All language subtitles for Tom.Petty.And.The.Heartbreakers.Runnin.Down.A.Dream.2007.1080p.BluRay.x264.AAC5.1-[YTS.MX].eng

♪ Tonight we ride

♪ Right or wrong

♪ Tonight we sail

♪ On a radio song

♪ Rescue me

♪ Should I go down

♪ If I stay too long

♪ In trouble town

♪ Oh...

♪ yeah...

♪ You wreck me, baby

♪ Yeah, you break me in two

♪ But you move me, honey

♪ Yes, you do... ♪

The first time
you hear a new Tom Petty song,

it sounds like, you know, a classic song.

♪ Well, if I don't win

♪ Well, I'm gonna break even... ♪

Well, I've always

sort of considered them
an institution, you know.

They're one of those bands
that just have to be.

They just have to be.

♪ If I stay too long

♪ Oh... ♪

♪ Yeah... ♪

I think I started

to become aware of Tom Petty around 1977.

1978... big fan of Tom Petty.

If Tom Petty and the
Heartbreakers had said,

"Leave Fleetwood Mac and come and join us,"

I would probably have joined.

Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers.

It's like a lost art,
what they do... great players,

great band interaction,

great songwriting, and it shows

when you go to see their
concert, and, you know,

it'll be two and a half hours,

and you could sing along with every song.

It's... it's mind-numbing how
many great songs they have.

It's really the essence

of rock and roll, which is about

freedom and rebellion.

It's about doing what you want to do

and pursuing your dreams,

and, and, oh, you know,

it's about all the most important stuff.

It's about speaking the truth.

He is a
world-class songwriter,

one of the great songwriters

in the rock era.

It's just the sound
that he makes and the attitude he has.

You know, his records are
so good and unusual,

usually, like, from a
lyrical point of view.

It's quite amazing
that the Heartbreakers

have just kept going,

and the fact that they're getting

bigger and bigger as well

is quite a remarkable thing after 30 years.

It's just, I don't think anybody else

has ever been in that position.

It was smart, you know,

even if you didn't know it at the time.

It was... It was smart... music.

He sort of defies

any kind of category, really.

It's just Tom Petty.

♪ I'll be the boy

♪ In the corduroy pants

♪ You'll be the girl

♪ At the high school dance

♪ You'll run with me

♪ Wherever I go

♪ And just play down

♪ Whatever you know

♪ Oh...

♪ Yeah...

♪ You wreck me, baby

♪ Yeah, you break me in two

♪ But you move me, honey

♪ Yes, you do. ♪

♪ Headed back down south... ♪

I was born in Gainesville, Florida, USA.

It was a little town in the '50s.

So I was born in 1950.

There was a very southern contingent there.

There's kind of a... a farming element,

and then there's the university,

so you had this mix of people.

You could run across just about
any kind of person there.

And I remember it fondly, growing up.

It was just big enough
that, you know, it had

two movie theaters, which was great.

You know, I liked westerns.

I was just obsessed with westerns.

♪ I wish I was an apple... ♪

That's a good one.

♪ Hangin' in a tree

♪ And every time my sweetheart passed

♪ She'd take a bite of me. ♪

I always liked
the idea of the guitar,

because cowboys played the guitar.

♪ Keep a-movin, a-move along

♪ Keep a-movin, a-move along

I must have been
ten or 11 years old.

My aunt came over and said,

"Elvis Presley is making a movie,

"and your uncle's working on the picture,

"and I... I thought maybe
you'd like to go down one day

and watch the filming, see Elvis."

♪ I gotta follow that dream... ♪

The streets were just
packed with hundreds of people.

Elvis appeared like,

you know, a vision.

He didn't look like anything I'd ever seen.

You know, I'm just... dumbstruck.

And my uncle said to him, "Elvis",

this is my family, this
is my nephew, da-da-da,"

and Elvis kind of went, "yeah," you know,

and moved on, you know.

I went home a changed man.

♪ When your heart gets restless... ♪

When I hit the street the next day,

I was trying to find some
Elvis Presley records.

♪ You ain't nothin'
but a hound dog... ♪

The music just hypnotized me.

And I played these records

to the point my parents began to worry

that something was wrong with me.

Hey, you guys, there's that

rock and roll cowboy I told you about.

♪ Oh, baby, let me... ♪

On a visual level,
I thought rock and roll

was twice as cool because
these guys played guitars.

The hook was in really deep.

I'm in about the fifth grade,

and I'm playing 1950s records,

and it's all I want to talk about.

Even the other kids thought it was weird.

I didn't have the faintest
dream of being a musician

or anything like that.

I just loved to listen to it.

Ladies and gentlemen, the Beatles!

Let's bring 'em out.

And when I was 13,

the Beatles came, and in those few minutes

when they hit The Ed Sullivan show,

it all became clear, you know.

This... This is what I'm going to do.

This is how you do it.

