McCartney In Goal
McCartney In Goal is a monthly podcast that debates and dissects the greatest albums of popular rock music. Hosted by David Hughes, and fellow judges, Brett and Steve Sumner, each episode the McCartney In Goal team pick a rock or pop music album that they love and put the songs through an imaginary competitive style-knock out format to find the best song on the album. At times, they may be uninformed, biased and they are often a bit unruly. Come and listen in on the fun - and if you enjoy it, TELL A FRIEND!!! Twitter - https://twitter.com/mccartneyin Website - https://mccartneyingoal.com
McCartney In Goal
Full Moon Fever (Tom Petty)
Twitter - https://twitter.com/mccartneyin
Website - https://mccartneyingoal.com/
Hello, welcome to McCartney and Gold. This is the podcast where we discuss a beautiful album of wonderful music. Put it through its paces in a sporting knockout format to see what is potentially the best slash. Our favourite song on the album With me are my jolly good friends, guy.
Speaker 2:That's Blur. That's four episodes back.
Speaker 3:What was that in reference to? That's Running Down a Dream. It's the outro.
Speaker 2:Well done, it did sound like Song 2. Sorry, so yeah, you're absolutely right, that's a deep cut. Steve, that's a deep cut.
Speaker 1:It's not a deep cut. Why did he deliver it like it was Song 2 by Blur?
Speaker 2:He loves that song. It's his favourite Blur song.
Speaker 1:It's my second favourite song Moving on. Second favourite song Moving on, moving on moving on.
Speaker 2:Don't care how much you push me, I won't. I will not, I will not back down. Those were the original lyrics.
Speaker 1:He had to shorten it to make it poppier. What are you referencing there, guys?
Speaker 3:I'm just referencing a certain amount of punish that might be coming up and that being now struck off, just do it anyway.
Speaker 2:Do it anyway, it's fine, it's fine, it's fine, it's fine, like it.
Speaker 1:Right, Brett, could you take us through the Runners and Riders of the Seamlings album, which it is?
Speaker 2:Thanks for handing over to me, steve. It is Full Moon Fever. Full Moon Fever was Tom Petty's debut solo album. It was produced by Jeff Lynne with Tom Petty and Mike Campbell. It features Tom Petty on guitar and vocals, mike Campbell on lead guitar and Jeff Lynn on bass and backing vocals, phil Jones on drums, alongside a host of guest musicians. It runs to 40 minutes, has 12 tracks and 5 singles on it. It's sold 6 million units. Them's your runners and riders.
Speaker 1:Seamless, seamless. Thank you, thank you, it was seamless.
Speaker 3:thank you, it was seamless good so sorry right before we, before we crack on guys uh, now, obviously we are running down a dream today of ranking all the tracks on this classic album, right, but if you're feeling like you've got a full moon fever, then, fear not, it's all right for now.
Speaker 3:If you're so bad, you soon feel a lot better as we free fall through a zombie zoo of tracks. So sit tight, strap in love, just like. This podcast is a long road and even though you're just a face in the crowd, we're really depending on you to stick with us right till the very end, just like brett. It really is non-negotiable. I simply and I cannot back down on that apart beautiful no, no, you encouraged him by laughing.
Speaker 1:It got better well, it was funny, I think started badly, dipped in the middle and was passable by the end I mean, have you seen the source material I've got to work with? Try making a witty little the difference between you and now and our previous uh host, mr David Hughes.
Speaker 2:No, no, you are the host, but you just refused to do the puns. The guy stepped in.
Speaker 1:Well, all right. The difference between those two pun masters is that Dave would work with like three if he could and then just ignore the ones he couldn't do. What I sort of respect slash detest about what you're doing is your insistence on doing every single song.
Speaker 3:I love it. And before you finish the apartment song I've finished. Try fitting that one in.
Speaker 2:You've done a great job, guy. With the puns I knew you'd handle with care. You won me over, thank you. Tangential puns, that's what we like to care.
Speaker 1:You won me over, thank you. Tangential puns, that's what we like oh yeah, that's a deep.
Speaker 2:That's another deep cut pun deep cut pun love it.
Speaker 1:That's one for the big fans well, I'm sure there'll be some Wilbury chat as we go along. Right, let's get straight into this then. So the first qualifier, gents, is your against. All Right for now.
Speaker 4:My sister got lucky, married a yuppie, took him for all he was worth. Now she's a swinger Dating a singer. I can't decide which is worse, but not me, baby. I've got you to save me. Oh, you're so bad. Best thing I ever had, little world. Good night, baby. Sleep tight, my love. May God watch over you from above Tomorrow. I'm working. What would I do? I'd be lost and lonely if not for you.
Speaker 2:Nice opener. I'm going to take you back, steve, to Birmingham 1987, not Birmingham Alabama. No, nothing. Sexy and cool like deep South America, birmingham, brummie, birmingham, uk. Bob Dylan's playing. He's back in band at Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers seeing. Cool like South. Deep South America, birmingham, brummie, birmingham, uk. Bob Dylan's playing. He's back in band at Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers.
Speaker 2:Yes, backstage in walk, jeff Lynn and George Harrison have a good old laugh. They have a very nice time. And then the tour goes down to London and they continue down there and Jeff Lynn and George Harrison turn and george harrison turn up again and like they kind of make this tiny burgeoning friendship. And at that meeting I think it's tom petty's birthday in october as well, and he had a birthday and a birthday cake and jeff lynn gave him a copy of cloud nine, the album he's producing for george harrison and jeff um. And you know just I give it a listen and tom petty loves it. He listens to it all month, um, and he's listened to it. He's got some friends over on thanksgiving day. About a month later he's playing it to them and all of a sudden, guess what he? He needs to go out and buy chocolate no, a baseball mitt.
Speaker 2:So for some reason, on thanksgiving, tom fett decides he wants to play baseball. So he goes out, drives down to where you're buying that in birmingham no, he couldn't have bought it, but he's back. He's Birmingham, he's back in America by now.
Speaker 4:He's a bump floater.
Speaker 1:He didn't love Birmingham so much that he stayed there a month after the tour finished, strangely.
Speaker 2:So he's driving to the shop Baseball mitt shop, Baseball mitt shop. And who does he run into? Jeff Lynn? Of course he does. And who does he run into Jeff Lynn? Of course he does. And he says oh man, Jeff, I'm really loving this album. Do you want to come over and work on a song I'm thinking about writing? So Jeff says, of course, and that's where we start here. The first song they work on is You're so Bad.
Speaker 1:It's not just that they bump into each other. I think they pull up cars next to each other in just some random bit of LA. I think they pull up cars next to each other in just some random bit of LA. Yeah, and I think he's shouting.
Speaker 2:Tom, tom. I can't remember who he's shouting at. No, it's Tom Petty. He can't believe it because he's like this is mad. I've been dancing this album all month. I've listened to it today. I've just popped out on Thanksgiving to get a baseball mitt Super random and I've bumped into Jeff Lynne.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's a song, let's make some tracks.
Speaker 2:Well, I think he's tentative here. I think it's tentative. I think it's tentative. It's just he's like oh man, do you want to come over and work on a track? And the first one they work on is You're so Bad, which is great, and I love it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I mean there's a lot of stories around this album. We'll get into them as we go. It is as so many albums we have done recently. We've had a bit of a run of doing albums where the producer really really shapes it. And I do understand that if you're not as muso as us, producer chat can be incredibly boring. But when you've got basically someone who is not part of the band or isn't the artist themselves, who is captaining the ship on all fronts, they really can shape how it sounds and deep fucking balls. Does this sound like a jeff lynn album? Yeah, it couldn't sound any more jeff lynn if it tried. You know, if you listen to that george harrison album and the traveling will be, and this album, which are all recorded by jeff lynn around this time you, you could. You could swap out all the tracks and feel like you were listening to the same piece of work.
Speaker 2:I mean, jeff Lynne is in an absolute role, isn't he at this point?
Speaker 4:in time.
Speaker 2:Guy, I mean just a shame you've got nothing really to say about producing. Obviously it's not something you well.
Speaker 3:I don't ok, so I came to this album. I don't know much. Tom Petty is the truth. I know the hits and when as much to Steve's annoyance when I had to keep asking him to remind me what the album was we were doing. That shows you how much of a Tom Petty aficionado?
Speaker 2:I am, yes, but obviously the joke is you are a producer, so this is a perfect album for you. I'm getting to it. I'm really interested to see what you've thought about it.
Speaker 3:The one thing about Jeff Jeff Lynn is everything he touches sounds like the same record. Right, that's what you're alluding to. They're sort of the stodgy, stompy acoustic guitars. Everything sounds like it's from 1960s in some respect. There's a lot of Beatles. There's a lot of throwback.
Speaker 3:Beatles yeah, uh, I. It's weird. I started doing my notes on this album, going through it, and I kept writing down oh, it sounds a bit like, it sounds a bit like Jeff Lynn or it sounds a bit like Bob Dinner, it sounds a bit like that. And then obviously I looked at the year it came out. I can't remember when the traveling wilburys came out, whether it was early 90s or it was around this time but it's not long after this.
Speaker 1:This is all them coalescing together, together, and that will get.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it gets the chronology of it.
Speaker 3:It's interesting I love, I I genuinely like. I think this is. This is the perfect amount of Jeff Lynn-ness that I can tolerate. I don't think it has as much as he adds to Travelling, wilburys and other things I've heard of his obviously the ELO stuff. It feels a little bit more deft, a little bit more light in places, but it is no doubt there and it is on some of Tom Petty's what must be his biggest songs, right.
Speaker 1:He doesn't do rough edges. Our jeff um, no at all. I mean he. He could take, you know, the most jagged thing that you've got. This is this metaphor is going nowhere, folks. He could take a very jagged thing and make it very smooth. Let's move on that.
Speaker 2:That was that is beautiful. That is well, I can again. I can tell you're an english, I can tell guys producer and tell you, I am, but I like that guy.
Speaker 1:I like that a producer. I can tell you're an English teacher. I am the metaphor guy.
Speaker 3:I like that, I like. That's what I want the studio to be.
