Tuesday, October 03, 2017

The Genius of Tom Petty's Lyric Writing

This is one of those blog posts I’ve been trying to write all day, but I feel too gutted to write coherently. I hope it makes sense.

In times like this--after things like hurricanes and the horrific event in Las Vegas--people in the live music community turn even more strongly to music. Yesterday, we lost Tom Petty, one of our those whose music I often turn to during such times.

Tom Petty’s “Refugee” fueled my rock and roll dreams. If I had fifty cents for every time I’ve belted along to that plaintive wail of his on “Refugee,” I would be very rich. (Fifty cents was the price of the jukebox at the pizza joint we liked. You got two songs, but the jukebox had a $.50 minimum.)

And “American Girl”? Dreaming of leaving the small town I was stuck in as a teenager, I was that girl in the first verse. Damn…How did he know?

Ironically enough, my “a little more to life somewhere else” included working for a promoter, and later for an agent, who each happened to do a lot of Tom Petty shows.

Tom Petty was so beloved in the industry. I really hope he knew that, because he was one of those stalwart, hardworking artists you thought would always be there. Even at 66, even after years of what touring wear and tear does to the body, even after the rock and roll lifestyle, we all thought he’d always be here.

In the music business, one of the ultimate compliments you can pay an artist is to still genuinely love their music just as much after working on one of their projects as you did before. I never stopped loving Tom Petty's music. If anything, my respect for him grew even more.

In my humble opinion, “American Girl” is a piece of underrated song lyric writing genius. I think it gets overlooked because like one of my favorite authors, Raymond Chandler, TP chose plain and simple words for his storytelling. There are no flowery metaphors or overblown words… just, honest, gritty truth.

And, like Raymond Chandler, Tom Petty made his writing look easy. Only when you actually try to write something like it yourself do you realize just how damn hard it is to do.

In fact…go listen to “American Girl.” I’ll wait. If you have Apple Music ('cause, you know, Beatles), the lyrics are there when you click on the song. If you don’t know the words, you’ll probably need the lyrics, because like Mick and Elton, TP had a wonderful way of garbling his words. (God love ‘em, I can never understand what Mick and early Elton are singing.)

OK, ready? Listen to the way each word in “American Girl” is placed, and where each one rises and falls to the music…Not even to the music. In the music would be more accurate to say. In “American Girl” the music and lyrics are firmly meshed into each other, as if they appeared at the same time via some sort of simultaneous creative combustion.

And how the hell did a 26-year-old guy so accurately capture the psychology of a young girl? In my writer’s group, men far older than twenty six struggle with writing female characters.

In “American Girl” Tom Petty doesn’t just write a female character, he knows what’s going on in her head better than she does. He knows how she got to that place, “stan-ding a-lone on her bal-con-NAY-AY.”

In writer’s terms, the girl in “American Girl” is the ultimate of a fully developed character. How many novelists, having far more words and time from the reader to work with, can say that?

And while we're talking about writerly things...how 'bout that slick change in Point of View, from the verse to the chorus and then back again? He goes from being the distant narrator to being in the story with her. Not easy to pull off, my friends...I've been writing since I was six and still struggle with  POV.

Then there’s the ambiguity of that one line in the chorus: “Take it easy, baby / make it last all night”: Is she Hoovering up all the cocaine, or is she, to put it delicately, having an intimate encounter with the narrator, and he’s telling her to slow down?

The interpretation is up to the listener…or to the singer, if you’re covering it with your band. Either interpretation works, and in a way that manages to slip past the ears of censors and parents.

“American Girl” wasn’t the only time Tom Petty’s lyrics accurately got into the head of a girl. He also does it in the first verse of “Free Fallin’”: “Loves horses, and her boyfriend too.” Sorry guys, but for a girl of that age, TP nailed down the order of importance. The horse knows it all. Tom Petty somehow knew this.

This morning it was cloudy outside…uncharacteristic for L.A. at this time of year. A layer of storm clouds, running in a straight line, literally covered the sunshine, which was peeking out from underneath.

As I looked out my kitchen window while I listened to “American Girl” and made my coffee on the brightly colored vintage tile counter tops I’d pictured as a kid dreaming of L.A., I realized there was probably a rainbow somewhere over Los Angeles.

I’d like to think that if there was, it was for Tom Petty. The band shell of the Hollywood Bowl, where he just played last week, has always reminded me of a rainbow.

RIP TP. You will be missed.