♪ Close your eyes and I'll kiss you

♪ Tomorrow, I'll miss you

♪ Remember, I'll always be true... ♪

Within 24 hours,

everything had changed.

♪ All my lovin'

♪ I will send to you... ♪

♪ Girl, you really got me goin'

♪ You got me so I don't know what I'm doin'

The more hardcore of us
started to grow our hair long.

Instantly...

I want a guitar.

My dad,

one of the nicer things he did for me

was he threw down 35 bucks,
bought me an electric guitar,

because I just wouldn't shut up about it.

♪ I don't want you washin' my clothes

♪ I don't want you

♪ To keep my home

♪ I don't want 'cause I'm sad and blue

♪ I just want to make
love to you, baby... ♪

He was more obsessed with rock and roll

than anyone I had ever met.

He wasn't into

a lot of other things except
maybe girls, you know.

I wanted a group.

I set about scouring the neighbourhoods

for anybody that owned instruments,

that could play instruments,

and we just struck gold.

I will never forget it.

We went to my house.

We all plugged into the same amplifier,

found something we all knew.

Wham, the heavens split.

Like, this sound was incredible.

It was the biggest rush of my life.

Wow, you know, we're doing it, you know.

We're making this music.

♪ If that private eye can't see

♪ He better not take the ring from me... ♪

We went to the
dance, really nervous,

but we all got blue shirts,

and we started to play.

We were a huge success.

Everybody dug it.

We played our three songs, and, uh...

everybody yelled for more.

So we played them again.

♪ Bo Diddley bought an ol' alley cat... ♪

Then we started working.

The Epics were playing the hits of the day.

The group practiced

at least five days a week.

That first time we got paid,

my mom really thought I
had stolen the money

and was, like, really concerned

that I'd taken up a life of crime.

We thought the Epics was too corny a name,

so we picked this really terrible one...

Mudcrutch.

♪ I live on the west side

♪ By the county reservoir

♪ She lives down on Depot Street

♪ Behind the city hall

♪ Behind the city hall... ♪

"Mudcrutch." We all liked it

'cause it kind of sounded
dirty and decrepit.

It sounded like something that adults

and straight people wouldn't understand

or wouldn't approve of, you know.

We, we liked that.

We had realised that

if we wanted to truly
make a living doing this,

we were gonna have to develop

songwriting, so we wanted
to play original music.

I was playing the bass, Tom
was playing the guitar.

And Jim Lenahan, who was singing lead.

We were looking for another
guitarist and a drummer.

We had put an ad in Lippo Music,

the local music store that was the hub

of the music scene in Gainesville.

We went out to audition
the drummer at his house.

I said,
"Well, I live at this farm.

It's a perfect place to play."

So they came over, and we all

set up and played, and we took a break.

And they said, "well, you
know, it sounds pretty cool",

"But, you know, what we really need is,

we'd like to have two guitar players."

And I said, "well, my friend
is in the back room here",

and he plays guitar."

And I heard him yell,

"Mike, can you play rhythm guitar?"

And this voice comes
back, "oh, I think so."

And into the room walks Mike Campbell.

He's wearing cut-off jeans

which I've never seen him wear since.

That's when I first met Tom.
He was playing bass.

And he's carrying
this 80 Japanese guitar,

and at that point, we all
kind of looked at the ground,

like, "Oh, no."

This guy's bound to be terrible."

And Mike kicks off "Johnny B Goode,"

and we aren't looking
at the drummer anymore.

So the song ended, and I just said,

"Hey, you're in our band."

And he's like, "Oh, I don't know."

I said, "I know. You're in the band."

And we were fast friends right away.

♪ When your baby leaves you all alone

♪ And nobody calls you on the phone... ♪

There's this snag that Mike

is going to college,

enrolled at the University of Florida,

and I said, you know, "you
don't want to do that."

He's like, "oh, I don't know," you know.

And I can't believe now that
I had that much gumption,

but I talked him into quitting school.

But I said, "let's get the band together",

"and we'll make a record,
and that'll be your job.

"You're going to make tons of money,

"More money than you'll ever make

going to the University of Florida."

Then his next complaint was,
"well, what about the army?"

'Cause, you know, Vietnam was going on.

And you got a deferment
if you went to school.

I'm sure he played then
as well as he does now,

and I wasn't going to lose him.

He was pretty upset

that I might go in the army. He
kind of talked me out of it.

I was like, "ah, we'll
handle that," you know.

I had no idea how we'd handle it,

but I just kept saying,
"we'll get around the army."

You know, that's...

I should thank him for that.

I might not be here at all.

The cool thing about Tom was
he did have a couple of songs

he'd written, and all the
other songs were like,

you know, cover songs.

But I thought that he had
something on the ball

with his songwriting,

'cause not too many
people around the college

were really writing their own songs.

♪ I was talking with a friend of mine

♪ Some woman had hurt his pride... ♪

Mike Campbell, we tried
to get him to sing harmonies,

but he was so shy.

