Tom’s Running Down a Dream

Last year was rightly heralded as being a bad one for the music world, with numerous stars leaving us too soon.

The chameleonic-genius that was David Bowie. The hugely talented, diminutive, star with just the one name – Prince. 80s pop-God with the amazing vocal range, George Michael.

Each were individuals I admired and appreciated for their raw talent, their influence on others, and their contributions to my listening pleasure through the 1970s, ‘80s, and beyond.

But the news this week that American rocker Tom Petty had died, as the age of 66, hit me harder than Bowie, Prince or Michael, or any of the other talented musicians and singers we’ve lost in recent times.

Unless you count briefly landing there on the way to a holiday in Mexico, I’ve never been to the USA. I’m not specifically a fan of American music, but something about Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers’ songs struck a chord with me.

At a point in my life when I couldn’t have been more into music unless I lived inside a loudspeaker, Tom’s tunes were joyous rock, with wry and witty lyrics. 1989’s “Full Moon Fever”, co-produced by his friend and ELO mastermind Jeff Lynne, is a sublime album, with songs I couldn’t help but sing loudly, passionately - and badly - along to.

The follow-up, “Into the Great Wide Open” was another slice of brilliance, and although the singles from both didn’t get far into the Top 30 here, that only made it sweeter – I felt like I was onto something others couldn’t properly appreciate.

Amongst my other heroes around that time were Lynne and George Harrison, so to have both team up with Tom, Bob Dylan and Roy Orbison to form the Traveling Wilburys was the icing on a delicious musical cake that I devoured hungrily in my early 20s.

Petty and band continued to release fantastic albums through the ‘90s, ‘00s and this decade too, and completed their 40th anniversary tour just a week before their leader’s untimely death from a heart attack.

That two of my work colleagues, both of them 40ish, recognised his name but couldn’t think of a song of his, perhaps suggests that his popularity had waned, but the quality certainly hadn’t.

The tributes from his peers revealed the depth of appreciation and love they had for him, with Paul McCartney, Bob Dylan and Brian Wilson amongst those singing his praises.

I had the pleasure of seeing Petty live, at Wembley Arena, in the late 80s. My ears ringing afterwards, and my voice hoarse from singing along at full tilt, I was yet to realise there would be few gigs in my future that would equal the sheer joy of that experience.

Somewhat prophetically, Tom told Rolling Stone magazine at the end of the last year that the tour he was embarking on “might be the last big one”. His friend, Lynne, said he was “The coolest guy I ever knew”. Thanks, Tom. Time for you to run down that dream.

This post first appeared as my "Thank grumpy it's Friday" column, in The Mail, on the 6th of October 2017. Whilst it didn't appear on their website, a search on "Petty" pulls up an article listed as "Go to article". Should you accept that invitation, you get my original column header graphic and the mysterious text "Thank grumpy it's Friday - BLURB VERSION"... and that's it. Methinks an error has occurred.

Meanwhile, the print version was re-titled as "Tom brought joy into rock", and features a typo meaning George Michael gets described as a "pop-hod".

Wow. Still can't quite believe that he's gone. Tom Petty's music reminds of happy, sunny days with friends, of a time when I wasn't older, grumpier and achy, of just being able to enjoy getting lost in music without being distracted by all the trappings and frustrations of modern life. Great music. Great guy. Greatly missed.

(CD A-Z: Scissor Sisters - "Ta-Dah".)

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