Title: Tom Petty dies of heart attack -- age 66 Source:
Internet URL Source:[None] Published:Oct 2, 2017 Author:YouTubes Post Date:2017-10-02 16:40:35 by Willie Green Ping List:*Music*Subscribe to *Music* Keywords:None Views:834 Comments:12
Tom Petty one of my favorite artists. I always wanted to see him. Something was always going on or he was far away. Some places say he isn't dead. Lets pray that that is the case.
Here is something about the song you quote. Wouldn't want you to remain ignorant.
An arsonist set fire to Tom Petty’s L.A. home in May 1987, burning most of the house to the ground. While his wife and daughter stayed at a friend’s place in Beverly Hills, Tom began rebuilding the house on the exact same plot of land, using his basement recording studio – one of the few rooms to survive the blaze – as the foundation. He wasn’t going to back down to any firestarter.
The house was still under construction by the time Thanksgiving rolled around. The Pettys, who’d already spent half a year in someone else’s home, were getting restless. Deciding that a game of softball was the best way to blow off steam, Tom got into his car and went out in search of baseball mitts.
“I was going to drive down to the Sav-On in Beverly Hills and buy a dozen ball mitts so everybody could play ball,” he tells author Paul Zollo in Conversations with Tom Petty. “[It] was the only place open on Thanksgiving Day. So I’m at the traffic light, and I look over to my left, and there’s Jeff Lynne, who I’d only just recently seen in England. So I honked my horn, and he turned around, and we pulled over.”
Petty and Lynne talked for a few minutes, reconnected during the Christmas holidays, and formed the Traveling Wilburys in early 1988. When Petty started writing songs for a solo album later that year, he naturally went to Lynne for help. Full Moon Fever was the result of that collaboration, and “I Won’t Back Down” was the album’s first single.
A defiant song about standing up to one’s enemies, “I Won’t Back Down” is directed at the person who set Petty’s house ablaze. “Gonna stand my ground / won’t be turned around,” goes a line in the first verse, which calls to mind the charred ground where his original home once stood. Despite his personal connection to the lyrics, though, Petty turned “I Won’t Back Down” into an anthem for anyone struggling against some sort of oppression. The song isn’t really about a house fire. It’s about resilience.
Petty certainly knew a lot about resilience at the time. Several weeks before the house fire, he successfully sued a tire company for mimicking one of his songs, “Mary’s New Car,” in a TV commercial. A few years before that, he waged a public battle with his own label, MCA Records, after the company tried to charge customers a higher sales price for his 1981 album Hard Promises. The Heartbreakers were waging a few battles of their own, too, and drummer Stan Lynch was already planning his exit by the time Full Moon Fever rolled around. “I Won’t Back Down” became Tom Petty’s musical motto, a song that summed up everything he stood for in less than three minutes.
Like many Tom Petty tunes, the lyrics are simple and direct. The arrangement is straightforward, too, a rarity on an album filled with Jeff Lynne’s multi-layered production. Sometimes, the easiest way to say something is to just say it, and “I Won’t Back Down” speaks volumes.
“I Won’t Back Down”
Well 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’ll 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
Hey baby, there ain’t no easy way out Hey I, I’ll stand my ground And I won’t back down
Well I know what’s right I got just one life In a world that keeps on pushin’ me around but I’ll stand my ground And I won’t back down
Hey baby, there ain’t no easy way out Hey I, I’ll stand my ground And I won’t back down
Before recording Full Moon Fever, an arsonist burned down Tom Petty's house while he was in it with his family and their housekeeper. They escaped and spent much of the next few months driving between hotel rooms and a rented house, but Petty was badly shaken.
It was on these drives that he came up with many of the songs for the album, and the fire was a huge influence, especially on this song. Petty felt grateful to be alive, but also traumatized - understandable since someone had tried to kill him.
"I Won't Back Down" was his way of reclaiming his life and getting past the torment - he said that writing and recording the song had a calming effect on him.
The arsonist was never caught, which made Petty's plight even more challenging. As for motive, there was no direct connection made, but 11 days earlier, Petty won a lawsuit against the B.F. Goodrich tire company for $1 million. Goodrich wanted to use Petty's song "Mary's New Car" in a TV commercial, and when he wouldn't let them, their advertising agency commissioned a copycat song that the judge felt was too similar. http://www.songfacts.com/detail.php?id=1070
She's a good girl, loves her mama Loves Jesus and America too She's a good girl, crazy 'bout Elvis Loves horses and her boyfriend too
It's a long day, living in Reseda There's a freeway running through the yard And I'm a bad boy 'cause I don't even miss her I'm a bad boy, for breaking her heart
All the vampires walking through the valley Move west down Ventura boulevard And all the bad boys are standing in the shadows And the good girls are home with broken hearts
Like many Tom Petty tunes, the lyrics are simple and direct. The arrangement is straightforward, too, a rarity on an album filled with Jeff Lynne’s multi-layered production.
For those of you who don't know,when you hear the name Jeff Lynne,think "Electric Light Orchestra.
These guys.
In the entire history of the world,the only nations that had to build walls to keep their own citizens from leaving were those with leftist governments.