Speaker 2:Obviously, you can capture an energy and a sound and a performance but at the same time, you can also use it to get the perfect thing, and you can do it again and again, and you can round edges if you want to and you can make it of of you and what you do, because he really, jeff lin, really loves polishing stuff, he really loves doing the whole overdub way of making an album. Um, which was new to them. It was new to them.
Speaker 1:They hadn't done that before. Well, you say they, I mean they, they mostly aren't there no, okay, sorry, yeah, I'm assuming knowledge.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the heart, tom petty and the heartbreakers had done most of their albums with live takes. They were a rock and roll band and they went in, they tracked it live in the studio. But, um, obviously Tom Petty gets an itch, doesn't he? And he wants to do something different. And Jeff Lynn's kind of the perfect guy to do it with, because he's, yeah, he, he, he loves really making sure everything's perfect and and working on the nuances of the song and the delivery, which is which is what guy does. You know, guy has got an amazing ear for doing a vocal take and just go, yeah, just do that, just. And and petty talks about jeff lynn doing that as well just saying, oh no, you didn't do it on that take before you, you went down there, you need to keep it going up, or whatever. Just these tiny things that you don't even notice when you're singing but you have to be in that you.
Speaker 1:You know I I love this album spoiler, but but it's as much you know, if I were to listen to this album, I would have to not listen to to a jefflyn album for about a week afterwards to sort of get the the saccharine sweet production out of my system, you know, I'd have to go and listen to blind faith or something deeply underproduced, I mean right, but was was petty stuff?
Speaker 3:was it really that much rurer? I mean, I don't, I mean, I'm not.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, this is, this is like and the heartbreakers fucking hated it. They hated this and we'll get into that, um, but yes, I mean his stuff was. This was like, so polished and exactly as brett said. You know, he's got a rock and roll band. It's very much the same setup as Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band which is that you've got this band around, but there's clearly a band leader.
Speaker 1:But they were a rock and roll band who played rock and roll. I mean, there's one track on their most famous album, damn the Torpedoes at least their most famous first album, I think it was Refugee, and they did like 50 takes of it to get the perfect take, because it would. It didn't occur to anyone that they could overdub anything and so they just kept recording it as a band live in the studio until they got the perfect take, um, and and so here it's, like you know, suddenly jeff lynn's in and he's like, oh, I think, do you know, I don't, I'll just make this on my own, and it sort of becomes this solo project and we'll get again. We'll get into that.
Speaker 2:But let's, let's get back to this. Let's vote. Yeah, there is a lot to talk about and we, we, we've got a lot to get through, okay. So I mean, for me it's so easy, um, you're so bad is like one of my favorite Tom Petty songs, or Tom Petty and the Hot Rigs. It's great, I love it.
Speaker 4:I think it's the first song I ever yeah, I fucking love it.
Speaker 2:You, you really.
Speaker 1:Yes, I love it I love it, I mean it's obviously gotta go through here what's it all right for now. It's one of the most beautiful sparkling oh not un jeff lind on this album okay.
Speaker 3:Well, if it's again, if it's up against, all right for now, it's definitely you're so bad.
Speaker 1:That's my boy yes, what are you talking about?
Speaker 3:that is the better song that is the gcse lyric song that I've written down in my notes it's what is all right for now.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I've got a lullaby, a nice lullaby but it's a little gcse wordplay.
Speaker 3:That's what I'm okay.
Speaker 1:So my counter to that would be that you're you're so bad. Is is the most dated thing on the album because it references yuppies. It makes the whole album's dated.
Speaker 3:It's all like the whole album.
Speaker 2:Yeah, don't, don't pull at that thread, steve no no, I'm talking lyrically dated.
Speaker 1:It's the only lyric on the album that dates it is it's an amazing to hear the word yuppie.
Speaker 2:I mean it's the most yeah dated reference you could what does yuppie it's for young any young people listening, I'm sure there's lots um. What does yuppie stand for? Steve?
Speaker 1:young and upwardly mobile.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I've always thought it's young and upwardly mobile, so shouldn't it be yumpy?
Speaker 1:yumpy. Yes, it should, I don't know really I mean the 80s missed the trick there with their filofaxes maybe it's young upward person and I've misremembered it, but anyway, I'm clearly voting for all right for now. I think it's absolutely beautiful, um, and I also think that that, as I said before, it's the the least, and I don't I do like jeff lynn's production. It just gets very, very, very well, he didn't produce this.
Speaker 2:He didn't produce his one song, he didn't really.
Speaker 1:He wasn't there for oh, there you go. That's probably why I like it so much.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there we go yeah, I thought you knew that's amazing was the first thing that was produced for the album or the first song they worked on, and then All Right For Now was one of the last things they added. Right, I didn't completely explain as well.
Speaker 1:on that, then, I think you're both absolutely mad going for your so bad, although I do like it. I just like All Right, for Now more.
Speaker 2:What it does foreshadow is Wildflowers a bit, doesn't you think?
Speaker 1:It does, it does, and what is Wildflowers, steve for?
Speaker 1:context, wildflowers is his second solo album. So basically the chronology here is Full Moon Fever happens, pisses off the Heartbreakers really badly. Then Jeff Lynne comes and produces the next Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers album, which is a little bit awkward. And then a certain producer that we've talked about a lot, called Mr Rick Rubin, comes in and records Wildflowers, which is a stunning piece of work but sounds exactly like a Rick Rubin album, which is to say it doesn't have synthesizers, it doesn't have all the polish that this have. It's not a great big saccharine fest, it's. You know. Yeah, tom, sit down, have an acoustic guitar, we'll record you live. You know, if there's cracks and pops in the air, we'll keep them, and it's the complete opposite approach. And and basically the three albums that always win every single tom petty and the heartbreakers or tom petty list are damn the torpedoes, which is the heartbreakers, one full moon fever and wildflowers, which must have again pissed the heartbreakers off. Something chronic, yeah, um, and and because it's their debut.
Speaker 2:And then, yes, no, it's not their debut, it's about three or four albums in it but it's very much that's considered this early one of the early big classic yeah
Speaker 1:um but I mean the two that come out top and all polls are wildflowers, which is kind of the connoisseur's choice, and and full moon fever, which is the sort of fan's choice, and uh, yeah anyway. But ironically the thing that rick rubin got that got rick rubin into um, tom petty was listening to full moon full moon, so yeah, full circle, full circle, right.
Speaker 1:The next qualifier is facing the crowd versus the one and only cover on the album, which is feel a whole lot better, which was a birds tune before all of this ever went down.
Speaker 4:In another place, another town. You were a judge, a face in the crowd. You were just Facing the crowd Out in the street Walking around, the reason why, oh, I can say I have to let you go, baby, and run away. After what you did, I can stay on and I'll probably feel a whole lot better when you're gone.
Speaker 2:Well, it's got to be Facing the Crowd, because I mean, the cover of the Bird's Tune is like literally almost like the original. It's not much.
Speaker 1:It's almost identical.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so why did he have to do a cover? Or did he choose to?
Speaker 1:well, I'm gonna.
Speaker 1:I mean it sounds like you might know something, I don't, but I mean he was a huge birds fan, um huge huge, huge roger mcguinn fan, huge 12th string rickenbacker fan I mean, that's one of the things that needs to be said is, however polished and 80s sounding this album is, it's also a sort of love letter to rock classicism. Uh, not least because it has this 12 string birds style rickenbacker all over it, and as much as I um always vote against covers, I'm going to play against type and go early here and vote for feel a whole lot better. What? Because I think in some ways.
Speaker 2:It's the whole, the whole brand you've built for yourself yes, it's ruined it over 50 episodes, yeah, of the last couple of episodes. You're absolutely deconstructing it. I mean it's amazing, it's this is. This is your this is your bowie tin machine this is my new direction all of these tropes you've built around yourself the wonderwall syndrome. Yeah yeah I mean you're doing all of it this is my new.
Speaker 1:This is my new direction. Don't question me. I'm having a midlife crisis. Just you're gonna start going.
Speaker 2:I don't care about the lyrics, it's just all about the tune. You can sing the most banal shit ever, and it can contradict something, I don't care. No, I don't.
Speaker 1:I just want a nice tune I can sing along with. No, I think phil holowetta is in some ways sort of the heart and soul of the album, because it it signposts who he is, because he's such a fan of that music. The close harmony, singing the rickenbackers yeah, the, the, the songs, the, the 60s, all of it. And when I say the songs that sounds very general, but you know those sorts of beautiful three minutes, the music.
Speaker 2:You said the music, couldn't you?
Speaker 1:yeah, no, I meant those beautiful three minutes sort of 60s constructive pop songs, don't try and throw me off, you fucker um I'm gonna go feel a whole lot better, which is, again very rare for me, but I think. I think it's the. It's the perfect cover, even though it's almost identical to the original. I know that's against type, but I'm going with it anyway wow right, what are you going for?
Speaker 2:I am going to go for A Face in the Crowd because, for some bizarre reason, steve and I have done some kind of really crappy body swap film where I've suddenly taken on his opinion. I mean, what's the point in this cover? What is the point in it? I get all of those reference points. I totally get what you're saying, but it's just like the original. It's really nice to listen to. But when I listen to the original it's like, oh, I might as well just listened to the birds then yeah, it's true, I mean roger.
Speaker 2:Roger mcguinn of the birds. When he first heard american girl uh yeah, by tom hank he said, oh, when did I record that then? Yeah the influences are so clear and it's really interesting listen to the early heartbreaker stuff you can hear. There's two, there's three big influences there's mcgu, there's Dylan and there's the Rolling Stones as well. A bit 100%. And you can really hear it clearly, and by this point you can't hear it as clearly, so it's interesting.
Speaker 1:No, and I think a lot more that that's. One of the strangest things about Tom Pate and the Heartbreakers is that when they came out they got roped in with the New Wave movement, which was completely was completely.
Speaker 1:You know, they got roped in with talking heads and the cbgb crowd yeah, which is, which is odd because looking back on it you can't see that through line at all, because they sound like a sort of classic rock band and even when you go back and listen to the early stuff they sound like a classic rock band. But they had, they had that raw sort of post-punk energy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, they did, uh, and that.
Speaker 1:That's what sort of aligned them in people's minds to that particular movement.
