Tom Petty Knows 'How It Feels'

DATE February 1, 2008 ACCOUNT NUMBER N/A
TIME 12:00 Noon-1:00 PM AUDIENCE N/A
NETWORK NPR
PROGRAM Fresh Air

Interview: Singer and songwriter Tom Petty discusses his career
and life
DAVID BIANCULLI, host:

This is FRESH AIR. I'm David Bianculli, TV critic for tvworthwatching.com,
sitting in for Terry Gross.

Our guest today is singer, guitarist, and songwriter Tom Petty. He'll be
performing the halftime show Sunday at the Super Bowl and it's probably safe
to say we won't be treated to a "wardrobe malfunction." Tom Petty has been
playing straight-ahead, no-nonsense rock and roll for more than three decades.
He's performed with his band, The Heartbreakers, as a solo artist, and for a
while, with a little pickup band called The Traveling Wilburys. Tom Petty and
the Heartbreakers will tour again this spring, 32 years after their first
album. Since then, they've sold more than 50 million records. Petty's songs
include "American Girl, "Breakdown," "Listen to Her Heart," "Don't Do Me Like
That," "Refugee," "I Won't Back Down," and "Running Down a Dream." Tom Petty
and the Heartbreakers were inducted into the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame in
2002, the first year they were eligible. Last year Tom Petty and the
Heartbreakers were the subject of both a Peter Bogdanovich documentary and a
companion book.

Tom Petty's most recent studio work is a solo album called "Highway
Companion," recorded in 2006. That's when Terry Gross spoke with Tom Petty.
Let's start with the opening track from "Highway Companion," a song called
"Saving Grace."

(Soundbite from "Saving Grace")

Mr. TOM PETTY: (Singing)
I'm passing sweeping cities fading by degrees,
not believing all I see to be so.
I'm flying over backyards, country homes and ranches,
watching life between the branches below.
And it's hard to say who you are these days,
but you run on anyway, don't you, baby?
You keep running for another place to find that saving grace...

(End of soundbite)

BIANCULLI: In addition to touring and recording, Tom Petty hosts his own
radio show on the XM Satellite network. Terry began by asking him what radio
meant to him as a kid.

Mr. PETTY: Everything. You know, I still see it as this really magical
thing, and it was wonderful. I didn't have the money to have a vast record
collection, so I learned everything, really, from the radio, and in the--you
know, in the mid-60s, AM radio, pop radio, was just this incredible thing that
played all kinds of music, you know, just--you could hear Frank Sinatra, right
into the Yardbirds, you know, The Beatles, into Dean Martin. It was this
amazing thing, and I miss it in a way because music has become so
compartmentalized now, but in those days, it was all right in one spot. And
that's--you know, we used to learn--you know, when I was 15 or 16 playing in
groups, we used to sit in the car and try to write the lyrics down as a song
was playing, and we'd assign each person a verse, you know. `I'm going to do
the first one. You go for the second one.' And then sometimes you'd wait an
hour for it to come on again, you know, so you could finish it up but...

GROSS: What's a song you did that with?

Mr. PETTY: I'll tell you the hardest one was "Get Off My Cloud" by the
Stones. It had so many words.

GROSS: Oh, and fast, too.

Mr. PETTY: Yeah, it took us a good three hours to get that one written down.
But it was that kind of thing. It was a friend, you know, and something that
was there. You didn't really think about it that much, but looking back on
it, it was such a musical education.

GROSS: Well, I want to play another track from your new CD "Highway
Companion," and this is a song called "Down South." Is there a story behind
this song?

