Conversations With Tom Petty

by Paul Zollo

  Such a beautiful, visceral melody.

  It came out really good. I remember going to the rehearsal the first day I had it, and playing it with the band, and really being knocked out with it, because it was one that really suited me and Mike when we played that riff. And when the song kicked in, I thought, ‘Oh God, this is great.’ It was really good. We were doing it in the show before the record was out. Actually, we played it at a show in Chicago at the Riviera Theater with Elvis Costello & The Attractions. This would have been ‘77.

  I think he did, yeah. I think it was a buck to come in, it was a thousand-seat place, and we didn’t sell it out. It didn’t quite go clean with us and Elvis Costello. And Elvis Costello stole the ending of that song. And he admits it. [Laughs] He remembered it. He watched us do the ending, and he put it on this song he just wrote called “Radio, Radio.” If you listen, it’s the same ending. I heard him say that in an interview one time. I thought that was humorous, because I remember thinking, when I heard that song, ‘Damn, that’s exactly like our ending.’ And he admitted that he took it that night at the Riviera Theater.

  It’s a good song, “Radio, Radio.”

  Yeah. Great ending. [Laughs]

  The phrasing of “Listen To Her Heart” is so good. And Dylan once said that if you get the phrasing of a song right, the rest of it will fall into place.

  Yeah. It’s extremely important. I have my own kind of phrasing. When I hear people cover my stuff, I’m sometimes disappointed in the way they phrase. Phrasing is really important. A phrase can really convey a certain amount of emotion. If you change that phrasing, you can sometimes lose the emotion. Though Dylan can rephrase his stuff every night and still make it work, because the songs are so durable. But, yeah, I think phrasing is really important. And so is meter. That you sing in meter and time. And even the way you sustain a line, or clip a line, is gonna really have an emotional impact.

  The song “You’re Gonna Get It” is a good song; it has a really soulful vocal over the piano part.

  I played the piano on that. I wrote it on a piano and I played it on piano on the track. I remember doing that, and I remember bringing in the string quartet to play the string part. It was just a small, just a little bit of strings, that are doubled with an Arp string machine that Benmont played.

  Did he mind playing the Arp?

  No. We liked the Arp, we thought it was really cool, especially if you put it through a Leslie or a phaser of some kind, it sounded really cool. We liked the Arp: Benmont didn’t like synthesizers because there were a lot of really bloated rock groups at the time using synthesizers that were really not creating interesting music. So we wanted to go away from that. I personally have nothing against the synthesizer; I think it can be used really well if it’s used right. So many people have used them wrong that you don’t tend to go there.

  How about rhymes? Sometimes you have real rhymes, sometimes false ones. Is rhyming important to you?

  Yeah. Not as much as it used to be. I’ve gotten to where I just don’t give a damn anymore. [Laughs]

  How come?

  Because I’d rather just deal with what I want to say, as exactly as I want to say it, and I don’t want to compromise it for a rhyme. Sometimes, though, if you don’t rhyme it, it don’t feel good. So, it is the great thorn in the songwriter’s side that you’ve got to pretty much rhyme what you’re gonna sing. So that’s part of the trick, getting that rhyme to say what you want.

  I’ve talked about this with really good screenwriters. They have so much more room to get across what they want to do. I’ve got three-and-a-half minutes. If I’m gonna tell a story, I have three-and-a-half minutes to get it across. So sometimes a single word is Act II. [Laughs] I don’t have that kind of space. And then when you come in with rhymes as another rule, it really makes it difficult. I feel good when it does rhyme. But if it’s something that I’m really attached to, even if it doesn’t rhyme, I just don’t care anymore, I’m gonna put it in.

  I do get annoyed though, with near rhymes. When people do things that don’t rhyme.

  You do that sometimes.

  Oh yeah, I’m as guilty as anybody.

  Is rhyming ever fun for you?

  I wouldn’t say it’s particularly fun. It’s just something that comes with the craft of writing the song. You gotta do it.