Speaker 1:But when you get to Full Moon Fever, all of that gets chucked out of the window, and then what happens is retrospectively. A lot of people, me included, bought Full Moon Fever in 89 as their first Tom Petty record, and then, when they get back into older Tom Petty, all they hear is the rock classicism and they miss the punky spirit because they weren't there at the time, which is exactly exactly what I did. But this, yeah, this, this, this changed the direction, however, suddenly, guy, what are you voting for?
Speaker 2:you've got the decider yeah, well for me.
Speaker 3:Uh, I actually on every single song on this record. I'll try and do this concisely, but the fact of the matter is I've got a reference before I. I didn't know anything about this album when I came to it. I listened to for the first what I've really enjoyed about this episode is I've? Never heard this album before oh, never heard any what you've heard, obviously I've heard the hits, obviously, but I don't really have a a timeline of when each of his hits came out. I don't know where they fit.
Speaker 3:I don't know the production behind it and all that sort of stuff, um, and every single song I wrote down. I've got a song. Well, it sounds a bit like this, uh, and that was really. It was really fascinating and under the feel a lot whole better. I thought, bloody hell, there must be a lawsuit in this, because it sounds really close to like I don't know, like a bird's thing or like if I needed someone with beetles, it's like and then look up the note.
Speaker 1:What happens to your research?
Speaker 3:it's a bloody bird song, yeah well, I did that, I looked it up, didn't I?
Speaker 2:I thought, oh, but yeah, but the fact of the matter, is it sounded?
Speaker 3:it really sounded at home on the record, uh, and what I love about tom petty and what I think about this album in now, having heard it for the first time all the way through, is that this is the kind of production and sound that really suits him. I think that's why, commercially, it's been a success in my opinion. Yeah, yeah, um, and as a result feel a whole lot better, is my choice, because I think it just, it just sounds right, it kind of clicks with him and it, it seems valid, whereas I mean a face in the crowd's.
Speaker 2:Nice, I do think it sounds it's nice in that, but it's not as exciting as much on the album.
Speaker 3:Well, it's it's. It feels really modern. It feels I mean it feels rather elo. It has that slightly slowed down, woozy tempo thing going on with it where it just feels slightly undercooked, but it does sound like a very modern record. But I think it sounds a bit for me after especially the three songs that come before it. It feels a little bit flatter than those and I feel it quite heavily at that position in the track.
Speaker 2:So it's a phase in the crowd that sticks out for you.
Speaker 3:Yeah, exactly, exactly. Lovely stuff, Lovely stuff.
Speaker 2:You can't see this at home, but Steve is shaking his head too.
Speaker 3:Yeah of course he is Absolute disgrace. So yeah, you can't believe we're in for a joke.
Speaker 1:It wasn't disgrace, it was more just sort of pained acceptance Right. So I feel a whole lot better goes through Thanks to my amusement Right.
Speaker 4:So next up is A Mind With A Heart Of Its Own. Ho, ho, and, depending On you, I remember her standing In the tall grass and cattails Away from the windows At the end of the day, watched the man from the landing With his hall hats and coattails. She never looked different. But something would change. A mind with a heart of its own. A mind with a heart of its own, yeah, a mind with a heart of its own. I ain't never gonna let you down. All you gotta do is trust me. I would never make you some clown, baby. Why won't you trust me? You give up so easily. I don't know why. You can't see.
Speaker 3:I, depending on you, don't let me down, guy. Well, both these songs come from the back end of this record, right? Yeah, yes, skyhead. Well, both these songs come from the back end of this record, right, yeah? And are we both? Both, all three?
Speaker 1:I should say in agreement that this album is a little top heavy quality wise I'd go much further than that, as do all the reviews of it, which is to say that it's an utterly classic album until the final two tracks, and then you go what I don't know.
Speaker 3:I I think I when I was doing my notes it was like every song that the first half has kind of got lots of little ideas and then towards the end they just become a little bit bit linear for me and these two songs kind of suffer from, uh, from that vibe for me, uh.
Speaker 2:So well, the a mind with heart of its own.
Speaker 2:He was driving over to the studio, so let me set the scene for you, steve and guy, um tom petty meets jeff lynn looking for the baseball mitt, as you do on thanksgiving, yeah, and they're like, oh, let's they. They work on yes about at his house and they the next day they work on another song which we'll get to later. It's pretty fucking big. Like within 24 hours they've written two really fucking good songs and they need somewhere to record and they decide to record where.
Speaker 1:Oh, mike Campbell's home studio, I think, and Mike.
Speaker 2:Campbell's home studio, so he's got a garage studio.
Speaker 1:So this is Mike Campbell, the guitarist in the Heartbreakers the guitarist in the Heartbreakers.
Speaker 2:So Tom Petty is looking to do a solo album. He's been thinking about it for a while but he needs somewhere to record. So he asked Mike Campbell to use his garage. So he's driving over there every day to use it and as a result, mike Campbell's on every track on this album, which cannot be said for the other three members of the Heartbreakers. But on the way over to the studio one day both he and Jeff Lynn, driving over separately, were listening to the radio and they were listening to a Connie Francis song called my Heart has a Mind of Its Own and Tom Petty wanted to switch that up and then he just wrote A Mind of Its Own as a result of listening to that.
Speaker 1:I mean it sounds great. I didn't mean it sounds great. Doesn't make it any less crap, hey I.
Speaker 2:I can't control the, the quality output from the end of the anecdote. I mean I mean you can see the joins.
Speaker 1:I mean literally. I didn't know that story at all, and yet I know that at some point somebody went oh, you know that phrase, why don't we swap that to them? That'd be really interesting.
Speaker 2:That's that shit christ yeah.
Speaker 1:No, it's really, really tedious concept. It's like I need an idea or a song. I've had an idea. I will now labor it over the next three and a half minutes thanks, tom so depending on you is great.
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, yeah, depending on you is great this is a wonderful album that tails off very badly.
Speaker 3:Those final two tracks I'm gonna vote for a mind with with a heart of its own, because for me, it picks up the energy much neededly. I mean yes it, yes, it sounds like the rolling stones, but you know, as my notes uh clearly state here, uh, but uh, and also as it has the lowest streams on Spotify, but I like that does it of the whole album yeah, yeah, yeah, massive about a couple of million, which really I thought was a bit of a disservice to the energy of the tune.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah no, I like it. It does pick up the energy a bit.
Speaker 1:I don't think it's a Stones thing. I think I think it's a stones thing I think.
Speaker 3:I think it's like it's a bow diddly thing. Yeah, okay, I think it's the not, it's the not fade away thing, isn't it?
Speaker 1:it's yeah and I and I think that, um, you know, that's so, as I say I'm it always takes me back when I listen to this album how, how many of the tracks are, because I mean, basically there is another straight pastiche of another artist that's coming up, yeah, and that really works. This is a straight pastiche of Bo Diddley. That doesn't.
Speaker 3:In my opinion, but I like it more than depending on you. Yeah, fair enough.
Speaker 1:I'm voting for, depending on you, not least because I think my method of it sounds crap, but also depending on you has a brilliant another brilliant Rickenbacker 12-string run in it, which I just it, just he really does. The Roger McGuinn 12-string jangly bird thing, so well.
Speaker 2:I mean it does, yeah, and you've got the hots for a 12-string, haven't you? Let's be honest, Steve.
Speaker 1:I've always had the hots for it. I get a massive bonus for a jangly 12-string, so yes, Brilliant.
Speaker 2:I am voting for, depending on you, of course you are. Of course, sam, just because I don't want to hear you talk about getting bonus for 12 stream one so you'll have to hear that again oh for fuck's sake, yeah right luckily, uh, mine with the heart of its own, has gone out.
Speaker 1:Thank you, jesus. Uh, right, and finally, zombie zoo versus the apartment song.
Speaker 4:Hey, little freak with the lunch pail purse Underneath the paint, you're just a little girl Dancing at the zombie zoo. Dancing at the zombie zoo. I used to live in a two-room apartment, neighbors knocking on my wall. Times were hard. I don't want to knock it. I don't miss it much at all. Oh yeah, I'm alright. I just feel a little lonely tonight. I'm okay most of the time, I just feel a little lonely tonight. Well, there we go. So you're talking about the arse.
Speaker 2:Most of the time, I just feel alone. Well, there we go. So you're talking about the arse. End of the album is what I think you're terming it as Then. Zombie Zoo is the last song on the album, and even Tom Petty was like. He said what the fuck, was I thinking there? It's a really good album till Zombie Zoo. It's kind of weird, isn't it?
Speaker 1:He said I hate that song.
Speaker 2:What sort of mentality creates a song like that was is the quote I mean? I mean basically to, to put it in context, this album is just like. It's just a vibe thing that happens. He bumps into jeffrey and he knows he wants to do a solo album. He's had up to what? 12 years with the heartbreakers. At this point, um, I kind of. He says at the end of um, the tour for the previous album, he says to to mike campbell in a phone call I think we're done, and then he retracts that. But basically the seeds of all of this happening for the next 10 years for the heartbreakers and tom petty is set there that he, I think he'd got to the point where everyone else in the band refused to do overdubbing, like especially the drummer, um and the keyboard player. They didn't really want to play it live and I think he got to the point. It's like we, we kind of need to be able to do this. This is what bands do. It is going to give us a different option and a different place to go.
Speaker 1:It's a bit more mixed than that. So, basically, stan Lynch, the drummer, this was very much the beginning of the end for him, because he just wasn't invited, he didn't get to do anything on it and then really, really objected to playing these songs on tour yeah, he said it's like we're in a cover band. I'm not in a cover band. It's like I don't want to play Free Falling and I won't back down. Those are Tom Petty songs. We're Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers what the fuck yeah, which is such a complicated distinction.
Speaker 2:If they could have been called the Heartbreakers, and that would be so much easier. But they are, tom Petty why, are they, tom Petty, and was it a publishing thing?
Speaker 1:no, when they came out of Florida. Basically he was in Mud Crutch.
Speaker 2:Ok, steve imagine, guy and I don't have an encyclopedic knowledge of Tom Petty and of course we have. We've done the research, we've done the research. We're very good. Give us a 60 second intro history potted history, make it entertaining of Tom Petty. You've got 60 seconds. Tom Petty grows up got 60 seconds.