Mr. PETTY: Yeah. This is--I had--a long time ago, I'd done a conceptual
record about the South called "Southern Accents." And this one was inspired by
a book that fellow named Warren Zanes had written this book about the South,
and I read it and I was really impressed by it, and then I started thinking,
well, you know, what if I--you know, I haven't been back there in a long, long
time. I lived there, you know, 35 years ago and grew up there, but I
went--you know, just kind of went back in my mind, and a story started to kind
of develop and appear, and I'm not really sure who that character is but I
know part of it's me. And I wrote it--oh, God, I wrote it kind of quickly. I
wrote it--I wrote the lyrics out first before I did the music, which is
unusual for me, and I--then I searched for a long time to find music that
created the right tonal kind of thing with the lyric and had to find a melody
that went with it. So, it took a little while to pull the whole thing
together, but I'm--it's one that I'm most pleased with from the record.

GROSS: Well, why don't we hear it? This is "Down South" from...

Mr. PETTY: Yeah.

GROSS: ...Tom Petty's new CD "Highway Companion."

(Soundbite from "Down South")

Mr. PETTY: (Singing)
Headed back down South, gonna see my daddy's mistress,
gonna buy back her forgiveness, pay off every witness.
One more time down South, sell the family headstones,
drag a bag of dry bones, make good on my back loans.

Mr. PETTY and Unidentified Singer: (Singing)
So if I come to your door, let me sleep on your floor.
I'll give you all I have and a little more.

Mr. PETTY: (Singing) Sleep late down South...

(End of soundbite)

GROSS: That's "Down South" from Tom Petty's new CD "Highway Companion." I
want to ask you about a couple of lines in that song. You said you're not
quite sure who the character is in that, but the song has "headed back down
South, gonna see my daddy's mistress, gonna buy back her forgiveness." Did you
go back home to see your father's mistress? Is that part of the character
you...

Mr. PETTY: My father used to have many mistresses. I never made a specific
trip to meet them. But my dad was--he was hell on wheels, you know. He was
quite a character, and he was one of those people that was--somehow remained
likable although he was really a cad, you know. But I--you know, I don't
really know where that--I guess the line just popped into my head and seemed a
good way to start it.

GROSS: Now, something I want to mention about the track we just heard. You
know, it has that kind of jangly rhythm guitar that you play.

Mr. PETTY: Yeah.

GROSS: How did you start playing in that style?

Mr. PETTY: I don't know. It just appeared. I think we were inspired a lot
by Roger McGuinn of the Byrds and his 12-string playing, and it was just
something that came to me naturally, and I kind of took it from there, and I
think we've developed it into our own thing. But I'm sure it comes back--you
know, from the Byrds. You hear that sound in a lot of early '60s records.
The Beatles used it a lot, and Dylan used it. And between myself and Mike
Campbell, our guitarist, we just make that sound when we play now. I'm not
really as conscious of it as other people are, but it just kind of happens.

GROSS: You grew up in Gainesville, Florida.

Mr. PETTY: Yeah.

GROSS: I think there's a branch of the University of Florida in Gainesville,
right?

Mr. PETTY: It is there, the University of Florida, the whole thing.

GROSS: So were you in a college part of Gainesville or were you in a
different part of town?

Mr. PETTY: No, I was in the redneck, hillbilly part. I wasn't part of the
academic circle, but it's an interesting place because you can meet almost any
kind of person from many walks of life because of the university. But it's
really surrounded by this kind of very rural kind of people that are--you
know, they're farmers or, you know, tractor drivers or, you know, just all
kinds of--game wardens, you name it, you know. So it's an interesting blend.
My family wasn't involved in the college, you know. They were more of just
your white trash kind of, you know, family. And so I have that kind of
background, but I always kind of aspired to be something else, and I made a
lot of different friends over the years that were, you know, passing through.

GROSS: What did your parents do for a living?

Mr. PETTY: Well, my mother worked in the tax collector's office as a clerk,
and my dad had a variety of jobs, you know, from--at one point, he owned the
only grocery store in the black part of town. The only black grocery store
that catered exclusively to black people, and so I used to go down there when
I was quite young, and I would--I was just put out in the back, and so it was
unusual to me that I'd play all day with black kids, and then they'd bring me
back to our, you know, our little suburb that we lived in, and it was all
white kids, you know. And then from there, he went--he did a whole line of
different jobs of--being an insurance salesman, a truck driver, all kinds of
different things.

