One of the first cassette tapes I bought was "Full Moon Fever" which I saved up my allowance to buy when I was 7. When I got a cd player for my 12th birthday, his Greatest Hits album was one of the 7 for a penny cd's I got from BMG. "Mary Jane's Last Dance" instantly became one of my favorite songs and over 20 years later still is. I remember sitting in the back of the school bus and everyone singing along anytime the song came on the local rock station. There has never been a point in my life where I haven't listened to Tom Petty, which may make him the only artist I can say that about.
I remember taking 12 hour road trips with a college friend who didn't like country music. Tom Petty was probably in the cd player at least 25% of the time. On one of those vacations, two friends stayed up all night drinking the night before we were supposed to leave and ended up waking up the whole house while belting "Free Fallin'" at the top of their lungs at 4 AM. It was a rough drive home the next morning.
After Prince died last year, my wife and I lamented why we had never gone to see him. We decided to go see as many of our favorites as we could before they passed because you never know when that will be. I had the good fortune to see him live twice, once in 2010 and again in 2013, the second time with my wife and parents. My mom texted me last night to see if I had heard the news and said she was glad we all got to see him. It doesn't matter what generation people are from or how their musical taste leaned. Tom Petty was universal and classic. At every stage of my life, I've probably got some story that tangentially involves Tom Petty.
Tom Petty did what he wanted to do. That's especially refreshing in this time of age when labels tend to decide what artists are instead of the artists themselves. He spoke out somewhat recently about how awful Nashville is now comparing it to bland 80's pop music. He continued to release great records rather with the Heartbreakers or Mudcrutch right up until the end never having anything bad. He decided to form a supergroup with his heroes and made 2 fine albums. I still remember watching the video to "End Of the Line" on the countdown every week. Tom Petty was like your friend's cool dad. Everybody loved him.
Neil Young famously wrote "It's better to burn out than to fade away". This doesn't apply to Tom Petty. He never did either one. So many classic rock bands from the 70's burst onto the scene then fizzled or at least had fallow periods in their catalog. Tom Petty never did and somehow got even stronger in the 90's. Wildflowers may be his best album. It's certainly one of my favorites. If I'm ever in a bad mood for whatever reason, listening to Wildflowers tends to make it better. I consumed all of his 70's music in one setting, but starting with "Full Moon Fever" on, I consumed them in real time so those are the most special to me personally.
I still can't fathom his catalog is now set in time. There will be no more. Everyone knows his most popular songs even if they think they don't. Since he loved buried treasures so much, I'd like to leave this with some of his.
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