Speaker 1:Tom Petty Grows up in Gainesville, florida, nice, and he's a rock and roll dude. He forms a band called Mudcrutch. They do really well. They're incredibly big, despite their utterly stupid name, that's a true funny name. They create a local festival which becomes the biggest thing Gainesville has ever seen and everyone comes to it. They sign a record deal and then record a demo and then the record company say we kind of just want you, tom, and he goes.
Speaker 1:Oh shit uh, and so the band break embarrassing it's just tom petty and then a couple of mud crutch members, including mike campbell, go off and do other things and sort of form a band and they're mucking around and tom petty sort of hangs out with them one day and they're doing like a session on some other thing and he's like. He's like shit. These guys are incredible. I'm gonna have to have them as my backing band and he sort of says, look, do you want to?
Speaker 2:come and be my band. And then they are so it's, it's, it's.
Speaker 1:It becomes tom petty and the heartbreakers, and and that's it. So it's very much, as I say, bruce bringstein, the street band, which is. They are a band, they have an identity as a band. They all do have some say in the matter. They're not just hired hands but it's tom petty's thing brilliant, and that was a minute exactly superb, well done awesome job.
Speaker 2:Okay, we're up to. We're up to. Obviously, guy, I knew all that we watched the four-hour documentary I love my crutch watch it twice. Good eight hours.
Speaker 1:That was um but the, but the yes, so the. So the thing here is that you know stan lynch's point would be you know, when we record, we record as the heartbreaker. So yes, tom Petty calls the shots, but that drum part was because I brought that drum part to the table.
Speaker 2:That piano part was because Ben Montage brought that to the table. Tench hates this. He comes down and plays, but he hates it. He's like I fucking hated it.
Speaker 1:And then Howie the bassist, howie Epstein, comes down and plays on free-falling of all things, and then he's outside smoking and Tom Petty comes out and goes what's the matter? You're in a really bad mood. He's like I just don't like this song.
Speaker 2:He could pick a hit. He could pick a hit. That's why he's the bass player.
Speaker 2:Yeah, brilliant, brilliant, picks up his bag and leaves and he's like that was their whole attitude, but they all said they didn't like the songs and they were just all pissed off to fuck with me. Uh, very interesting time for him. Well, it's weird. I mean it's weird. Petty wants to do a solo album but he accidentally asked mike campbell to use his studio. So mike campbell's going to be involved, so, and mike campbell's an amazing guitarist, so it's great he did.
Speaker 2:But it's kind of like did you want to do a solo album or did you want to kind of put a stake through the heart of the band by going I'll have you, but you three, no thanks. I don't think that happens. I think he did kind of ask them and I think stan lynch really doesn't do over over double. He just really was like butting heads with petty on that, like no, I don't want to do this option. I think it was like almost a philosophical divide at that point which takes about six years to play out and for then eventually Stan Lynch to get fired. There are three sides to every story, aren't there? I mean, you've got Lynch's side, petty's side and then probably a bit in between I don't, it must be so hard to be in a band, right. And then you're like right, and then you're like oh yeah, tom's doing some songs. Jeff, jeff lynn, oh right, okay, and mike's mike's place, oh when are we?
Speaker 1:going over nothing's happening.
Speaker 2:I mean, yeah, no yeah, oh, it's really hard but that's that to be fair.
Speaker 1:That is exactly. I know I keep referencing. But that's exactly the same as the street band as well, because with with, uh, bruce springsteen, he's the boss, but then there's a second boss, which is which is little steve van zandt, who is who is like the next next in command, and then you've got the rest of the band. Same with the heartbreakers. You've got tom petty, and then you've got mike campbell, who's like the secondary boss next in command, and then you've got the rest of the band yeah and and so it's.
Speaker 1:It's complicated stuff, right? What are we voting for?
Speaker 2:oh, go on then sorry, sorry brett, no, it just it just made me think of the other band that I've done. I've stayed together forever. I've been incredibly successful, but I've done side projects successfully as radiohead and I can only imagine radiohead setting up a very conscious email chain.
Speaker 2:To go by the way, guys, colin, um yeah, johnny and I are thinking of doing a side project called the smile. Are you okay with that? Is that all right? And I can just imagine them doing this just perfectly. I think they've learned all the lessons that band have Everything that's gone wrong in rock and roll previously. People just not thinking things through. I just think Petty didn't really think it through because probably he didn't think I'll bump into Jeff Lynn and record probably my best work ever in two weeks.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Certainly one of the most successful. Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's just the way it went. I mean, you know, yeah, it was always going to be contentious. Yeah, right, what are we voting for? Zombie Zoo versus the Apartment Song?
Speaker 2:It's obvious, isn't it? It's the Apartment Song, of course it is. By the way, roy Orbison sang backing vocals on Zombie Zoo.
Speaker 1:Oh, dear Lord. Okay, well, this is this. Is it the traveling wilburys are beginning to coalesce now and come together? Yes, it doesn't really matter.
Speaker 3:But I mean, I like, I mean for honestly, for a minute, I quite like the intro to zombie zoo. It sounds like a haunted house thing. But then I mean, out of these two, the apartment song gets it for me.
Speaker 1:Yeah it's because zombie zoos are to shit yeah, it's, it's not great.
Speaker 3:It's not great, it's not good, it's not good.
Speaker 1:To be fair, it doesn't even have the grace to be bad. It would be better if I could be offended by how bad it was. It was. It's the. It's badness mostly comes from how weak it is compared to this utterly classic album that precedes it, rather than it just being bad exactly and again you can hear the joins.
Speaker 1:It's literally, literally what happened. It's like you know him and jeff linda like oh, there's a nightclub, it's called the zombie zoo. Oh, look at all the like you know, literally, they see it. And it's like in la and they're like oh, look at all the young people, they look like the living dead because they're all on drugs. Let's write a song about that I don't want to hear it though I don't.
Speaker 1:I don't need to fucking hear that song, because why do I need to hear that song? I don't. That's a it's. I can hear you having the idea going oh, I've got studio time, but what should we write about? Look over there, brilliant. Let's swap mind and heart around. That's a good plan.
Speaker 2:No wow so you're like really, really happy up until track 10, and then you get real pissed off, I don't.
Speaker 1:It's just. It's just a very weak way to end an utterly classic album and again totally the era of the CD. It's like you know, let's fill up every minute we've got and end it with Zombie, fucking Zoo. What are you?
Speaker 2:thinking. I'm going to tell you who you can blame in the quarterfinals.
Speaker 1:Right, here we are in the quarterfinals. It's very exciting. You can tell by the tone of my voice. So our first quarterfinal is You're so Bad versus. For the first time, a song you may have heard on your radio called I Won't Back Down.
Speaker 4:You to save me. Oh, you're so bad. Best thing I ever had Little world. Well, I won't back down. No, I won't back down. No, I won't back down. You can stand me up at the gates of hell, but I won't back down. No, I stand my ground. Very easy for me.
Speaker 2:Very easy for me there's so many fucking great songs on this album.
Speaker 4:It's just ridiculously good have you seen the video?
Speaker 2:yeah, and who's on the drums in the video?
Speaker 1:if I won't back down, it's ringo star on the drums yeah, and it's jefflin and george harrison singing backing vocals and mike campbell off to the side, so he's literally got two beatles in the video. It's like, okay, yes, we get it. You've arrived in the rock royalty at this point.
Speaker 2:It's amazing. So there's the Travelling Wilburys. So you look at the chronology of this album and you think, oh, yeah, okay. So this album was released in 1989 and the Wilburys were released in 88. So they must have all met. You know the Wilburys. And then you know, jeff Lynne and Tom Petty went off to do this album no. And then you know, jeff Lynne and Tom Petty weren't offered to do this album no, it did not happen like that. What happens is can I tell the story? Please do the way George Harrison tells it. So, basically, george Harrison is working on Cloud Nine with Jeff Lynne. It's a massive success, great comeback for him.
Speaker 2:And the record label go oh, we need what George Harrison terms as a C-side, we need a C-side. We've got the b-sides, we need a c-side for some single release in europe where we need an extra track. Because you know, it's all extended issues and he didn't have an extended version of something. So he had to go into the studio to record something and, um, you know, being the chill dude that george harrison is he just says, yeah, I'll get around to it. And he goes out for dinner with jefflyn and roy albertson and says, oh, and jefflyn's what we're up to tomorrow. So I need to, um, I need to write and record a song for this seaside. This is I just, you know, knock something out.
Speaker 2:So he hasn't written anything and jeff said, oh, come along. Yeah, great. And he said, um, so where are you recording? It's like I haven't sorted out yet. He's like, oh, okay, um, so, uh, I know an engineer, he'll be, he'll be, he might be available, we can ask him.
Speaker 2:And george phones up and yes, he's available to record george hamilton. Um, and it's like okay, we need a studio. Um, I'll tell you what I'll phone my friend, bob. So he phones up bob dylan because he knows bob's got a garage studio and he's. And he says it's amazing, because sometimes you can phone bob dylan, he doesn't pick up for three years. But he picked up that night and he said, yeah, come over. So it's like, great, okay, so.
Speaker 2:And jeff, lin and rob said, no, we'll come over as well. So, there, so he's going those four, he's going to go to bob dylan's and he goes oh, I need to get my guitar. Where's his guitar? Tom petty's house, don't ask me why it's there. So he goes over to tomty, tells him what he's doing. Tom Tom says can I come? Yeah, why not come along? So they start writing this song together. Everyone just turns up, bob Dylan turns up and they start writing it and there's a package in the corner, uh, and there's a sticker on it handle with care. So it's like, okay, that's the title sorted, brilliant. And they write this song. They do it all.
Speaker 1:Obviously it's incredible, a great and he turns up Such a great song.
Speaker 2:Oh, I mean just so beautiful, like you think of a super group and it just you think I never worked with them. And then she's like, wow, it's so laid back and I think that is testament to just George Harrison. I think he must've just correct Just this vibe of friendship that he created documentary talk about. They think he's, he was their best friend and he's got about 12 different best friends. Um, and tom payne's got that as well, that ability to just really be incredibly charming and likable. So they, he turns out he goes to the, the record label yeah, this is the seaside. And they're like, wow, you've got those. People wouldn't know you need to make an album out of this. So that's what happens with the traveling wheelbburys and the reason the um, the traveling wilburys traveling always comes out and hit it and that's the reason why this album is released in 1989, so they didn't want to clash between the two. So you look at it and you think, oh, wow, that's definitely come before, but no, it was, it was afterwards.