GROSS: Now you had an uncle--I guess this is a famous story in your life
because you got to meet Elvis Presley on a movie set when you were 11 through
an uncle of yours who was doing something on the set, though I'm not sure
what.

Mr. PETTY: Yeah. Yeah. I had an uncle by marriage who was the kind of--he
was very into film. He was the guy in town that developed all the film and he
had a movie camera. He used to film the college basketball practices and
football practices, and when a movie came nearby, as a lot of them did around
northern Florida, he would usually hire onto the set and work in some
capacity. And he was working on an Elvis Presley movie in 1961, I think,
"Follow That Dream" it was called. And I was invited there by my aunt, who
drove me down to see Elvis, and I really didn't have much idea of who Elvis
was. I was only 11. But we did indeed go there, and it was quite a circus,
you know. A lot of, as you'd expect, you know, mobs in the street, and he was
just back from the Army and--but I didn't really talk with him. I mean, he
just sort of nodded my way, you know.

I was introduced by my uncle as, you know, this is--`These are my nephew'--and
my two cousins were with me, and he just--I don't remember what he said
really, but I was very impressed by it. And when I went home, I kind of
scoured the neighborhood and came up with some old Elvis records, and I
started listening to them, and they really took me over. You know, these were
all '50s records, and I had a friend whose older sister had gone to college
and left this beautiful box of 45s of rock 'n' roll, you know, from the '50s,
and I loved it, you know. It just spoke to me. It seemed like such a magical
place, you know.

And the odd thing was, in those days, there was no information about the
records, you know. I was dying to know stuff about them, and there was no
such thing then as a book on rock 'n' roll or...

GROSS: Or liner notes.

Mr. PETTY: Yeah. There were fan magazines but there was nothing really, you
know, intelligent, you know.

GROSS: Mm-hm.

Mr. PETTY: You could read Elvis' favorite color but you didn't know, you
know, much about the records. And, finally, I did find a book in England--I
had to send away to England and pay a buck, send a buck to England, and they
sent me a discography that lined up how the records, you know, came out and
when they were made and this and that. And so from there I got really
interested in all the--you know, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, all these
people. I was just this 11-year-old kid, and I was already, you know, not
involved with my own generation. Until, you know, until The Beatles came, I
sort of felt--and the Stones and all that British invasion--I kind of felt
that was my generation, and that was interesting to me because they were
playing this '50s music in a slightly different way.

GROSS: So how long did it take after that until you started to play something
yourself?

Mr. PETTY: Well, the idea had never dawned on me until I saw The Beatles on
"The Ed Sullivan Show," like so many musicians did. When I saw it, you know,
I didn't think you could just become a rock 'n' roll singer. I didn't see how
it could happen, you know, because you needed to be in a movie and have the
music appear on the beach and stuff, so I didn't see how one would get that
together, you know. So when I saw The Beatles, it sort of hit me like a
lightning bolt to the brain that, `Oh I see,' you know. You have your friends
and you all learn an instrument, and you're a self-contained unit. This is
brilliant, you know. This is a--this looks like a great, great job to me, and
apparently it did to lots of people because very quickly after that, there
were bands forming, you know, in garages all over town, and I was just one in,
you know, thousands of little bands that started then in around '64, '65.

BIANCULLI: Tom Petty speaking to Terry Gross in 2006.

More after a break. This is FRESH AIR.

(Announcements)

BIANCULLI: Let's get back to Terry's 2006 interview with musician Tom Petty,
who will perform the halftime show at this year's Super Bowl. But first,
here's a hit from the first Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers album. From 1976
"American Girl."

(Soundbite of "American Girl")

Mr. PETTY: (Singing)
Well, she was an American girl raised on promises.
She couldn't help thinking that there was a little more life somewhere else.
After all, it was a great big world with lots of places to run to.
Yeah, and if she had to die trying,
she had one little promise she was gonna keep.
Oh, yeah, all right, take it easy, baby, make it last all night.