  Do you ever set up a rhyme, and then work backwards—coming up with the second rhyme first?

  Well, sometimes. I think probably all songwriters come up with that great line they want to hold for the second part of the verse. So that sometimes happens, where you’ve got your line, and then you come up with one to come in front of it. And then often you’ll come up with one better, just trying to do it backwards like that. But I’m not conscious of these things when I’m writing. I’m just trying to get it across somehow. And there just aren’t any rules. There’s so many ways of doing it. And I’ll go to any length that I have to to get it. And, really, there’s never two that come in the same way. And there’s never two that follow the exact same rules.

  Craft is a good thing to know, as far as writing. But you don’t want it to get in the way of things. It’s something you want to learn and then forget. I hear a lot of crafty songs that aren’t really very good. They don’t really stick with you very long. You can hear a really crafty song, but unless it’s got something to say, it might not be around very long. So it’s the kind of thing you learn and then forget it. You use it to make your life easier, but you certainly don’t want to count on it. A craft element you use really well is the use of song structure—verses, bridges, and choruses. You always have great verses with very strong choruses. And you’ve written some great bridges, as well. Do you enjoy working with those structures?

  Yeah, I do. When I started working with Jeff Lynne, he really taught me a really good rule: If you have a verse that’s not as good as the chorus, you don’t have a verse.

  Musically and lyrically?

  Yeah. If this bit isn’t as engaging as that bit, there’s no point in having it. And especially with middle-eights or bridges. If you go off somewhere just for the sake of giving the song relief from the verse and the chorus, if that bit isn’t really good, if it isn’t absolutely as good as the rest of it, you don’t need it. And I’ve taught myself that. I can always write a middle-eight. But I can’t always write one that’s gonna be as good as the chorus. And if it’s not, I just throw it out.

  You’ve written so many powerful bridges.

  Been lucky with bridges, yeah. Had a few good ones.

  Quite a few. You call them “middle-eights” but they’re not always eight measures long.

  Well, that’s a term we picked up from The Beatles, but they can be any length. I didn’t really know anything about music—I still don’t really—but I know I always heard The Beatles refer to them as “middle-eights.” So I just thought that’s what you called one. And they’re still people who have different names for verses, bridges, and choruses. But we always call it “verse, bridge, chorus.” “Bridge” is something that’s a departure.

  You seem to have an innate talent for building up to the title in the chorus, which is something you’ve done powerfully so many times.

  That’s just something you hope happens. Sometimes the title is a big refrain. And sometimes it’s a punch line. Sometimes it isn’t as significant as that. I like having the title in the song. I never have understood these songs that have a different title that doesn’t appear in the song. I think you’re trying to be overly clever. I’m old-fashioned that way. I like to hear the title.

  Do you often get the title first before writing the song, or does the title emerge during the writing?

  I went through a period of doing that, of looking for titles. “Southern Accents”

  was one. And after that, a little bit. I got into that idea. You don’t always have that luxury. Especially if you’ve started something. Like right now, I’ve started something, and I have this beautiful song, and I do
n’t know that the title is. I don’t know what my big line is. And so you don’t always have the luxury. If you do have the title, that’s great. If you’ve got the title and you know where you’re going, that’s great. But it isn’t always true.

  Do you remember writing “Hurt?” It’s another collaboration with Mike, and it has the lines, “Thank God for California/thank God I’m going home.”

  Mike wrote the middle bit, the guitar bit. I wrote the verse and the chorus. I wrote it on an airplane. I had it in my head, and we were on an airplane coming back from somewhere to California. I wrote it out on airplane stationery. Then when I got home, I put the music to it, and figured it all out. And then Mike had that great guitar bit. And we met up and put it together. And we cut it. Denny Cordell was producing and he made a great kind of percussion loop of us on acoustic guitars, where we would just comp on the guitar without playing any chords. And maybe a bongo, too. And then we’d make a loop, and the band would play live to the loop. And that was done in that song “Hurt.”