We put a mike in front of him,

turned it up as loud as we could,

and you still couldn't hear him.

He was such a fantastic guitarist.

His fingers did his
talking for him, I guess.

♪ Don't do me like that

♪ What if I love you, baby?

♪ Don't do me like that... ♪

So the next step was...
the main club in Gainesville

that paid any money was
this place called Dubs,

Dubs Steer Room,

because they also served steaks.

And I had never played in a bar.

The Epics played teen dances
and things like that,

but we were all too young to work,

to get, you know, permission
to work in a bar.

You worked five sets a
night, six days a week,

but you all got 100 bucks
at the end of the week.

The real feature of dubs
was six topless dancers.

You know, we got down to the club,

and it hadn't really registered to me

what topless dancing really was, you know.

And we played two or three
songs, and they came walking up,

one on each side, started dancing,

and started removing their
tops, and everyone in the band

was just getting all blush-faced
and just looking at each other.

We were just, you know, playing like this.

And the music almost stopped completely.

And I started thinking,

I'm going to like this
professional musician thing.

♪ Don't do me like that

♪ Don't do me like that

♪ What if I love you, baby?

♪ Don't do me like that... ♪

We would do a lot of
songs that were album songs

that the club owner would go,
"We want our top 40," you know,

so we'd just play like a Neil Young song,

and say it was a number-one
hit or something,

or we'd do one of our
own and say, you know,

that was by Santana or something.

And they didn't know the
difference, you know.

And as we were playing Dubs,

I was hanging with this guy,
hanging in his apartment.

One night the door opens,
and this guy comes in,

and he's got an armful of records

and a big bushy beard and
hair down over his shoulders,

and I said, you know, "So
what's your name, man?"

He says, "it's Benmont Tench."

I go, "Benmont Tench..."

you're not the kid that plays the piano?"

"Yeah, that's me."

Benmont I knew when he
was just a little guy.

He couldn't have been more than 11 or 12.

He came in to Lippo Music.

He began to play a Beatles
album on the organ,

and he played the entire album...

certainly the best
keyboardist I'd ever heard.

I love pianos. I can't stay away from them.

So if I'm in a music store,
I'm going to sit down

and play the piano until they say, "Stop."

And they did.

They said, "Kid, enough."

On a break from boarding school,

I went to see them play a bar.

I was underage.

They were great.

When they came off the stage,

if there even was a stage, it
was probably just a corner

of the bar, I don't remember,

you could see Tom had something going on.

You know, he had some kind of vibe,

even at the time, just playing some bar.

I go, "son of a bitch."

"What are you doing, you know?

What's up with you?"

He goes, "Oh, I go to
school in New Orleans",

and I got a band up there,
and I come back on breaks.

I'm like, "shit, man",

what are you doing
tomorrow night, you know?"

And he's, "I don't know, nothing."

And I said, "well, why don't
you come play with us?"

And he says, "well, how long do you play?"

I go, "oh, just, you know,
we play five hours."

He's like, "well, what about rehearsing?"

"Ah, don't worry about,
you know, rehearsing.

It'll be fine."

He was so good, you know,

and he had so much musical
training that none of us had.

He got up, and he
didn't have any rehearsal,

and he outplayed all of us for five hours.

♪ I can't fight it

♪ I can't keep myself from wanting you

♪ I can't fight it

♪ No matter what you say,
no matter what you do... ♪

The main thing was I really
loved the music that they made.

I think I was really looking for that thing

that the Beatles seemed to have,
which was just a bunch of guys

to hang around with,

like a gang, like a bunch of friends

that made music,

that all, you know,

loved a certain thing and did it.

♪ 'Cause I know what I want and I need

♪ And I can't fight it... ♪

You could never have
planned it or dreamed it up,

just two of the best musicians in the world

walked right into my life

and completely grasped what I wanted to do.

♪ You used to look wild-eyed... ♪

We were sitting
around the Mudcrutch farm,

as it became known later,

and we want to play for the kids.

We want to play some of these outdoor shows

that are so much fun.

And Mike had the idea, "let's
invite them all out here."

We had the place with about ten acres,

so we cleared an area there
at the side of the house,

and we invited a couple of
other bands on a Sunday.

We had the local health food
co-op bring some free food.

We just put posters around town,

and there were hundreds of people there,

maybe 1,500 people.

The police came the first time we had it

and said, "What the hell's
going on here," you know?

"Do you guys have a
license and everything?"

And luckily, you know, back then,

it was a simpler time, and they
said, you know, "Next time."

And so next time we got the license.

The second time,
we must have had 15 bands,

and from all over the South,

and it became quite a famous thing.

It got too big.

We had to quit, 'cause it was...

people were coming from other states.

That was really in some ways
some of the best times.

We were our own little entity.

We didn't have any controllers.

We did everything ourselves.

It was just a really good time.

♪ In the long run

♪ It made you feel
helpless and confined... ♪

Gainesville was just
in a perfect place to be.