Unidentified Singers: (Singing) Make it last all night.

Mr. PETTY: (Singing) She was an American girl.
Well, it was kind of cold that night.

(End of soundbite)

GROSS: "American Girl." My guest is Tom Petty.

Now earlier you were talking about how, you know, Roger McGuinn and the Byrds
influenced you and influenced your guitar sound. He later recorded this song.
What did it mean to you to, years later, after having been influenced by him,
to have him record your song?

Mr. PETTY: Well, I was stunned. I couldn't believe it. And you know, I
couldn't believe, you know--people said, `You sound like the Byrds." Well, we
couldn't believe that we would, you know, even have the talent to sound like
the Byrds, you know. So we--I was very taken aback by it, and I was quickly
invited over to meet Roger McGuinn, and I was very intimidated but I went over
and met him, and he told me that--he said, `When I first heard this record, I
thought it was, for a few minutes, I thought it was a Byrds outtake.' And he
invited us to go on tour with him and we did go out on tour and became
friends. We're still friends to this day really.

GROSS: Did you become any more or less conscious or self-conscious about his
influence on you when you were working and touring with him?

Mr. PETTY: Well, we always wanted very much to create our own sound, you
know. We knew that if we became just clones of something, it wasn't going to
last long, and so, you know, I just--I tried to take whatever influences I had
and make them meld together into something that was our own sound. And we
somehow did that, I don't know how. But, you know, if you listen to those
records, you know, the earlier records we did--I mean, if you hear--I've heard
that we'd sound like Bob Dylan or we sound like the Byrds, but I can't picture
the Byrds doing "Refugee" or Bob Dylan doing that or, you know, "Breakdown" or
things like that. I think we did find our own sound. But everyone in music
certainly comes from, you know, they all are influenced by other artists.

BIANCULLI: Tom Petty speaking to Terry Gross in 2006. We'll hear more music
and conversation from Tom Petty in the second half of the show.

I'm Dave Bianculli and this is FRESH AIR.

(Soundbite of "Don't Do Me Like That")

Mr. PETTY: (Singing)
I was talking with a friend of mine.
He said a woman had hurt his pride.
She told him that she loved him so
and then turned around and let him go.
Then he said, `You better watch your step
or you gonna get hurt yourself.
Someone's gonna tell you lies,
cut you down to size.'
Don't do me like that.
Don't do me like that.
Well, I love you baby.
Don't do me like that.
Don't do me like that.

(End of soundbite)

(Announcements)

BIANCULLI: This is FRESH AIR. I'm David Bianculli in for Terry Gross. We're
listening to Terry's interview with singer, songwriter and guitarist Tom
Petty. Petty will be appearing on Fox TV this Sunday before the biggest
television audience of the year, as the halftime entertainment for the Super
Bowl. He'll be back on tour this spring.

GROSS: Let me play another song that was--it's a great song and it was a very
popular one of yours. Johnny Cash recorded this song late in his life, and
the song is "I Won't Back Down," which you recorded in 1989. I know it's hard
to talk about writing songs, but is there a story behind this one?

Mr. PETTY: Hmm. I wrote this song with Jeff Lynne. We wrote it in the
studio while we were mixing another song, and it came very quickly, and I was
actually worried about it. I thought that it was maybe just too direct. You
know, I thought, `Well, there isn't really anything to hide behind here,' you
know. It's very bold and very blunt. There's not a lot of metaphor or any,
you know, anywhere to go, and--but I was encouraged by Jeff that, you know,
`No, it's really good. You should record this and go ahead with it.' And it's
turned out to be, maybe, you know, the one song that's had the most influence
on people that approach me on the street or talk to me in a restaurant or
wherever I go, or mail that I've gotten over the years. It's been really
important to a lot of people in their lives. And I'm glad I wrote it, and I'm
kind of proud of it these days, and I was very, very proud when Johnny Cash
did it.

GROSS: Well, let's hear it. From 1989, this is Tom Petty.