Speaker 1:So uh, which can only have helped. Can only have helped the sales of this album, because Wilburys Volume 1 did so well. Yeah it really did.
Speaker 2:It was hugely popular, wasn't it, and yeah, so this was actually done, pretty much done and dusted beforehand. But on I went back down, george Harrison turned up to the studio and recorded some back and vocals and guitars and slide.
Speaker 1:I mean again very much like the story a guy was telling earlier about listening to it and going isn't there a lawsuit in this? I do remember I'd forgotten it's so obvious because I know all the Wilbur stuff is happening. But I'm like wow, mike Campbell sounds like he's channeling some George Harrison slide on this track, doesn't he?
Speaker 3:I mean sounds like he's channeling some george harrison slide on this track, doesn't he?
Speaker 2:I mean, that's the most george harrison slide line ever. How is he pulling?
Speaker 3:that off and then I was like, oh yeah, it was actually george. Yeah, well, funnily enough, I went back down, was involved in a lawsuit fairly recently, wasn't it? Do you know that story with sam smith?
Speaker 2:no, no, what happened no?
Speaker 3:uh, so stay with me. By sam smith came out probably, I don't know, I say recently. I'm quite old now, so but younger than you both but not.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I knew he'd get it in steve. Yeah, I was waiting for it.
Speaker 3:So what must be? I don't know 2010s or something it came out there uh, and the chorus is oh yeah, stay with me yeah oh my god, yeah, so that that happened.
Speaker 3:And then there was a big kind of hoo-ha about it and, um, I think, well, they did get credits in the end. I think they settled it in a really, really tom and petty was quite amicable about it and was like I'm sure it wasn't intentional. There's a lot of music out there. Just, I think, just give us, you know, writing credits from here on in and that's fair enough. There's no need to sue anyone for millions. All that sort of stuff was just, it sounds like it genuinely was actually an honest mistake and, according to to the writers, it does sound that way. But uh, it's funny that it's now been potentially plagiarized in another work, when it itself plagiarized. Well, we had that conversation about plagiarizing other other pastiche rock tropes, but uh, yeah, he's no stranger to it, you know he's stranger to it so um what's it up against again, steve?
Speaker 2:it's against you're so bad and unfortunately, the problem well, yuppie reference which is up to date, do you really like?
Speaker 3:yes, about is that? Is it really seen as like a classic tom petty record?
Speaker 2:I personally do. I love it.
Speaker 3:I really like you're so bad I saw that it was in rolling stones top 50 petty songs. I mean maybe yeah got that many songs, I don't know.
Speaker 1:But um, my issue with it is uh, you're so bad the best thing ever, it's like why are you putting that enormous crazy strumming in that I was? Oh, I love that, that's. That's a great hook, that's a great hook that's.
Speaker 2:That's a very much a jeff lean thing to do. I thought Guy would like that, because that's like a real production hook. It's like the producer's gone, oh, let's just put another little bit of earworm in there.
Speaker 3:Do you not like in here?
Speaker 2:so bad Langers.
Speaker 3:Well, it just reminds me of Dylan in the verses. Yeah, I love the bit of mandolin. There's a lot of nice production touches, but it doesn't. It doesn't do much for me really. Um, I think lyrically as well I find it a little bit, a bit flat, however sorry, I mean it's up against.
Speaker 1:I mean you're not really seriously going to vote over no of course you're not. No, of course.
Speaker 3:Well, yeah, I think I sound like a debbie downer but like for me, the first half of the record is just like bam bam bam. Apart from track 4, bam bam, bam bam, and it's really great and it's just everything's got, every little thing. It's packed with a little idea and an arrangement trick and a BV thing and a slide guitar thing and then towards, but halfway through they just sound like they kind of get stoned and then it becomes very much like here's a vibe and here's a kind of groove and nothing really happens apart from maybe one or two little drum moments or guitar flourishes.
Speaker 3:But yeah yeah, I think chorusly, chorus, wise as well, I think I went back down just has. It has an amazing gospelness to it and it has that huge, I mean it's going through we know that.
Speaker 1:Have you heard the Johnny Cash version?
Speaker 2:yes, it's amazing and Tom Petty loved it. It was. Who was that? Produced by Mr Rubin? And who was the backing band?
Speaker 1:oh, was it the Heartbreakers?
Speaker 2:it was indeed the album was pretty much should be called Johnny Cash and the Heartbreakers.
Speaker 1:It that it was indeed. Yes, yeah, the album was pretty much should be called johnny.
Speaker 2:Cash and heartbreakers yes I'd forgot it's an amazing album. Yeah, and, and johnny cash's version is just amazing. You, you hear it and go. Yeah, no, he's not gonna back down no chance yeah, I'm not gonna get into a rug with this guy.
Speaker 1:Whatever you want, man, you'll have it, it's fine well, tom petty sort of struggled with the song a little bit because he thought it was too on the nose, didn't he? It's like he felt I don't? He felt, I went back down, was too unambiguous and sort of too direct, uh, and that people would would find that difficult, and so he nearly didn't run with it. But I'm glad that he did, because it is a great song and it has stood the test of time. Right, that's going through three n0 then, which brings us to the second quarterfinal, which is the cover that strangely came through, which was Feel the Hulk Better by the Birds against. Love is a Long Road, for the first time, there was a girl out here.
Speaker 4:She said she cared about me, she tried to make my world the way she thought it should be. Yeah, we were desperate then To have each other to fall, but love Is a long, long road. Yeah, love Is a road. The reason why, oh, I can say I had to let you go, baby, and run away After what you did. I can stay on and I'll probably feel a whole lot better when you're gone.
Speaker 3:Wow alright. So Lovers Along Road was a song I didn't know before this record and when I put it on I thought, oh, acdc have rocked up, because it sounds it reminds me of babbro ride.
Speaker 2:It's got a great intro, but even the piano little stabby piano thing just sounds like.
Speaker 3:It sounds like something off back in black. A hundred percent it really does. I mean, this whole album to me does feel like every song he's got him or jeff or whoever, but like they've gone. This is the identity we're going to kind of emulate and we're going to really go there, okay this is a question I wanted to ask, so I'm going to just be rude and jump in.
Speaker 2:Is this the first ever classic rock album? And I'll explain what I mean by classic rock. It's a. It's the term of being self-conscious of the, of the whole genre of rock, the whole history, and going yeah, let's just take all of that and condense it into 10 songs right.
Speaker 1:So you don't mean you don't mean the first classic, I don't rock album, you mean the first classic rock.
Speaker 2:I was being titivating, yeah right, I see that I was just speaking, just in case anyone's asleep at the back.
Speaker 2:I was just waking them up with that yeah basically, it's just the first time someone goes let's take a whole genre, a whole culture of, of music or art form in itself and just condense it and make it brilliant again, as quentin tarantino did with films in the 90s, as jk rowling did with um children's literature in the 2000s just taking every single influence has made it brilliant and combining it into something new and that would people feel at the same time new but immediate and familiar, and would drive people wild. Is this the first time it's ever been done?
Speaker 3:I think it is quite possibly. Yeah, there's a. There's a very funny thing about the 80s, uh, and their love for the 50s and 60s, that kind of resurgence. Yeah, yeah, 80s songs, you know, using motown and stuff, but doing all the rock tropes and kind of and bringing them all together. Yeah, I can't think of another album. Maybe someone listening can write it and let us know, but I can't think of um, well, this is the weird thing about seven.
Speaker 2:I didn't put it in the runners and riders, I wanted it just to seep out. This is this album. I played it to to my wife yesterday and she's like, oh, that's great, it's brilliant. Yeah, when's it? And I said when do you think that's from? She's like 75, is that? Nope, yeah, 1989. When I first heard this album, I was loving it. It's years ago. I was listening to it. It's like, fuck me, is it 1989? It's so weird that it's 1980.
Speaker 1:This is the year stone roses recorded their debut album yeah, yeah, yeah I don't know what to say to that it's like I want to be irritated by your claim and yet I can't, I cannot come back because it's a brilliant point, isn't?
Speaker 2:it's profound, it's deep, it cuts through the fucking beautiful.
Speaker 1:It cuts to the core of what it is to be human.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm dropping the profundity? Who?
Speaker 1:knows right. I'm assuming that lovers long road is going through here. It is for me, yes, of course it is.
Speaker 2:It is for me. I mean, I didn't, it's a cover you should. I mean, if you vote for a cover a second time.
Speaker 1:No, it's not gonna happen, don't worry, fuck me it's not gonna happen, all right the brand is being eroded right, we've got Depending on you versus Running Down a Dream for the first time.
Speaker 4:Sun beat down. I heard the radio walk. I was driving, trees went back, me and Del were singing. A little runaway, I was flying, yeah, running down a dream that never would come to me. I'm running down a dream that never would come to me, working on a mystery, going wherever I need, running down a dream, baby, why won't you trust me? You give up so easily.
Speaker 2:I don't know why you can't see I'm Depending on you, don't let me down. Oh, running Down a Dream. I mean I really like Depending on you. It's a really good song. I mean I like the album, like you two, up to song 10. But I really do like the album, like you two up to you know, song 10. But I really do like the second half of of the album. But I think, yeah, I mean it's Running Down a Dream is just phenomenal. So what do you want to say about it, depending on you, before it goes out anything else?
Speaker 3:As my newbie, as the newbie coming to this record, depending on you, it just sounds like Elvis Costello and yeah it's got as the newbie kind of coming to this record that to me just sounds like depending on you.
Speaker 2:Just sounds like.
Speaker 3:Elvis Costello oh nice, yeah, yeah it's it's, it's got Stumpy beat yeah. It's kind of it's good, it's good, but it's not. It's not the opposite.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but if it was by Costello, it'd be.
Speaker 3:I'm depending on you, because it would have been much more acerbic than that yeah, and I think that that is my problem with petty um generally is that he's, he is. I mean, I see this him, he has the, the I'll start that again. I see him as the typical soft rock artist. I mean that's, with this record, everything is very soft. I mean the sound of the record is soft. I think the lyrics, no matter how um or where they come from, from a, from an artistic uh point of view, there's a very sort of safeness to it and, uh, that song, you know, depending on you, is kind of like a soft voice I think, I think you are coming out literally tom petty's utterly safest moment exactly I will, as we said, a little bit off air together.