You know, it was a little hippie town

with a liberal university

that allowed us to do so
many different things.

We had so many venues to
play and to experiment,

and it was really pretty cool.

You couldn't ask for more.

After about six months
or so, Jim left the band.

Tom became the singer.

Well, he was writing all the songs anyway.

It was kind of silly for him to
be writing songs for me to sing.

We had become the biggest
thing Gainesville had ever seen.

We felt we had to break out of there.

The whole point of the band
had been to make a record.

We heard there was a guy

who had a mobile recorder,
which was just a van

with a two-track recorder in it.

He came for one afternoon,

and we set up and played live
in Benmont's living room,

and the tape came out really good.

And I decided we should drive to L.A.

We had a whole stack of reel-to-reel tapes.

And we drove to L.A.

♪ Well I know I'm only one in a hundred

♪ And I know that you've
heard this before... ♪

None of us had been
west of the Mississippi,

you know, like...

it was a big deal.

♪ But this dream has become an obsession

♪ 'Cause I've held it inside for so long

♪ All my friends say I
should use discretion

♪ But I know I'm just not that strong... ♪

Our first stop was Playboy Records.

In those days, it had a
big Playboy bunny emblem

on the side.

And we must have looked pretty funny,

I mean, just having driven 3,000 miles.

And he brings us in the office.

"Look, guys, it's not done this way.

You just don't walk in."

And we said, "well, we're here,
and there's a tape deck",

"and why don't you put it
on and listen," you know?

And he played not quite 30 seconds

when he stopped the tape

and said, "I've heard enough,
get out of my office."

We're back on the street,

thinking, "This is going to
be harder than we thought."

The next day, start out the
day at Capitol Records.

They send us to the A&R department.

The guy says, "I like what I hear."

I'd really like to cut a demo."

Now, we go, "Well, we've
already made a demo."

So we left Capitol,
thinking, waste of time.

So I'm going to call ahead and
try to make an appointment

at a record company.

While I'm on the phone,
asking for the number,

I look down in the bottom of the booth,

and there's a piece of paper
lying there, and I picked it up.

On this paper, there's 25 record companies

and their phone numbers.

That made me feel good and bad,

good because I had the numbers,

bad because, "Christ, how
many people are doing this?"

MGM was there with the big lion,

and I said, "well, I've heard of them.
Let's go in there."

And we go in, the guy says,
"Okay, I'll listen to it."

He goes in and he listens to
the whole tape, and he says,

"I'd like to make a deal for a single."

Our eyes go up, and we said,

"Well, we're really looking
for an album deal."

And he goes, "you start out with a single",

and if the single goes good,
we'll talk about an album."

So we hit the street,
just leaping in the air.

All right,

got a single, but we got more places to go.

The next stop was a label
called London Records.

He plays our tape.

He plays the whole thing,

and he starts clapping his hands
and jumping around going,

"This is fantastic. You got a deal."

We just looked at him, you know.

"I want to hear the band right away.

I mean, I want to make a record.
This is great."

"Well, the band's in Gainesville, Florida."

"Well, go get 'em!"

I call Mike

and said, "Guess what," you know?

"We got two record offers."

He goes, "you're crazy."

"No, we've really done it."

So we made the trip back
and went up to Ben's place

and said, "Look, this is it with school."

We're going to make records."

I do remember having to go to his father,

who was a big-time judge,
very intimidating,

and I had to talk him into
letting his son quit college.

And I made a pretty good case.

There was never any doubt
in his mind at all.

Like a week after he left, he
comes walking into my 7-11

where I'm behind the counter, and he goes,

"We got five offers.
We're leaving next week.

You're the stage manager."

And I said, "okay," and that was it.

We started selling
anything we owned of value,

which wasn't much.

We put all our money together in a pool,

like, I think I had 50 bucks to my name.

I gave him my 50 bucks for gas.

We had enough money to pay for
gas to get from Gainesville

to Hollywood, California,
and once we got there,

we would have 200 left,

and we said, "We can live for
a month on 200 dollars,"

seven people... seven, eight...
nine people.

We're rehearsing in this
little bedroom we rehearsed in,

and we had a car for sale
for money for the trip,

and the phone rings,

and I answer the phone,

but they're still kind of
playing in the next room.

And I hear someone saying something,

and I think they're calling about the car,

'cause it's someone I don't know.

And I'm saying, "well, you
know, it's 100 bucks."

It's not that good."

He goes, "no, no, no, no, no."

This is Denny Cordell, and
I'm calling for Mudcrutch."

Denny Cordell produced records
by bands we really loved,

"A Whiter Shade Of Pale" for Procol Harum,

the Joe Cocker great, great early stuff.

He co-produced Leon Russell's records.

He was the real thing.

Holy. "You know, this is, uh,
you're speaking to them."

"This is Denny Cordell. I got your tape.

"I think it's the best
thing I've heard in years.