(Soundbite of "I Won't Back Down")

Mr. PETTY: (Singing)
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.
Gonna stand my ground,
won't be turned around.
And I'll keep this world from dragging me down.
Gonna stand my ground, and I won't back down."

Mr. PETTY and The Heartbreakers: (Singing) I won't back down. Hey, baby.

Mr. PETTY: (Singing) There ain't no easy way out.

Mr. PETTY and The Heartbreakers: (Singing) "Hey, yeah."

Mr. PETTY: (Singing) I'll stand my ground.
And I won't back down.
Well, I know what's right. I...

(End of soundbite)

GROSS: That's Tom Petty, recorded in 1989. He has a new CD that's called
"Highway Companion."

You recorded that song just a couple of years after an arsonist burned down
your house. The house was set on fire while you and your family were in it.
Did your instincts kick in like they were supposed to when you realized that
your house was on fire and that you and your wife and child had to get out of
there?

Mr. PETTY: They kick in very fast, you know, when your house is on fire.
Yeah. They kicked in really fast, and it was a pretty horrific thing to
happen, and I did just survive with the--you know, with the clothes on my
back, but I don't know--maybe, you know, that had something to do with the
song, like "I Won't Back Down" and things, because I felt really elated that
they didn't get me, you know, like I kind of just--that was the thought that
was going through my head is `Whoa, you bastards, you didn't get me,' you
know. `I survived.' But it's very hard to even believe that someone wants to
kill you, you know. It's a very hard thing to go through. And, you know,
when the police and the arson people are telling me that, you know, someone
did it, I'm just going, `Well, surely, there's a mistake,' you know. `It must
have been a bad wire' or, you know. And you know, they were absolutely sure,
there was no mistake. So the interesting thing about that is how many people
called and confessed the following day.

GROSS: You're kidding. Really?

Mr. PETTY: You know? Yeah, they were confessing from all over America, and
it was like, you know, people in New Jersey would call and confess.
It--that--then I realized just how bonkers people are, you know. It's like,
there--you know, there are some people that are really bonkers, and you have
to be careful. But, you know, that was, you know, that--I never really talked
about that much because it stunned me so, so deeply, and I'm sure it had a
great effect on the music I did, because I came back with this very positive,
happy kind of music, that I didn't want to go into any dark corner or anything
like that. I was just so glad to be alive and to have escaped something like
that, and, you know, it was also really traumatic and terrible, but part of it
made me really be extra glad to just be alive.

GROSS: Did you ever find out who the arsonist was?

Mr. PETTY: Oh, no, no, we never did. And they certainly tried for years,
you know, but they never caught him.

GROSS: Did it make you more suspicious of fans, thinking that maybe it was
one of your fans who had, you know, been mentally ill, who tried to...

Mr. PETTY: No.

GROSS: ...kill you?

Mr. PETTY: Well, it makes you--unfortunately, it makes you a little wary of
people, you know, in general, that you don't know, and you know, you do have
to have security people and that kind of thing when you're going to be in a
public situation. And, you know, that's unfortunate but, you know, that's
just part of public life, I guess. You know, there's always some--there's
always the chance that someone's going to be a little shaky out there.

GROSS: Of everything that you lost in the fire, which was, I guess, virtually
everything you owned, what do you miss the most and what surprises you that
you never really missed it?

Mr. PETTY: You know, I mostly missed photographs and, you know, all the
video I had of my children when they were young. Things like that I really
missed. And to tell you the truth, there wasn't anything else I really cared
about. You know, I didn't--it's funny like you accumulate stuff so fast, too,
you know. I went from, you know--it was quite a big house full of stuff--and
went from that to just living in a hotel room with nothing, and you know, in a
year or two, you've accumulated so much junk, you just go, `My God, I can't
believe this!' But, you know, you learn very quickly that nothing else really
mattered much.

GROSS: I know you had another bad period in your life in the late '90s, a bad
depression. You separated from your first wife. I read that you lived in a
cabin for a while. I guess at some point...

Mr. PETTY: That's depressing.

