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The Tom Petty Project
Damaged by Love
Season 14, Ep. 10
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“There's rain on the road And the faithful have gone. In a crowd all alone, Walking 'round in a song”. It’s a great little snapshot or vignette, as Tom so often gives us, of perhaps a wedding or some other celebration at a small roadside church. That feeling of being alone in a crowd is beautifully phrased by changing the order of the words; rather than All alone in a crowd, “in a crowd all alone” feels more poetic and more deliberately focusing on the alone part rather than the crowd part. And, we have to tip our hat to Dana Petty of course here! Tom tells Paul Zollo “Dana actually helped me with two lines in that song. I was kind of stuck. It’s not something I would ordinarily do, but I said, “Hey, what would you put here? What would you say?” he then says “In a crowd all alone/Walking round in a song. That was hers”.
Song : https://youtu.be/DZa8wc2uoow
ADDITIONAL LINKS
Judge Timbers' tutorial: https://youtu.be/2ld4U8pvr3A
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Follow: https://linktr.ee/tompettyproject
Listen: https://pod.link/1580769475
All music, including the theme song, provided by my very best friend Randy Woods. Check him out at https://www.randywoodsband.com
A special thanks to Paul Zollo. Without his book, "Conversations with Tom Petty", this podcast wouldn't be nearly as much fun to research.
The Tom Petty Project is not affiliated with the Tom Petty estate in any way.
Producer: Kevin Brown
Executive Producers: Paul Roberts, Steve Ursell
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18. Phoebe Bridgers - It'll All Work Out
17:57||Season 14, Ep. 18Leading into the last verse, there’s some back masked, slightly distorted guitar, again over that suspended fourth chord before the arrangement drops back to let Bridgers’ voice really punch home the line “Now the wind is high and the rain is heavy and the water’s rising in the levee”. I talk lots on the show about “moments” in songs and THIS is the moment in this song for me. The slight tremolo added to the vocal on the words water’s rising and how she pushes her vocal forward more and gives it more oxygen, really punctuate this sense of being completely overwhelmed by emotion that is being metaphorically expressed.The series, talking about other people’s interpretations of Tom’s songs will be limited to a specific criteria. I want to listen to and comment on covers that take the songs into different areas. So I’m not going to touch on very straight, very faithful covers like Chris Stapleton’s I Should Have Known It. These episodes will be limited to artists who change, adapt, or inhabit Tom’s music and make it their own in some way. I’ll also be putting a call out to all you listeners to recommend covers that fit the criteria!Song : https://youtu.be/CDOaIcgUVEc Live from Toronto in 2018 : https://youtu.be/UuVJFVszo-4 Original : https://youtu.be/mVEXkLht6hQ
17. Guitars & Mike Campbell with Josh Caldwell
01:49:55||Season 14, Ep. 17Today's episode is a wide ranging conversation that I had with my friend Josh Caldwell. Josh and I met through a mutual love of Van Halen and the superb And the Podcast Will Rock, cohosted by my good pals Corey Morrissette and Mark Camire. We get into the weeds about guitars and guitarists and talk about what makes Mike special and why he was an indispensible part of the Heartbreakers formula! If you want to find Josh's excellent podcast, The Engine Room, you can check it out here: https://pod.link/1859462144And if you want to check out And the Podcast Will Rock, you'll find that one here: https://pod.link/1595995181
16. Highway Companion (with John Paulsen)
01:14:31||Season 14, Ep. 16My pal John Paulsen is back to run through Highway Companion with me. We get into the weeds about whether I'm overscoring the catalogue and as always, we take a shot a resequencing the albums in a different way according to our tastes. We also float a few ideas for special episodes that we can do once the main catalogue is complete and there were some fun ideas that came up! If you want to find John, you can catch him over on Bluesky at: https://bsky.app/profile/4for4-john.bsky.social
15. The Golden Rose
17:49||Season 14, Ep. 15We often talk about album openers and closers and I’m sure my pal John Paulsen and I will get into that next week, but of all the songs that were included on this record, the opener and the closer just scream at you on Highway Companion. Both Saving Grace and The Golden Rose have momentum and hit that theme of travelling perfectly, but they do it in very different ways. Saving Grace soars above the scenery and exhilarates as it takes you on its journey. The Golden Rose on the other hand floats, almost without the aid of any manual propulsion.Song : https://youtu.be/762qbtPsKlkADDITIONAL LINKSJudge Timbers' tutorial: https://youtu.be/Mf7AJJH55Gs
14. Freddie Mercury
31:28||Season 14, Ep. 14I’m thinking of this as part of a new occasional series that I can return to called “Origins” and will be about the songwriters and/or musicians that have shaped my musical tastes. Future episodes will definitely include people like Ray Davies of The Kinks, Edward Van Halen, Justin Currie of Del Amitri, Peter Gabriel, Annie Lennox, Mark Knopfler, Steve Earle, and Paul McCartney, as names that spring immediately to mind. To be honest, I can easily see Brian May also getting his own episode at some point! I don’t have any sort of plan for how frequently these episodes will drop, I’ll just sit down to write them when opportunity and desire overlap at the right time.To kick off the "Origins" series, I need to talk about the guy who stands at the top of the musical mountain for me; Freddie Mercury. Songs : https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL9JRklgBG7NzIJ5_KbvGMNbc0Yh859gL4
13. Ankle Deep
23:06||Season 14, Ep. 13Let’s talk about the lyrics to this one first. Tom goes on to say “You don’t have a lot of room to write a story in a song. So you have to be economical with your lines.” and we’ve remarked on that on so many occasions with Tom’s story songs - he usually gives us brief flashes of narrative before either zooming out, changing the POV or switching to a characters thoughts rather than their actions. This one is a pretty tight, compact three act play though and Tom’s economy works really well.Song : https://youtu.be/OGWiNlHXiYQADDITIONAL LINKSJudge Timbers' tutorial: https://youtu.be/PwACALHy878
12. This Old Town
23:41||Season 14, Ep. 12We’ve talked a few times this season about the fact that the album wasn’t finished when Tom played the songs for Paul Zollo. In the book, he tells Paul, “I still haven’t figured out where to put it in the sequence. Right now I have it at the end, but I don’t think it’s the perfect ending.” Earlier, he says “That was written in the middle of all the other things” and I wonder if he hadn’t written The Golden Rose at this point, because that’s the obvious album closer. Had he not written that song, I do actually think This Old Town would be a good way to go out.Song : https://youtu.be/psD0J-C11u8ADDITIONAL LINKSJudge Timbers' tutorial: https://youtu.be/hgWAwudaj-A
11. Specifics Create Dynamics
20:53||Season 14, Ep. 11Specifics create dynamics. I love this idea.I watched Ethan Hawke talking about this in regards to acting and pretty much immediately thought, “The same applies to lyrics!” and figured that, as I have a podcast, I should figure out some thoughts on the topic! So what I want to do is go through a few examples again of times that this type of specificity crops up in Tom’s lyrics where perhaps it isn’t even needed, but improves the song so much.