I want to sign the group up."

"Well, gosh, I'm sorry,

but we've just taken a
deal with London Records."

"Well, have you signed the deal?"

"No."

"Well, listen,

"I have an office and a
studio in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

"If you're going to L.A.,

it's not too far out of
your way to stop in Tulsa."

The Tulsa trip was my effort

to sort of head him off at the pass...

get to him before he came to
Hollywood and go into the studio

and try and strike up a sort of bond,

which... 'cause I felt that at
the end of the day, you know,

he wasn't going for the biggest
deal he could possibly get,

but he was going for the chance
to make good records, you know.

So I hoped, if we could do that in Tulsa,

maybe when he got to Hollywood,

he wouldn't bother with the others.

We left Gainesville on
April Fool's Day, 1974.

I had gotten married

a couple of days before we left.

This time, the trip was really
hard, because we had Benmont's

mother's station wagon.

We had a U-haul truck.

It did at tops about 50
miles an hour, you know.

A Volkswagen bus.

And all of us crammed in.

They had the dogs and
everything in the truck

and all our gear.

Right at the city limits of Gainesville,

the truck breaks down.

You know, hours getting the truck ready.

Okay, we took off again.

We got a little farther along,

the bearings go out on the station wagon.

We had to stop and stay
there for two or three days

while they ordered the parts
to fix the station wagon.

It was very bizarre.

♪ I got my mind made up... ♪

Very bizarre.

♪ I got my mind made up. ♪

After a day or
two, we got to Oklahoma.

It was just a windstorm of
dust blowing everywhere,

and through the clouds almost,

this Englishman stepped through,

who was really something to see, you know.

He had the earring, which you
didn't see a lot of then,

and a bandanna,

and we had never met
anybody that was English.

And we immediately hit it off,

and he's, "Come over, I want
to show you the studio."

And we had never seen
anything like this studio.

It was just amazing.

We went down the next day,
played a while in the studio,

and he clapped his hands
and said, "I'm sold."

I'll sign you right now."

Either a guy's a true artist and
a true poet and a true rocker,

or they're not, and, um...

in my judgment, he was.

Then he reaches in his pocket

and pulls out a wad of cash about this big,

as in, "You're going to need some money."

You know, we've never seen
that much money in one fist,

you know, and just throws
it down on the table.

"There's five grand there.
That'll get you to Hollywood?"

"Yeah."

Drove into Hollywood,
up to Shelter Records.

It was an old house
converted into an office.

It was like a family. It was that thing.

It wasn't like some
corporation or something.

Within a day or so, they'd
rented us a couple of houses,

one with a swimming pool.

Now, this is heavy stuff for us, you know.

We ain't hardly seen a house
with a swimming pool,

let alone live in one.

Of course, there's no furniture.

It was like going to Mars for me.

I mean, coming from Florida,

back then, it was a huge cultural gap,

and it was overwhelming, you know,

things moving so fast, you know.

The south, back then,
everything was real slow.

Everybody talked slow and thought slow.

And you get to L.A., it's
like, "Yeah, go, go, go!"

We're going to do this, do this, do this.

It's like it took us a while to catch on.

The world was very odd to me.

I felt like an alien in this band anyway,

'cause I was younger than anybody

in the band by a couple years,

and I'd been in boarding school

in New England, you know?

And I was having a great
adventure of being broke.

I didn't want to call my
parents for much money.

I wanted to live off of the little stipend

the record company was giving us.

And I was a mess,

and I looked like hell, and
I was having a great time.

We were really tight.

We were really good friends, too.

I mean, we spent a lot of time together.

We knew that rehearsing was the key.

♪ I saw you walking down
the street with him

♪ You know, I almost could have died

♪ I didn't know that... ♪

Mudcrutch was an overwhelming flop.

The band had one or two
sort of weak links in it,

but because of that sort of brotherhood,

the Three Musketeers,
you know, all together,

it was very hard to
dislodge the weaknesses.

One day Tom, you know, sat down with me,

said, "Uh, the record company kind of..."

"basically has told me
that they, they want me,

and they are kind of not that
interested in the band."

I was really devastated.

I was just,

I felt like I'd been hit
by a truck or something.

These were the people I knew

that I'd moved out to California with.

And so it's like, oh,
dissolution of the family,

and what am I going to do?

You know, who am I going to play with?

I went immediately to Mike and
said, "Don't leave me, you know."

You've got to stay with me."

And I felt really bad
about Benmont leaving,

but I didn't know what to do.

I wanted to be in the band.

I didn't want to be a
solo guy that picked up,

no matter how good, the
musicians were great,

but I didn't, they didn't, they
weren't my guys, you know.

They worked for whoever had the dough.

The real reason I think

there's a Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers

is 'cause of Benmont Tench.

Ben had written some songs,

and so he put a little
demo session together

to go in and record his songs,

and he called in me and Stan and Ron.