GROSS: That's depressing, right. Well, it sounded like it was a pretty--I
don't know, it sounds like it was a pretty rundown cabin, but you could tell
me about the cabin. But I guess like the elation of being alive only lasts so
long.

Mr. PETTY: You know, it's--being alive, you know, it's a challenge, isn't
it? I mean, I...

GROSS: Right. Right.

Mr. PETTY: But, you know, I--yeah, I lived in a cabin. It was really quite
a nice place I lived in, you know. It was in a beautiful, gorgeous kind of
wooded area, but the cabin was a little rundown, and I think that's where that
comes from, but I didn't mind at the time, you know. I just--I like the
outdoors, and I like big trees, and I like, you know--so that's where I
retreated to and...

GROSS: My impression was people were very worried about you at that time.

Mr. PETTY: Yeah. Yeah. I think they were. And I just kind of cut myself
off for a long time at that point and didn't really talk to a lot of people
and just dropped out for a while and went through, you know, a really tough
time, and I guess, you know, I'm OK now, you know. But it took me a while to
come back. I think that I just went through some bad, bad stuff, and it
finally just knocked me down and I retreated, and I think I was kind of, you
know--my wife, Dana, really, I think--you know, she wasn't my wife then, but
she was a very strong person, and I met her and she worked really hard at just
bringing me back to life, and I thank her for it, and then years later, we
married, and I'm OK now. Thank you.

GROSS: Did you work at all during this period?

Mr. PETTY: Yeah, yeah. I worked occasionally. Not at my best, I don't
think, but I did work and--but I think I was just walking around in a daze
most the time. I didn't really have a sense of direction.

BIANCULLI: Tom Petty speaking to Terry Gross in 2006.

More after a break. This is FRESH AIR.

(Announcements)

BIANCULLI: Let's join the concluding portion of Terry's 2006 interview with
Tom Petty. His latest CD is a solo album called "Highway Companion," and
he'll be performing Sunday as the halftime act at the Super Bowl.

GROSS: I want to play another record here, and this is one of Johnny Cash's
albums. On the album "Unchained," which was one of the albums he made later
in his life...

Mr. PETTY: Mm-hmm.

GROSS: ...in that great series of American recordings...

Mr. PETTY: Yeah, we backed him on that.

GROSS: Yeah. You and The Heartbreakers backed him up on this, and how--I
guess, of all the bands in the world, how did you get to play with him?

Mr. PETTY: Well, we had been friends a long time, I think 20 years when we
did "Unchained." I mean, that...

GROSS: You and Johnny Cash had been friends?

Mr. PETTY: Yeah, we became friends back in the early '80s, and John had made
this--he was--you know, he was breaking out of a thing, too, where he had kind
of been disappointed in what he was doing in the Nashville world, you know,
and he made this acoustic album that was really brilliant. It was his first
American record, and then I guess the plan for the next one was to make a, you
know, a band record, with a band, and he came to me, him and Rick Ruben,
actually at a time--the time we were talking about when I was going through a
pretty tough period. And they called me one day, both of them on the phone,
and said, `Hey, why don't you come and play the bass on this record we're
going to do?' And I thought, `That's great,' you know. And so they got me out
of the house and then it grew from me playing the bass on the record to `Hey,
how about The Heartbreakers playing on the record?' And it was a wonderful
time, you know. We all went down and made a whole album with Johnny Cash, and
it's--I think it's some of the best playing The Heartbreakers ever did. You
know, it's--it was--it turned out just great. I love that album to this day.

GROSS: Well, here's a track from it. This is "Sea of Heartbreak," Johnny
Cash, with Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers playing.

(Soundbite of "Sea of Heartbreak")

Mr. PETTY: One, two, one, two, three, four.

Mr. JOHNNY CASH: (Singing)
The lights in the harbor don't shine for me.
I'm like a lost ship adrift on the sea.

