It’s Good To Be King

Mount Rushmore took a big hit last Monday.

Tom Petty’s passing left a gaping hole in the Beagle Man’s personal musical stratosphere.  TP’s nine-and-a-half songs in My Favorite 300 Songs Ever rank second — behind only The Boss, and ahead of the Rolling Stones!  (The “half” represents “Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around,” Petty’s 1981 duet with Stevie Nicks, which comes in at #20.)

But it’s not just about numbers, or individual hits.  To me, Tom Petty was unique among my rock heroes because his music always stayed fresh.  Bruce got too serious, too introspective, too self-important.  Neil Young got nuts.  Mick got old.  But TP always felt current.  He was never depressing.  The Heartbreakers never came off like a “reunion” tour.  Like “oldies.”

My sons and their buddies might roll their eyes at some of my other faves:  punk-rock poet Patti Smith . . . pop queen Taylor Swift . . . and my current posse of country bro’s.  But never for Tom Petty.  When I’d play Petty, everyone was good with it.  I think that’s because over all the years, he kept right on creating.  He was continually coming out with new, great stuff.  He kept being Tom Petty.

Maybe he never got old because he never had a shtick.  He didn’t adopt a preening rooster-strut, like Jagger.  He didn’t confront us with that bent-knee, bring-it-on, guitar-hero stance, grimace on his face, like Springsteen.  He just stood his ground and slashed at his badass Gibson, churning out hit after hit in that distinctive nasal twang.  Mudcrutch?  Wilburys?  Heartbreakers?  He was always TP.

I remember talking music a few summers ago with a friend of my middle son Greg.  I mentioned Tom Petty as one of the all-time greats, one of my absolute favorites, and I could see it was all he could do not to turn up his nose.  When I asked him about it, he said Petty’s music, and his guitar playing, is so simple, so repetitive.  And I’m thinking, since when does rock and roll have to be complicated?  Chuck Berry’s music was pretty simple, too.

That record you see on the left?  Damn the Torpedoes?  That’s one of the greatest records ever.  Nine tracks, nine fantastic songs.  Four out of those nine (“What Are You Doin’ In My Life?”; “Refugee”; “Here Comes My Girl,” and “Even the Losers”) are in my Top 300 — and that’s just from one album!

One of the coolest things, for me, about Tom Petty, is that he curated and DJ’ed Tom Petty Radio, his channel on SiriusXM, himself.  I once heard him talking about it on a live interview.  He said running that station was one of his favorite things in the world to do.

Last Thursday night, driving up to Vermont, I was playing all the Petty tunes I have on my iPod.  Carol, who often complains about my music — choice, genre, volume — said only, “Did Tom Petty ever make a bad song?”  Later in the weekend, I got deeper into that same playlist — lesser-known albums like Hypnotic Eye, The Last DJ, and Mojo.  Greg’s friend Donny was blown away.  He said most of the cuts were new to him — “but every one of them is great.”

Earlier this year, oldest son Matt was wracking his brain for a Mother’s Day gift, and asked me if I thought Carol would like two tickets to one of the Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers concerts at Forest Hills in July — part of their 40th anniversary tour.  I told him I didn’t think the dates would work for us, so he backed off.  As it turns out, I know a lot of people who went.  They all thought Petty put on a great show.  Those concerts were also, of course, among his last.

I kind of wish I’d given Matt a different answer.

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