  Great chorus. I love the chorus in that one. I had a Dolly Parton idea in my head. I wanted it to sound like a really good Dolly Parton song.

  One of my favorite songs on the album is “Magnolia,” which is beautiful.

  Now that was one [Laughs] written and made-to-order for Roger McGuinn, who had recorded “American Girl” and had requested another tune. And he declined to do it. So I did it. I wrote it in Tony Dimitriades’ apartment. It was one of those situations where [Tony] said, ‘You need to write a song for Roger McGuinn. I’ll be back in a few hours.’ And I just made myself write a song. I wrote it with Roger in mind. Maybe to a fault. I really did an imitation of Roger. I don’t know why he didn’t like it, but he didn’t want to do it.

  That’s amazing, because it’s such a strong song.

  It would have been good for him. But for some reason he didn’t want to do it. I did the same thing for the Everly Brothers once. I wrote this song called “Keeping Me Alive.” Which I think is just a killer song. We never really did it. It’s on the boxed set. They didn’t like it. [Laughs] Phil Everly came over to my house, and I thought I had done this great song, and I played it to him, and [Laughs] he just didn’t go for it. And I always thought it would be this great song for them. So you never know.

  One thing I’ve learned is usually when someone asks you for a song, they don’t want one that sounds like them. They can make the ones that sound like them. Usually, if they’re looking for an outside song, they’re looking for something that is away from what they normally do. I’ve learned that, over the years, that you don’t sit down and write one that sounds like Johnny Cash for Johnny Cash. They want something that’s more like you, or more away from what they’re doing. I think.

  “Magnolia” is one of your story songs. Did the title come first?

  I think it probably did. I was just trying to write a Southern romantic song. Magnolia trees are predominant in the South and they give off this great odor at night. So that’s probably what it was.

  You treat the woman of that song tenderly, and your treatment of women in songs is generally pretty tender. You’re not ruthless with them, as are many rockers.

  I like women a lot. Always have. I was always the man who loved women. Not in a lascivious way. I grew up surrounded by women more than males. My dad was never around much. And my grandmother, my mother, my aunts, my cousins—I was in that world a lot. And somehow I came out of it respecting women in kind of an equal way. There’s a lot of people in rock ‘n’ roll who don’t. I don’t know if I’ve always been that good to them, but I think I have for the most part.

  The song “Too Much Ain’t Enough” is another with a powerful drum groove that powers the whole song; it’s almost rockabilly.

  Yeah, a good track. And a great solo. Campbell just burned that solo. Just great. I wrote it after seeing Fleetwood Mac, and they played that song “Oh Well,” that has this great bluesy lick. I was trying to find a riff like that, or like what Muddy Waters would have. That’s what started the song. I think I had written the title down when I was in New York. I saw it on a building somewhere, and I wrote it in my notebook.

  So I came up with this blues lick. And then I made my own thing out of it; made it my own kind of phrasing, my own kind of chord pattern. And The Heartbreakers were really kind of thrilled with it when I brought it in. They were like, ‘All right! We’ve been wanting something like this.’

  And I have a memory of [Mike] playing the solo. And all of us going. ‘Wow! That’s great.’ We did it a lot on the road. We even did it about two tours ago. We brought it back. And it really went over big. [Laughs] It’s a fun song to do live.

  Do you always keep a notebook of song ideas?

  Yeah. I always make notes if I hear something that’s interesting, or appeals to me in one way or another. When I’m going to write an album, if one’s coming up, I might make it my business to keep my ears open and listen. I’m the kind of person who sits in a restaurant and listens to everyone talking around me. I’ll write things down. I’ll get out of bed at night and write things down. I still do that. Sometimes during that little time right before you fall asleep, your mind gets into a certain place, and you get a lot of ideas. So I keep a notebook by my bed, and I do a lot of leaning over and writing things down. And maybe they never come to anything, but sometimes they do. Sometimes I’ll look at my notebook and I’ll pick something up.