Mr. CASH and Mr. PETTY: (Singing)
A sea of heartbreak, lost love and loneliness, memories of your caress.
So divine, how I wish you were mine.
Again, my dear, I'm on this sea of tears, sea of heartbreak.

Mr. CASH: (Singing)
Oh, how did I lose you, oh where did I fail?
Why did you leave me always to sail?
The sea of heartbreak.

Mr. CASH and Mr. PETTY: (Singing)
Lost love and loneliness, memories of your caress.
So divine, how I wish you were mine.
Again, my dear, I'm on this sea of tears, sea of heartbreak.

Mr. CASH: (Singing)
Oh, what I've give just to sail back to shore,
back to your arms once more.
Come to my rescue, oh come here to me.
Take me and keep me away from the sea.

Mr. CASH and Mr. PETTY: (Singing)
Sea of heartbreak, lost love and loneliness, memories of your caress.
So divine, how I wish you were mine.
Again, my dear, I'm on this sea of tears, sea of heartbreak.

Mr. CASH: (Singing) Oh, how did I lose you...

(End of soundbite)

GROSS: That's Johnny Cash, backed up by Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers. Tom
Petty is my guest.

I think that when you're young and you fall in love with a song, it has this
incredible impact on you, and the song just kind of stays in your mind for the
rest of your life, and every time you hear it, you think about what that song
meant to you and how your feelings about the song have evolved over the years.
And you have, like, a bunch of songs that have that kind of place in people's
minds, and I wonder if you think about that a lot. If you think about that
special place that great songs have in the lives of young people and teenagers
when they first hear them over and over.

Mr. PETTY: I know the songs mean a lot to people, and it means a lot to me.
You know, we just played this Bona Rue festival up in--well, it was in
Tennessee. And, you know, there were 80,000 people there, and they were
singing, you know, "I Won't Back Down" so loud that it nearly drowned us out,
you know. And I--you know, I was thinking at the time, you know, `God, this
is just so wonderful that this has reached people on this level, you know,
that the people know the words to these things, and it means something to
them.' So I don't want to sell them out if I don't have to, you know. And I
know that a lot of music has meant--you know, has been important to me. You
know, the rock 'n' roll stuff is more than just something that you can
manipulate into advertising or whatever they do with them. It means more than
that to me. Right or wrong, that's what--you know, that's the way I am.

GROSS: Well, Tom Petty, thank you so much, and congratulations on the new CD
and on, you know, 30 years with The Heartbreakers. That's kind of incredible.
Thanks so much...

Mr. PETTY: OK, well, thank you.

GROSS: ...for talking with us.

Mr. PETTY: Thanks for having me. It was nice to be here.

BIANCULLI: Tom Petty speaking to Terry Gross in 2006. It's now 32 years and
counting that he's been playing with the Heartbreakers. He'll be touring in
the spring and he'll be performing Sunday as the halftime entertainment at the
Super Bowl.

(Soundbite of music")

Mr. PETTY: You know sometimes I don't know why. but this old town just
seems so hopeless. I ain't really sure but it seems I remember the good times
were just a little bit more in focus.

(Singing)
But when she puts her arms around me
I can somehow rise above it
Yeah, man. when I got that little girl standing right by my side
You know, I can tell the whole wide world, shove it

Mr. PETTY and Unidentified Singer: (Singing)
Here comes my girl
Here comes my girl
Yeah, she looks so right
She's all I need tonight

(Speaking)
Every now and then I get down to the end of a day
I'll have to stop, ask myself what've I done
It just seems so useless to have to work so hard
And nothing ever really seem to come from it

(Singing) And then she looks me in the eye
and says we're gonna last forever
And man, you know, I can't begin to doubt it
No, because this feels so good and so free and so right
I know we ain't never going change out minds about it

Mr. PETTY and Singer: (Singing)
Hey, here comes my girl
Here comes my girl
Yeah, she looks so right
She's all I need tonight

(End of soundbite)

BIANCULLI: Coming up, Ken Tucker reviews The Magnetic Fields.

This is FRESH AIR.