Speaker 1:I would be very fascinated to see if you dug into the catalogue to see if this taints your listening and you're like no, it all sounds pretty safe to me now, because it didn't sound safe to people at the time. Like I say, they were in with the new wave and they were considered quite edgy. So if you ever do that, come back to us, will do all right.
Speaker 3:But I'm voting running down a dream.
Speaker 1:Running down a dream's going through. Obviously I, I assume, brett of course, yeah, yeah, right and then finally, uh, the apartment song, which was so beautifully included in the puns at the beginning of the episode. Uh, versus a song that you may also have heard on your radio, called free falling I used to live in a two-room apartment neighbors knocking on my wall.
Speaker 4:Times were hard. I don't want to knock it. I don't miss it much at all. Oh yeah, I'm alright, I just feel a little lonely tonight. I'm okay most of the time. I just feel a little lonely tonight, gonna leave this world for a while. I'm free Falling down.
Speaker 2:Free falling down, free falling down, free falling down. Yeah, I'm free Falling down, free falling down. Never heard it. Never heard it. It was absolutely fresh to me.
Speaker 1:When I heard this album yeah, you hadn't heard this one before, never. You just listened to the album. It hasn't really permeated culture, has it really? It's never really cut through, no, but it was absolutely fresh to me. When I heard this album. Yeah, you hadn't heard this one before, never. You just listened to the album without listening to the first track.
Speaker 2:It hasn't really permeated culture, has it really? It's never really cut through that song. It's kind of like a lost track, isn't it? Yeah, hardly thought of. So I'm checking. Of course I've heard it. So this album, right right is made in about three weeks. It just keeps falling out of them.
Speaker 2:Tom Petty is just on an absolute rippish coming up with these songs. Jeff Lynne's helping him. They're just. It's just this incredible connection. They have probably a time. They both need it, because Jeff Lynne ELO finished, I think, in the mid 80s. Tom Petty is looking for something else. He's definitely having trouble continuing with the Heartbreakers as they are, and Free Falling is the second thing they work on. They work on You're so Bad. Jeff Lynne suggests a couple of things like great, and then they write a song together and Tom Petty says you know, I just literally came up with something. And he says, oh no, add in a chord there. And then he leans over to him and says, yeah, maybe free falling is. Yeah, use free falling on the chorus and it's just an extraordinary, huge, huge song. For some I think it's probably the. Is it the most streamed song for tom petty?
Speaker 3:I must be, I would imagine it's gotta be, it's gotta be even in the tom pitt and heartbreakers catalog.
Speaker 2:It's to be the most streamed song I've ever heard.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it is. Yeah, I would have said so. It is by quite some way.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so it's an extraordinary moment. It's just that, and he said he wrote it in about 30 minutes.
Speaker 3:Great good for him well done.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so well, I mean profitable 30 minutes of his career, isn't it? Yeah, just just from trying to make jeff lin laugh, basically, um, um, so yeah, I mean it's extraordinary. Uh well, here's the question about the free falling then, because I I've never been able to answer does it lack for a middle eight? Slash a bridge? Because I can see why howie epstein got annoyed playing bass on it, because it literally is the same chord progression you mean howie Epstein was listening outside when he said I don't want to play bass and I hate this song it's like I mean, the bass line would have been pretty fucking turgid to play, because even though he goes, you don't notice that it's the same because he goes up to.
Speaker 1:But the thing is it's still the same chord progression from the very second it opens to the second chord progression from the very second it opens to the second it ends. It doesn't deviate, it doesn't change yes, they do a chugging version of it versus a guitar, but there's no middle 8, there's no minor chords it's the same thing all the way through.
Speaker 2:No, it doesn't. In my opinion, it doesn't lack it. No, there's no way, even objectively, you can argue that it lacks it because of the huge success critically, commercially. Yeah, it's a good, it's a good question, but I think I personally I love songs that are the same. If you can pull off a song, there's the same three or four chords the whole way through, it's an amazing achievement. What do you think, guy?
Speaker 3:yeah, no, I agree, I think it's. I think free falling's a amazing example of representing a hook in different ways and arrangements as the song builds, I love where it just feels like it twists and turns. You've got the little chuggy part, um, you've got the amazing backing vocal kind of like rhythm thing that kind of comes in with the title lyric oh such a hook, that isn't it that?
Speaker 2:I think that makes it actually yeah, I think if you don't have that bit of the kind of coda end.
Speaker 1:It's like, oh, it's really great, but that's the thing that yes, I think the arrangement, without the way it was arranged, it wouldn't, it just wouldn't. You'd see the joins and you would see that. You know, because it took me years to go. Hang on, the chords don't change at any point. That's true.
Speaker 3:A lot of modern songs these days are actually very similar in terms of they are three, four chords and that is. It has a very linear uh flow to it and and free falling, I mean there's I. I also consider tom petty to be like a perfect artist to like to drive down a highway to, and all these songs have that sort of that flow, and this song in particular just feels like they have caught caught a little magic of a combination of a lyric, a melody and some harmony and then they're just redoing that, that initial hit that you get when you combine them in different mannerisms over the rest of the record.
Speaker 3:And that's the beauty of the song, it's. It's about sort of just. You know that it is just about free falling what's the title of his third solo album?
Speaker 4:uh, I don't know, highway companion.
Speaker 1:There we go to your point. If, what exactly?
Speaker 4:you know, he's the.
Speaker 3:You know, if ever there was gonna be a top gear compilation of driving, driving anthems, you're gonna find you're gonna find top clocks, clocks and clangers yeah, absolutely, he'd love that but no, but, joking aside, it's, it's great. And look to speak back to um. Is it the apartment song, isn't it, um? You know, it's got a lovely t-rex, sort of rock kind of will you stop getting the references wrong by 10 years?
Speaker 1:it's a buddy. Holly pastiche it. To me it sounds like t-rex anyway, it's a fucking buddy.
Speaker 2:Holly pastiche listen if, if what you don't understand, we're talking about personal brands, right?
Speaker 3:you're burning your personal brand, right?
Speaker 2:steve guy's personal brand is he'm 30 years younger than you. You're burning your personal brand, right? Steve Guy's personal brand is he's 10 years younger than us.
Speaker 1:He's going to push it, so our reference is Buddy Holly.
Speaker 2:It obviously has to be later.
Speaker 3:Every reference is later For us it's Bo Diddley.
Speaker 2:For him it's the Rolling Stones. He's always 10 years. He's fucking 10 years younger.
Speaker 3:He just goes. I don't remember the decimalisation of the pound. Okay, I wasn't there when we joined Europe originally. I wasn't alive. I hate you and everything you stand for no, but look it's. It's got a. Really actually the vocal melody reminds me of I fought the law and the law won. It's got a kind of it's a Bo Diddley thing, maybe it's a kind of I can't remember who did. I fought the law originally it's.
Speaker 2:It's johnny fuller yeah, it has that sort of 50s clash yeah kind of uh rock riff which is also three chords, pretty much not all the way through.
Speaker 3:I love the little change with the slapback drums and the quick chord changes I love apartment song. Yeah, yeah but it's not free falling and free.
Speaker 1:I just, I'm just gonna say, I'm gonna edit out everything you said and just say it's a body holy pastiche and that's all that's going to be on the podcast.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's fine. You do what you wish. You have the power. I'm voting for free falling, obviously.
Speaker 1:I really like the apartment stall it's free for free falling of course it is.
Speaker 2:I think it's. I love the apartment stall but yeah, it's got. There's a point where you've got you. You know you need to move up the property ladder and it's the free falling isn't it.
Speaker 1:Let's be honest yes, it is. Yeah, no, I really like the apartment song. I felt like the beau diddly pastiche didn't work and the and the uh buddy holly one did um oh, it's great, but and the melody is great and the lyric is so nice it's really memorable.
Speaker 2:It really sticks with me. I'm a big fan of it.
Speaker 1:It's a real hidden gem but yes anyway, it's going out to free falling inevitably, which takes us to the semis, which means we've got. I Won't Back Down against.
Speaker 2:Love Is A Long Road wow, we're just getting to super massive songs now, yeah, we've been quite.
Speaker 1:yeah, okay To be fair, this isn't going to be one of our episodes of which there have been quite a few where controversial things get through. We have got through to four songs.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we can't even go. Winner of Full Moon Fever is Zombie Zoo. Yeah, that wasn't going to happen.
Speaker 1:This is one of those episodes where the final will surprise no one when we get there.
Speaker 3:Two words, two words, eleanor Rigby.
Speaker 2:We do have the power to do it.
Speaker 1:It's fucking Revolver. Anything could have gone through man.
Speaker 3:No, I totally disagree with that. Anyway, let's move on.
Speaker 1:You still want to argue with me. I'm still bitter and I love. Do you know?
Speaker 2:I love the fact that he's still bitter about it. I fucking love that bad guy.
Speaker 1:Once again, once again. Why?
Speaker 2:would I vote for Paul.
Speaker 1:McCartney in a string quartet. When I can vote for things that the actual Beatles are playing on, let's move on. Well, you know they all sing, do they? Yeah, they do.
Speaker 3:I debate that you can hear the isolated vocals. You've got George and you've got John on harmonies. I dare say you can hear Ringo making the tea in the background.
Speaker 1:Anyway, this ain't making it. I'm annoyed now.
Speaker 3:This ain't making it into the edit. Right, let's move on. It probably will. I got this.
Speaker 1:Come on, I won't back down versus Lovers Long Road.
Speaker 3:So, come on, I won't back down versus Lovers of the Long Road.
Speaker 2:So Lovers of the Long Go on, brett. No, no you go.
Speaker 1:No, no, no no, no, no, you first. So bloody English, come on.
Speaker 3:Lovers of the Long Road. Like I said, I didn't know that song before this record and I really love it. I can see. Looking into my research I can see obviously it was a single and and I just really like the unashamed ACDC-ness of it. It's that classic rock vibe and it sounds like the song from the album that he would open a set with. It sounds like the opener to me. It's got a real great energy to it.