Stan and Ron Blair
were from Gainesville bands

and had come out here independently.

I knew Stanley for a long time.

After Mudcrutch broke up,
he and I would hang out,

and we wanted to have a band,

and we were going to call it "The Drunks."

And that's what those
demos were going to be.

I was very excited just
because Ben had said,

"We're going into a big-time
recording session."

And he called me to play
drums on his demos.

I called Ron.

And we just ended up at the
same session one night.

Tom I called and said, "come
tell me how to sing this vocal",

play a little harmonica maybe."

And that was the first time we
all got in a room together.

So I walk in, and I'm
sitting in the control room

listening to this band play.

I was, like, "wow,"

I got to steal this band."

And that's my first thought
is "this should be my band."

So then they came in on the break,

and I started my pitch.

"You guys could throw in with me,

and I've got a record deal."

And it kind of organically became

a real band without, you
know, any premeditation.

It just kind of, kind of happened.

So without any
rehearsal or anything,

I just brought them to
the next session I did

that was booked for a solo session.

And Denny was very impressed, and he said,

"You guys are really one of the best groups

I've heard in a long time."

And he said, "plus you look good."

Once that final personnel was in place,

then it was just full tilt,
you know, full tilt ahead.

♪ Breakdown, go ahead, give it to me

♪ Breakdown, honey, take
me through the night

♪ Breakdown

♪ Breakdown, I'm standing
here, can't you see

♪ Breakdown, it's all right

♪ It's all right

♪ It's all right

During the course of
the making of the record,

they brainstormed for names

and they came up with some really bad ones.

For a while, it was Nightro.

N-I-g-h-t-r-o.

What that means, I don't know.

My choice was the King Bees.

"No, you can't call this.

Oh, my God, no, no, no, no, no!"

But I thought it sounded good.

Tom Petty and the King Bees.

♪ All right

♪ It's all right. ♪

Tom was living in a
little apartment in the valley,

and I walked in one day, and he goes,

"What do you think of Tom
Petty and the Heartbreakers?"

And, of course, "heartbreaker"
was a song that we all liked,

and I went, "Bingo! That's it."

And he goes, "And I got a great idea."

"The logo will be a heart

with a Gibson SG sticking through it."

And I said, "cool, but why
don't you use a flying V"

'cause it's shaped like an
arrow, instead of an SG?"

And he goes, "Perfect. Great."

And then Denny Cordell, later, came up

with the idea of having a
ribbon with the name around it

like it was a tattoo.

We thought, well, that's good,

because that's kind of
ironic and funny, isn't it?

Heartbreakers?

I mean, come on, you know.

Who are we kidding here?

Things were starting
to get pretty exciting.

Stan was something new.

Stan had a... a really big personality...

just radiated personality... and
he was a great cheerleader,

really hungry, and really
wanted to do this thing.

And he was a great drummer.

And Ron was really good,
so it just all worked,

And I was so excited, you know.

I just thought, "we've got our band."

And, you know, it was kind of, like,

you've got something really good,

and nobody else knows it,

but you know they're going to know it.

I was really inspired
when I got this group.

They could pretty much do
anything I threw at them

and give it back to me better

than I'd pictured it in the first place.

The first two records Cordell
had produced or coproduced

with these two wonderful guys

named Noah Shark and Max,

who were engineers and coproducers

and out of their minds on LSD

as a deliberate part of
their creative process.

We wouldn't take the acid,

though it was offered to us every day.

These guys would get out
of bed, swallow some acid,

and go, "All right. Let's make a record."

Strange as it may sound,

they actually were pretty
good at what they did.

And this is when we recorded.

"American Girl," "Breakdown,"
some of the first

hits we ever had.

We would spend hours working
on the simplest... shakers!

We're going to learn how to do it.

We all had to learn how to do it.

You know, I was 19 years old
when we made the first record.

We were young and green.
We would come in, say,

with four songs for the studio,
and Denny would listen to them,

and he'd go, "Those two are crap."

That one's good. Let's do that one."

And he would just instinctively know.

He just sort of could zero in on,

"Okay, here's the essence
of what's really good."

And, you know, "don't do that."

"That's not so good. Do this." You know?

Tom came in one night,
and he had a great song

and, for some reason, it
just wasn't happening,

and Denny said, "well, what else you got?"

And the look on Tom's face was priceless.

He was going, "uh... that was it."

And Denny kind of, like, in a...

in a, you know, nice way, kind
of read him the riot act.

Like, "Look, son, you know,
you're in the studio."

You got to have songs."

I think, from then on,

it probably doubled Tom's songwriting.

The record came out.

It pretty much did nothing.

Then, like a bolt of lightning... bam...

it hits in England, comes out in England,

and it's an enormous success
right out of the box.

I mean, they're writing whole page reviews,

and just going mad for it in England.

Disco was just rearing its head,

and there was a huge movement towards that,

and so rock 'n' roll
seemed to be dying out.

