"Sometimes I feel really gracious. Everything
is really good, the world is so wonderful. It doesn't last very long. I'm
always pissed off at something again. It's the best position for observing. You
see all these groups get to the top, get too content and then blow it with bad
music….Our intention is to stay pissed off." —Singer-songwriter Tom Petty,
quoted in Cameron Crowe, “Cameron CroweTalks to Tom Petty for First Rolling Stone Feature,” Rolling Stone, Oct. 19, 1978
Remembering, amid an already terrible week, Tom Petty (1950-2017). What I admired
about the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Famer was the urgency of his music—reflecting the emotions at the surface
so evident in quotes such as the above.
If pressed, I’d probably tell you that my Petty song
was “American Girl,” with its jangly evocation of the Byrds. But even many of
his less-popular songs ring with the raw honesty of someone all too aware that
exhilaration doesn’t last long and that something more was needed to get you
through the tough times. Here’s how he explained it in a song written with The
Heartbreakers’ Mike Campbell in “You Wreck Me,” from Petty’s 1994 solo
effort Wildflowers:
"Rescue
me, should I go wrong.
If I dig too deep, if I stay
too long.”