(Announcements)

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Review: Rock critic Ken Tucker on the band The Magnetic Fields
DAVID BIANCULLI, host:

The Magnetic Fields is a band assembled by songwriter and singer Stephin
Merritt. The group's 1999 album "69 Love Songs" is widely considered one of
the most inventive and original collections of the past decade. The Magnetic
Fields' latest album, called "Distortion," marks a change in sound for
Merritt's music. Rock critic Ken Tucker has a review.

(Soundbite of music)

THE MAGNETIC FIELDS: (Singing)
I walk alone around the town
I used to walk with you
I walked alone, myself...(unintelligible)...
down Seventh Avenue
(Unintelligible)...
The mistletoe is hiding everywhere
but you no longer care
Oh...

(End of soundbite)

Mr. KEN TUCKER: Stephin Merritt is a cult rock star who perceives like a
poet. He likes to give himself formal challenges to inspire and give shape to
his creations. Where a poet might choose the rhyme and meter of a sonnet or a
sestina, Merritt will entitle an album "69 Love Songs" and then release a
collection of, indeed, 69 love songs. Four years ago he put out an album
called "i," every song of which began with the letter "I." Merritt has more in
common with writers such as Harry Matthews and the early John Ashbery than
bands like Arcade Fire or Radiohead, but these formal constraints become
freeing devices for both cleverness and occasionally something deeper. To be
sure, he's plenty clever. Listen to Magnetic Fields member Shirley Simms sing
Merritt's impertinent answer song to the Beach Boys' "California Girls."

(Soundbite of music)

Ms. SHIRLEY SIMMS: (Singing)
See them on the big bright screen
tan and blonde and seventeen
Eating nonfood keeps them mean
but they're young forever
If they must grow up
they marry dukes and earls
I hate California girls

(End of soundbite)

Mr. TUCKER: The cavalier way that catchy lyric delivers the sentiment "I
hate California girls," is typical of Stephin Merritt's impishness, but by now
you've probably noticed something about the music. It sounds like sludge,
doesn't it? That's because Merritt is living up to his album's title,
"Distortion," recording his songs with dense layers of fractured feedback,
white noise, and muddy beats. Nonetheless, there are moments of grand beauty
on this album; and on no song is that beauty more gravely apparent than the
gorgeous, brokenhearted love song "I'll Dream Alone."

(Soundbite of music)

THE MAGNETIC FIELDS: (Singing)
Long and lonely nights
I've waited for you to put things to right
Leaving you to do your thing
without disturbance from me
Somehow I doubt you'll ever be back
I'll be your fate if you ever need them
the phone still rings
and now that you're free of me at last
your time is your own
go have a blast
and I'll dream alone without you
I'll dream alone...(unintelligible)...
So I'll dream alone

(End of soundbite)

Mr. TUCKER: Even Stephin Merritt's sonorous, flat voice complements the
distortion on "Distortion" very nicely. His extravagant unhappiness on "I'll
Dream Alone" becomes our enjoyment, at his best, our euphoria. Generally on
this album, Merritt sings the melancholy songs himself. I recommend the
not-suitable-for-radio "Too Drunk to Dream" in this area. Merritt gives
Shirley Simms the more playful moments, such as "The Nun's Litany," an impious
list of wishes.

(Soundbite of "The Nun's Litany" sung by Simms)

Mr. TUCKER: Merritt has said the style of this album was inspired by
"Psychocandy," the superbly abrasive 1985 album by the Scottish band The Jesus
and Mary Chain. Merritt told The New York Times its sound was, quote, "The
last significant event in pop production." Chances are the next Magnetic
Fields album won't sound anything like this. But for now, hearing Merritt's
morose witty obsessions in this sonic context is intensely pleasurable.

BIANCULLI: Ken Tucker is editor at large for Entertainment Weekly. He
reviewed "Distortion," by The Magnetic Fields.

(Soundbite of music)

(Credits)

BIANCULLI: For Terry Gross, I'm David Bianculli.

(Soundbite of music)
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