Speaker 2:It's a great opener to a set, isn't it? Yeah, it really is.
Speaker 3:It's just got that amazing energy to it. So I was surprised and, yeah, if you were to pick any song on this record to go third, I think that would be my pick. But alas, I Went Back Down has, yeah, it has a really nice. I think the thing for me about this record is the vocals. Tom Petty's vocals are incredibly dry. Maybe it's a Jeff Lynne thing, I don't know, but you hear like there's no reverb or delays really particularly helping his vocals. It's really kind of up there and dry.
Speaker 1:There is on everything else, though, which is a really interesting trick, isn't it? It's like all the instrumentation is very, very reverb-y, but the vocals aren't.
Speaker 2:What a voice, though. What a voice. I verbi but the, but the vocals aren't. Yeah, what a voice though. What a voice. I've got a note here like I just love his singing. It's incredible the choices he makes.
Speaker 4:The way he sings like he.
Speaker 2:He has a the melody. He's singing the melody, but he's also singing in that tom petty timbre which is so compelling. It's like that dylan trick he's. Obviously they supported dylan for about a year, or they played with dylan for you he's, and I know he's got those, but it's just so beautiful. He's singing, it's just. I love his singing.
Speaker 3:I think it's phenomenal.
Speaker 1:I do, I do. What do you think of?
Speaker 2:him.
Speaker 3:I'd forgotten how much I love his singing. Yeah, what do you think of his singing in Langers? I actually I'm probably boring everyone, but every song he sounds like he's impersonating somebody else a little bit. And as with the rock riffs and the kind of guitar rhythms and the pastiches. Musically, I think vocally, there's a little bit of him being George Harrison, there's a bit of Bob Dylan, there's a bit of Mick Jagger. There's a little bit of everything.
Speaker 3:And I went back down is the one song that I don't necessarily and free falling I'd say I don't hear him being anything other than him, for some reason maybe because I mean free falling has. He sings in a high the highest register on the record. It's really high it really works with the lyric and you get that sense of it's on the edge of his range and it feels a bit passionate yeah, and away back down isn't as high.
Speaker 3:But it has that lift and it has that sweetness that I feel like it's him not being anyone else, and I think that's why I like it more than um love his own long road I really want to push back on that, but I'm not going to, because he was such a student of classic rock and a student of all the people that you mentioned yeah, and there's nothing wrong with that.
Speaker 1:Go on, and there's nothing wrong with that no, I know, I know I sort of I sort of don't. I can hear the dylan, but I don't. I don't hear the other people. I hear mcguinn, it doesn't matter. The point is, he's such a student of those people that your point stands for sure. Um, I mean, I think yeah for me.
Speaker 2:I love his singing a lot and his upper register, which he doesn't use, which I think is a real great execution of his taste. He doesn't use it a lot. His upper register is amazing, like when a free fall in that chorus on that and even um, you know running down a dream. In the end of that he goes to it and he's so powerful, but he doesn't overuse it, doesn't just go.
Speaker 1:Oh, I sound amazing he sings really strongly in his lower register, which is quite unusual. Yeah, uh, you know I always have to sing to the top of my register because otherwise I'm just going. Hello, I'm singing like this. You know, it's like oh dear, and a lot of people are like that. Unless they're pushing to a certain extent, it doesn't but he's his low register is so sort of strong and so full of character that that he doesn't often need to which makes it all the better when he does yeah, a whole lot of twang going on oh yeah oh, yeah, right I'm assuming, then uh, what are we voting for?
Speaker 2:um, I'm voting for, I won't back down, but I mean, love is a long road, I have to say, is another uh, driving song, because it's written it's. It's one of the only songs that isn't a co-write between Jeff Lynn and Tom Petty. Jeff Lynn has got a lot of co-writing credits in this album, so ka-ching for Jeff. But this is just a co-write between Campbell and Petty, and Mike Campbell said he was kind of inspired by his motorbike to write this song Don't ask me how that comes through, but you've got that.
Speaker 2:You've got running down a dream. It's driving rock, isn't it? Yeah, it is.
Speaker 1:Which is such a it's a difficult thing to say because it's such a sort of maligned sort of genre now, because when you say driving rock I just think of, like you know. Layla and you know, like those classic CDs, that your dad would put on.
Speaker 2:It's like drive forward. Can you imagine saying what music are you into? I'm into driving rock.
Speaker 1:Driving rock.
Speaker 2:I want to listen to Layla by Eric.
Speaker 1:Clapton, and something by Queen 12 CDs and something by Brian Adams.
Speaker 2:It's going to get a hipster remake, I think.
Speaker 1:Driving rock it's Nadir, it's the mullet of music genres it's going to come back, and it's going to come back strong, so I love that. I can't wait. Count me in. I'm going to ride that wave, okay, uh, lang is what you voted for.
Speaker 3:I won't back down, right, I think we're all voting for that, even though love is a. Love is a long road.
Speaker 1:Is a, is a as a great tune, okay, and then finally running down a dream which we need to talk about a little bit more uh, against against free falling. So Love is a Long Road is a great tune, okay, and then finally Running Down a Dream which we need to talk about a little bit more against Free Falling.
Speaker 3:So Running Down a Dream for me, if you want. Who? That reminds me of a little bit. It strangely reminds me of Blondie a little bit.
Speaker 2:Don't know why the vocals.
Speaker 3:It reminds me of Debbie Harry. Wow, but this was my this was the song.
Speaker 2:They're both blonde and that's about it. That's all I can. I don't know what it was.
Speaker 3:It just there's a certain Chord shift in the verses.
Speaker 2:Okay, that's really interesting.
Speaker 3:But this song was and I'm torn really Because it is Going into this it was my favourite Tom Petty song that I knew of.
Speaker 4:Oh, okay, that's interesting.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it was one. It's one of those songs that you I just I don't know where I heard it or where I picked it up being not a massive tom petty phone, because it was a single right was it single? Yeah, it was, it was, but I I just love the fact that it just has one idea really and it just keeps running with it. It's kind of similar to free falling in that sense.
Speaker 1:You know it's got that riff and I love the vocals. I love the tune. I just find that riff a bit moronic.
Speaker 3:I've got, I love and I said amazing guitar lick at the start.
Speaker 2:I love amazing guitar lick. I think it's like but it is again.
Speaker 3:It's a past. It sounds like a pastiche of a sort of a black sabbath thing or like a like a classic 70s gothic rock. I don't know what it is. It reminds me of something, but I just love the woo-hoo bit at the end and the kind of climbing chords. It's just, and it goes, and it goes. It's just.
Speaker 2:Well, the whole the concept of the song is. He wanted to write a driving song, as we've discussed, but it was like going up through the gears.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So as it progresses, it's going further, it's getting into fifth gear. At the end and I think even at the end that I read today I couldn't really hear it because I was only listening to it once afterwards was that the bass just holds that e-note and the chords change.
Speaker 4:So it gets this real tension growing at the end.
Speaker 2:It's a real tension. And the guitar solo, yeah, yeah, he just that is done. So mike campbell steps up, starts playing his guitar solo and tom pet says I just looked at jeff lynn's face. It's kind of his jaw just hit the floor because he just did it in one take one time one take and that's it there, mike. Mike campbell is is he is.
Speaker 1:We should talk about him more because he's like the guitarist's guitarist, you know yeah, it's like it's like he's so respected as a producer, as a songwriter he's had a load of hits with a load of people but, particularly by guitarists. As a guitarist not least because he doesn't I think Tom Petty's phrase was he's not a showboat. You know, he doesn't whenever he plays. If he's asked to do a solo, he will do a wonderful, tasteful solo if you want him to play fast he can, but he will always play in subservience to the song's needs.
Speaker 1:He will never go. Oh, I'm going to show off in this bit and do a whopping great.
Speaker 2:You know he, he's a musician and and and he's trying to serve the song above everything yeah, I mean I I watched the same documentary and I didn't really necessarily warm to mike campbell hugely, but I've have to huge respect him as a musician because, oh my god, they did this point in the documentary where they play a hank williams song him, petty and the band, and it turns out that's the first time they've ever played it and you listen to it and you're going fuck, that's good.
Speaker 2:And campbell is playing the mandolin and it's just exquisite, his mandolin playing. It's some of the finest mandolin playing I've ever heard and he's doing it off the fucking cuff.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's unbelievable, he's obviously an amazing session player. I mean he's. He's on um the boys of summer, isn't he don henley, he plays on that. He's one of those guys that just seems to pop up across every big you know LA, california, americana, big pop song of the 80s really. But then he does have his own band who has the beautiful title of the Dirty Knob, the Dirty.
Speaker 2:Knob. Yes, that's fantastic. I'm not sure where you stand on that, but yeah, got a 12 inch coming out soon nice yay loving your work 7 inch really yeah, so how are you voting?
Speaker 1:I really like running down a drink. Oh right, pop quiz. Who does he reference in it and why Del Shannon?
Speaker 2:Yeah, he does Del Shannon. Why? Because he produced Del Shannon's album.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so when he says me and Del were singing Little Runaway, obviously Runaway is a Del Shannon song, but I sort of got the reference but I didn't realise it was literal, because it's like he probably was sitting in the car with Del Shannon singing Runaway.
Speaker 2:because they were friends, because he made friends with all these people, people and del shannon's initiation with you as a friend is to make you sing. Run away with him yes and then if he really likes you hats off to larry, but only if you go to the next level yeah, although they did, they also fell out.
Speaker 1:Why did they fall out?
Speaker 1:oh, because he said those are two amazing songs and then I can't sing a third no, no, he fell out because he was producing del zom and uh uh, their first bassist, whose name suddenly eludes me that had left the heartbreakers, and he was producing del shannon's album and howie epstein was playing bass for for del shannon and he rang del shannon and he's like, uh well, this is all good. And he's like del shannon's, like please don't take howie. Tom fett is like yeah, I'm taking that way, and he just just steals his bass and stuff. He's been a heartbreaker for the next 15 years.
Speaker 3:So they didn't speak for quite a while, but speaking of Dale Shannon, he is on this record though, isn't he?
Speaker 2:Yes, he is. Oh, where is he?
Speaker 3:Oh, yes, Straight after Running Down a Dream, I believe. So this album features that famous sort of please turn this record over little ditty from Tom Petty.