And then, completely out of the blue,

here he came, a sort of 24-karat rocker.

We went to England,
and journalists met us

at the plane, taking our photos.

We were on the covers of the
weekly music magazines.

This is like Mecca.

This is where all that music came from,

big time stuff for us.

It was, like, wow!

One that I've played an awful lot

on my Saturday morning Radio One program...

It's from Tom Petty and the
Heartbreakers, a new 45

called "Anything That's Rock And Roll!"

Before I met Tom, he was about
the only American music

that was acceptable in Britain.

It was the one band that
people would, like, go,

"Yeah, they're cool," in England.

But all other American bands
were, like, not cool.

♪ Some friends of mine and me

♪ Stayed up all through the night

♪ Rockin' pretty steady
till the sky went light

♪ I didn't go to bed, didn't go to work

♪ I picked up the telephone,
told the boss he was a jerk

♪ Your mama don't like it
when you run around with me

♪ But we got to hip your mama
that you got to live free

♪ Don't need her, don't need school

♪ You don't like your
daddy, don't dig rules

♪ So come on, baby, let's go

♪ Don't you hear the rock and roll

♪ Playing on the radio?

♪ Sounds so right

♪ Girl, you better grab hold

♪ Everybody's got to know

♪ Anything that's rock and roll is fine

♪ Anything that's rock and roll is fine

♪ Oh, oh, oh, hold me, little baby

♪ I'm a little bit shakin',
I'm a little bit crazy

♪ But I know what I want,
I want it right now

♪ While the electric guitars
are playing way up loud. ♪

The English press really
connected with the record

and built it up as the big deal,

and when we went over there,
it was really exciting.

The first show in
Wales, audience went insane.

They played about half of a song,

and the audience mobbed the stage,

and we'd never seen an
audience mob the stage before.

It was kind of scary.

It was such an exhilarating thing,

the biggest mainline shot of adrenaline

you could have.

And we thought, "Hey,
we're going to make it."

This is going to work."

We were really gung-ho,
a lot of team spirit,

and then we did a few
more television shows.

We did one called.

The Old Grey Whistle Test.

That was a popular show.

♪ You never said you had no number two

♪ I need to know about it if you do

♪ If two is one, I might as well be three

♪ Good to see you think so much of me

♪ Looks like I'm the fool again

♪ Looks like I'm the fool again

♪ I don't like it

♪ I don't like it

♪ No! ♪

It was amazing.

I mean, it was, like,

I could think about it now, looking back.

It was just like living a dream.

I mean, there's no other
way to describe it.

It's, like, wow, this dream
is happening, you know,

and people like us.

The band's really good.

You know, we're going to do it.

You know, it was, like, wow.

It was a gas. It still is.

The tour went into Europe, you know.

This was real adventure, going
into Germany and Belgium,

France, Holland.

In those days, I remember
Tom would always turn to me

and go, "Where are we?"

And I'd go, "Hollywood,
California," you know.

Or, "where are we?" "Paris, France."

That was incredible that
we were actually there,

the places that we'd heard
about our whole lives,

and now we were finally doing it.

We went into Holland,

and hashish is legal.

Of course, we bought far more than we could

possibly have smoked, and then

the next day, we're going to Germany.

So we got big blocks of hash,

and we can't quite bring ourselves

to throw it in the trash, you
know, but they're going,

"Look, you know, you're going
to go through customs."

So I threw mine away.

We get in line to go through

the customs in Germany,

and they find in Stan's
bag a little hash pipe.

Now, there's no hash in the bag,
but there's a little hash pipe

with a little bit of residue in the pipe.

You know... "Out of the line."

And Ron Blair's looking
at me kind of funny.

He smiles at me.

His whole teeth are black.

He's got the whole lump
of hash in his mouth,

and he's chewing.

So they bring us into the little room,

and Blair's chewing away, you know.

Like, to chew a chock of
hash is a really big job.

So it went through a long afternoon.

We had a tv show... a network show...

we were supposed to be on,

and we had missed the rehearsal for sure,

and then people from the network show up.

They tell us in English,

"Look, we're going to work this out.

Just sit tight, and we're
going to work it out."

So they take us through and put us in these

black Mercedes that were waiting for us,

and I get in one with Ron,
who doesn't make a sound.

He's just looking at me, you know.

And I go, "Did you swallow that?"

Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers.

♪ Well, I was downtown waiting
for my number to be called

♪ Seen it through the window
outside against the wall

♪ Well, I know this little secret

♪ You don't want no one to know

♪ You're living in a
high-rise, try to stay low

♪ I don't think you realise, baby

♪ What one little kiss could do

♪ I would really love to
make you understand, honey

♪ I can't get close to you

♪ Baby, you better stop
and look at what you done

♪ You try to keep it living
like a dog on the run

I think we had to do
about 40 minutes on the show...

and if you see the tape,

there's a very glassy-eyed Ron Blair,

played like a champ.

