I Won't Back Down" somehow felt as defiant as anything The Offspring would sing, but without the snark. Something teenage me found hard to understand. This was painfully straight - no irony or knowing winks - just so straight to the point you couldn't ignore it. I later learned this is what the word 'sincere' means, another concept teenage me would have struggled with, and normally that kind of thing would have resulted in mockery and ridicule.
That was the feeling of the whole album for me; it felt so honest and simple, it was almost painfully so - I couldn't look it in the eye. He sang about the same things as other bands, the classics of the human condition: love, loneliness, uncertainty, determination - but not with anger, fear or overblown bravado.
I have no idea how Tom Petty does this in his songs. On the surface they seem simple, easy to understand and digest, then you hear of the musical detail, and sometimes complex musical arrangements, with the often soaring guitar from Mike Campbell, that goes into it, but it's never overwhelming, always exactly what's needed.
The songs are simple in the same way a knife is 'simple', it's a sharp edge and a point; you can smash a basic one out of rock - but it would like comparing a crudely broken piece of flint to a finely forged katana. Yes, they're both cutting tools, but they are not the same.
Something like "Running Down a Dream" in many ways is incredibly basic, I don't think the drums do anything but snare-bass-snare-bass the entire time; but it's the rhythm of the road. The staccato guitar, and reverb (along with whaling guitar solo) all feel like they're echoing and bouncing around what I imaged were canyons of the Nevada or New Mexico desert. It all sounded huge and open, with so much sky and possibilities.
It's also a very tight album, 12 tracks coming in under 40 minutes, there's not any wasted time. Each has its own musical ideas, and they aren't unnecessarily drawn out; "Alright For Now" tells its story beautifully in two minutes, and with one exception5, all the songs are excellent.
That's what captivated me then, and still does now. It's why that tape lived for months in my Walkman. Not long afterwards I bought the then recently released Anthology: Through the Years compilation, and discovered more of his 'classic' songs like "Breakdown", "American Girl" and "Rebels" - all with the same straight, unpretentious, delivery.
It's also uniquely American music and hits all the clichés. Small town people travelling to follow their dreams, standing up for their beliefs, even if it costs them everything and an uncompromising honesty. The kind of stories that build the legend of American exceptionalism, with the focus on what's real and what really gets you where you want to go.
They're powerful ideas for a teenager, even one growing up in the much greyer English North West, where going west to discover your future would only get you wet(er) by landing you in the Irish Sea. While the gloss of American exceptionalism has very much worn off with time, the idea that the country is filled with straight talking, honest people, just trying to get through and do the right thing, is not totally gone. Even if recent events are sadly making that seem even less believable.
Over the years since I've rounded out the compilation with whole albums, some better some worse, and reality has taken its toll on the belief that Americans are a singularly exceptional people. But the songs, the stories, so tightly told, are still exceptional.
It was quite the ratings war that night between the BBC showing the final episode of this popular comedy series, and rival channel ITV showing the first Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? with a jackpot winner, a fact that was leaked ahead of time. ↩
Not quite all, there are some blanks on the Wilburys' songs, and if I remember corrects that's because his dad's album sleeve/booklet had some water damage, and so these titles weren't legible. ↩