Speaker 2:So if you're listening to, this on a streamer there's a point where Tom Petty goes. So if you're listening to this album on CD, please take a moment to respect all those who are listening on tape or vinyl who have to turn the record over. And the background is Barnyard Animal Noises, and that is Del Shannon.
Speaker 1:Is it? No, that's Tom Petty.
Speaker 2:surely no, dale Shannon provides credited Barnyard Animal Noises.
Speaker 1:Oh, I see. He is also available for garden parties and bar mitzvahs. But at this point I see he's making the noises. He'll get it where he can get it. I thought he meant he was speaking. I got it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, all those noises are Shannon.
Speaker 1:Wow, that's very.
Speaker 2:Shannon's farm. I did not know that Shannon's farm Got it All right.
Speaker 1:I love running down a dream, but I'm not mental. I've got to vote for you, Fraulein.
Speaker 2:Guy, are you mental?
Speaker 3:Yes, I mean. Look, I think I know which way this is going to go, so I'm going to vote for safety, not for safety. Out of what do you call it? With your heart yeah, exactly with running down a dream just because it's on my running playlist.
Speaker 1:It's a fucking banger yeah, you said it was your favourite one when you got here. That's true. You're true to yourself it's a great song.
Speaker 2:It is a great song. It's great yeah, I mean, how confident are you, guy?
Speaker 3:you know what? I don't care, it's win, win for me it's one, two free falling.
Speaker 1:It's going through to the final oh, there you go, so I know this is going to. There are people all over the US, the UK and Europe listening to this, not listening to this now, as we speak going. Wow, the shock McCartney and Gould final of Full Moon Fever being free-falling against. I Won't Back Down. I mean, did you hear that podcast where they came up with that crazy final?
Speaker 2:But you've burned your own personal brand and we have spent a lot of time, yeah building, building that up yeah, I mean it. It's almost the most surprising final we could have considering a previous. Let's be honest yeah, yes, it's controversial by by its non-controversiality, yeah I don't know what we're gonna do do for Act 3, but that's quite a nice twist to do that. So Irving Azov yes said, irving Azov is the head of the record label.
Speaker 2:Tom Petty turns up with this platinum-coated recording and he says, hmm, it's a bit short and there's no hits on it.
Speaker 1:And we're not going to release it, and we're not going to release it, and we're not going to release it. We refuse to release this record and the other story. There are two stories. One story is that Irving Azov said there are no hits on it and then they refused to release it.
Speaker 1:The other one is that the record company and I'm sure both are true the other one is that the record company said that they didn't think it fit his image, which again comes to what I've been saying to guy about this. You know, because he, he, his image was genuinely quite a lot edgier than this and they said. They said we think you're going to lose your audience because it's so smooth, uh, and that you know you're. You're a rock and roll guy uh, we don't know what you're doing, but yes, but the.
Speaker 1:The bigger argument was I can't hear any hits on this and it took as of leaving the company yeah, for them to.
Speaker 2:He was blocking it. He was laughing his ass off because he was blocking it from coming out it just. I mean, it's unbelievable. So this is another reason why it took. So it was recorded in late 87 and recorded in about three weeks and that's his most glorious three-week period. And then it takes. It takes another 18 months to come out, april 89. It's crazy, is that? Purely?
Speaker 3:because of the record label and also the wilburys. But yeah, it's the record label.
Speaker 2:They only had nine songs, to be fair, so they did need a few more, but basically the record label and uh wow, it's quite something, isn't it? Yeah, well, when you look at the tracks and this that we've, that we've had to get rid of for the final, it's not like I mean. This is. It's a lot of thriller and very little filler yeah, I, I again.
Speaker 1:Maybe it was to do with with them sort of going you know, you, this isn't, this isn't what your audio want, the audience wants. This is. You know, this is too middle of the road.
Speaker 1:People are just going to think, oh, it's plodding, you know, and again I mean, yeah, you know, with something like free falling, I mean it is, it is kind of plodding, you know, in a way, and I guess maybe you could, you can't hear it out of context and then. So then it takes and it's a classic and you can't unhear the classicness. But, um, I don't know, I don't know what they were thinking.
Speaker 2:It's extraordinary, isn't it? Your job is to assess songs as soon as possible and to say is that commercial or not, and to say you have delivered me an album with Free Falling. I Won't Back Down. Running Down a Dream, and Love is a Long Road on it.
Speaker 4:Yeah, there's no hits there's no hits.
Speaker 2:There's definitely not five singles in this album, maybe seven if we really pushed our luck. It's extraordinary. I mean, guy, you've worked in a and r yeah previous to producing.
Speaker 3:What would you have done if this had arrived on your desk? I mean, I've been probably be pretty happy, but it's hard, like songs are. Songs are a hard one in terms of like you have. The only way you can air now something realistically is to to go with your their own taste and you have to have a taste that is uh, if you're at that level and doing those sort of artists, commercial and and very every man, you have to be able to detach your personal taste from your sort of business taste, I guess, or your, your, um, your your anr taste. And yeah, I mean, I don't quite understand what more he could have done really, because they're extremely commercial, to the point that steve is red in the face with how commercial they can be at times, and that's, in my, my opinion, a sign of a hit is when steve turns purple.
Speaker 3:Um, but joking aside. Strong, yeah, but joking aside, uh, I don't. I don't know where they were, what their, what their plan was for him. It's not just a question of hearing something in isolation, is it music? It's about, uh, how those songs you know where they come from previously, where they're going as an artist.
Speaker 1:Brett's point about the classic rock thing, maybe because it wasn't a cool thing to pastiche, you know, bo Diddley and Buddy Holly and the Birds and all of these back references, because it was such a grab bag of these are my heroes. Maybe that was what they found off-putting.
Speaker 3:Maybe, who knows? Maybe it's the cocaine talking, who knows, maybe it's just there. We go all right look, I, I can't.
Speaker 1:I'm as predictable as this final is. I actually can't tell which way it's going to go, because I went back down and free falling are obviously both completely iconic and and brilliant, and one of them has a beetle playing slide on it, uh, and and one's an fm.
Speaker 3:Well, they're both fm radio classics of the period, so I've got no idea where this is going to go well, I can, I, I'm going to vote quite easily for me early yeah I mean, they're both two songs with the best choruses on the record and, like I said before, this album for me is a little top heavy. I think the chorus is at the top end, but these are tracks one and two.
Speaker 2:Yeah, what an opening salvo.
Speaker 3:I mean yes this is why, also, I think it's a very commercial record, because the track listing is actually for a streaming audience. It's very handy to have your best songs at the top, because people are going to listen through and from top down.
Speaker 3:That's actually something that is more more prevalent as as the industry heads that way. Uh, people, you see people top-loading their albums and I think this kind of benefits from that, even though it was from 1989. They both have the best choruses. They both, I think, use his voice to best effect. But for me, free Falling just has a register that I've grown to love and I've really loved that urgency. There was always a story that whenever George Martin got artists to record, he would always get them to up the key a little bit.
Speaker 2:So it's on the edge of right of the vocal range, the rod shewitt thing.
Speaker 1:Yeah as well, right on the edge and free falling just has, which is where I love singers to be always yeah, and the free falling, just just it does something.
Speaker 3:The rest of the album is a little bit more lower registered and not quite as urgent, and it benefits immensely from that. Even if it's a one-trick pony, it just keeps giving you that urgency and that the idea is so strong that it just it can get away with doing it in simpler ways as the song kind of evolves. So I'm going with free falling okay.
Speaker 2:So yeah, I mean, I love free-falling. Jeff Lynn suggested the lyrics to him as he was just literally jamming it out, and he says yeah, sing it up an octave. He says to go up the octave and he pulls it off sublimely, probably trying to impress his new friend. You imagine writing with someone second, kind of one of the fourth, fifth times you've ever met them and you go, fuck, I need to sing it up the octave. So he did it and he nailed it. Um, it's incredible.
Speaker 2:In 1987, the start of all of this, I started this podcast off with um a meet in birmingham. But before he went on that tour, tom payne's house was burnt down. He was having breakfast with his wife, it was her birthday, they're having a nice day and the fucking house burnt down. I thought what the fuck? How did that happen? And it was proven to be arson. Someone had attempted to burn his house down. It's an assassination attempt. So of him, and everyone and all his objects left him. Um, he lost everything. Obviously everyone got out alive, which is very thankful, but you know, a hugely traumatic event.
Speaker 2:He then goes off tours with Dylan and he makes his new friends. He makes friends with George Harrison. Jeff Lynne has this beautiful experience. It's almost like a rebirth, and this album is his, his, his debut solo album, and so I Won't Back Down is so personal, it's so important to so many people. That song, the lyric, is fucking amazing and he, having written it, second guessed it, worried about it. Everyone had to say no, it's great, and it is great, so I'm voting for. I won't back down, steve over to you the winner.
Speaker 1:I agree with everything you said there, and my head wants to vote. I won't back down but my heart has to go free falling because it's. It was very much the the song of of that year for me and, yeah, it fills me with a nostalgia that I won't back down, doesn't? So, whilst they're probably equal billing for me here, free falling pips it and is therefore the winner of the full moon fever and an amazing winner.
Speaker 2:Like what an opening two songs for an album.
Speaker 1:It's just ridiculous, just ridiculous no book ending points there at all, though it's like do you know what I'm going to open with those two and end with zombie zoo, because I've gone mad, yeah but he did.
Speaker 2:He did because this uh, do you know what the original title of this album was? Songs.
Speaker 2:It was songs from the garage, because it's recorded in mike campbell's garage nice and as he drove over from his house, what's one of the roads he drives down? Ventura Boulevard, oh, nice, and that's what makes it a song. And what is also beautiful about this is it's the second song he ever writes with Jeff Lynne, to the point where such a fecund period for them like this album they're literally mixing down Free Falling and they go oh, while you're mixing that down, let's go and write a song.
Speaker 2:And they go and write I won't back down, it's just ridiculous it's just one of those beautiful things that happens like he's had a really shit 87 and then it happens and he has an incredible year. He writes some of the best songs of his life Free falling, free falling down the Free, falling down the Free falling down the Free falling down the Free. Falling down the Free, free falling, free Falling, free Falling you.