  It’s nice the way a song can take a line, or a title, and bend it with music, so it’s heard in a new way.

  Oh yeah. It can lead you into great things. Sometimes the simplest of phrases can lead you to something really cool. It’s a strange thing. And sometimes you hear a kind of poetry in what somebody says.

  I don’t go for the Nashville way. I don’t like those songs that have some clever line for the title. I hate that. You based a whole song on this catch-phrase.

  It’s like a cheap joke.

  Yeah. It feels cheap to me, like you’re trying to trick me. And they do it all the time, and it’s just dreadful. I can’t stand it.

  I read that the song “When The Time Comes” reminds you of the New Wave.

  It might have started the New Wave. [Laughs] Maybe that was the one. [Laughs] I don’t know where that came from. It’s very Byrds-like too, especially the chorus.

  “No Second Thoughts.”

  The track was based on a tape loop. That was Denny Cordell. We had a lot of percussion: We had everybody banging on congas and whatever was around. Maybe even acoustic guitar. And we looped the tape, and then we played to the loop. I always saw that as a kind of UFO song. [Laughs] That’s how it appeared to me. It was almost a UFO experience. I didn’t have one, but that’s how I saw that song.

  Another use of the phrase “rock ‘n’ roll” is “Baby’s A Rock ‘n’ Roller.”

  Yeah, that’s us following up on “Anything That’s Rock ‘n’ Roll.” [Laughs] Bugs and I were talking about that song the other day. I heard it somewhere. I always had in my head that I didn’t like that song, that it was just this cheap throwaway. But it sounded so good when I heard it. [Laughs] Again, it’s not a song I would sing now, but pretty indicative of how we were back then.

  damn the torpedoes. 1979

  The song “Refugee,” from your third album, Damn The Torpedoes, was made in 1979. It’s one of your many classic songs. Did that start with the title, or did the title come while you were writing it?

  It came while I was writing it. It was a very easy song to write. Mike had the chord progression.

  Which has a nice sound, that repeating F#m-A-E pattern.

  Yeah. He sent me over a cassette of him playing that progression. The memory I have of it is walking around the room with his cassette playing. And I started to sing to it, and really right away I got the tune, and most of the words. And it was really quick. ‘Cause there are only two verses in it. The third repeats the second, almost. [Laughs] It didn’t take long at all to write it. But it was a
difficult song to record. But well worth it. It’s really one of our best records, certainly one of the best singles we ever made.

  That’s an example of a song where the chord progression doesn’t change, but the chorus builds up to a great climax.

  Yeah. There’s a middle-eight. I’m just proud to have been there on that one. I hear that on the radio still. And Jimmy Iovine did a really great job of making a great record out of that song. It’s really just a beautiful sound. Jimmy really, really believed in the song. He wouldn’t accept less than greatness, [Laughs] which is the way he is. And he got it.

  Mike’s playing on it is tremendous.

  Yeah. And Benmont. It’s an organ solo. All of them really shine on it. That’s the epitome of The Heartbreakers, of that original five.

  It has such a nice opening, with the drums first, then the keys, then the rhythm guitar, then the lead guitar, and then the vocal. You introduce each element separately.

  That arrangement wasn’t remotely like what Mike did originally. We took the chord patterns and The Heartbreakers came up with that by playing it over and over. We really played that a lot. And a change here and a change there. Until it got the way it was. And it did work like that, in layers.

  But it’s the kind of song I can’t picture anyone else ever singing. I’ve never heard anyone else ever do it. It’s so uniquely us. I don’t think I’ve ever heard anything like that.

  The words are so powerful. The line, “You don’t have to live like a refuge” is incredibly strong.

  Sometimes you can’t see these things coming. They just appear. That was a case in which I didn’t see that coming. It just appeared, and there it was. So I didn’t question it. I just went with it.