But that's what it was like

touring with the
Heartbreakers in those days.

Anything could happen day to day.

It was high adventure.

Everything was new,
everything was exciting.

We were meeting lots of nice foreign ladies

and trying to extend

as much American hospitality
to them as we could.

And so, next thing you know...

we're back in L.A.,

taking out the garbage.

We come back to the States,
and we have to, you know,

go state by state and area by area,

and I can remember Stan,

you know, I must have
it on a tape somewhere,

but we're pulling into
Toledo in some kind of van,

and then Stan is waking up,

and he's going, "Are we stars in Toledo?"

And we're going, "no, Stan, we're
not stars here," you know.

We're going to have to like work
the market, whatever, you know.

It's the big time. It's not the big time.

I remember that feeling, like,
we got it, we don't got it.

We got it. We don't got it.

Depending on the area

and whether a radio station was
actually playing the record,

we'd go some places, and, uh...

gosh, where was it,
somewhere in the northeast,

and the guy from the record
company walked up to us,

gave us back a stack of records going,

"I can't give these away."

The first record, we're going, okay.

Right opposite me across
the road is the Whisky,

and that's where tonight.

Tom Petty and the
Heartbreakers are playing,

and that's also where
we're going right now.

How did you enjoy the tour of England?

I love England.

'Cause you arrived in Wngland

right dead center of the new wave... rise.

Yeah, right in the middle.

And what's more, people kind of linked you

into that situation, too.

Yeah, well, that's... that was only...
I expected that.

I mean, we had to be in the new wave

because we weren't in the old wave, so...

I just don't like clubs.

I don't like to join
nobody's club, you know,

so we didn't join no clubs.

We're our own club.

We're just a rock and roll band.

All I wanted to say is

the reason that we've
been here is because, uh,

Britain loves this band, and so do I.

Ladies and gentlemen, Tom
Petty and the Heartbreakers.

The place
was absolutely packed,

and they just came on, and they just...

they did it.

Everything was perfect.

The thing rocked.

Every solo was a burner.

Everybody was in cracking form.

They looked phenomenal.

And that was the day the
tide turned really.

♪ You think you're gonna take her away

♪ With your money and your cocaine

♪ You keep thinkin' that
her mind is gonna change

♪ But I know everything is okay

♪ She's gonna listen to her heart

♪ It's gonna tell her what to do

♪ She might need a lot of
lovin' but she don't need you

♪ You want me to think that... ♪

We started out as a
sort of alternative band.

It was in the time when

rock itself had become
really big and bloated,

and songs had turned into
seven minute exercises

of, you know, bullshit.

Long jams that don't have
some kind of melodic

beginning, middle and end,

that's not the Heartbreakers' bag.

We have a slogan, "Don't
bore us, get to the chorus."

Some of the bands who
were on top at that time

had once been great bands,

but they were just kind of staying around

way past their sell-by date.

It just seemed like a
particularly uninspired moment.

And then suddenly, coming
from the underground

only really getting
played on college radio,

came The Clash and the Talking
Heads and Elvis Costello

and The Sex Pistols and Patti Smith

and Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers.

And even though it doesn't
seem, especially now,

that Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers

would be in that company,

they did have the energy and the brashness

and, you know, that little edge of anger...

the short, punchy songs

that made them feel like
part of something very new.

So who are your influences?

Um, the radio.

The radio? Yeah, the radio

in the '60s.

♪ Hey, Mr. Tambourine Man

♪ Play a song for me

♪ In the jingle jangle morning

♪ I'll come following you... ♪

Some of our earliest songs
were really influenced by the Byrds.

They brought a kind of a folk

influence to rock.

I was kidding my manager.

He played "American Girl"
for me, and I said,

"When did I record that?"

He said, "It's not you," and I said,

"Yeah, I know it's not me. Who is it?"

♪ Well, she was an American girl

♪ Raised on promises

♪ She couldn't help thinking that there

♪ Was a little more to 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
Make it last all night

♪ She was an American girl

♪ Well, it was kind of cold that night

♪ She stood alone on her balcony

♪ Ooh

♪ Yeah, she could hear the cars roll by

♪ Out on 441

♪ Like waves crashing on the beach

♪ And for one desperate moment there

♪ He crept back in her memory

♪ God it's so painful when
something is so close

♪ And still so far out of reach

♪ Oh, yeah

♪ All right

♪ Take it easy, baby

♪ Make it last all night
Make it last all night

♪ She was an American girl

♪ All right

♪ All right

♪ All right

♪ Oh, yeah

♪ All right. ♪

♪ This might sound strange

♪ It might seem dumb

♪ Depends on the side that
you take it in from... ♪

The second one is always a tough one,

because you want to prove
that you're worth,

you know, staying around,

that this is gonna be an ongoing thing.

Two things keep this man happy:

Chasing women and playing rock and roll.

And if he's as good with the ladies

as he is with his music,
he's a very happy man.

Here's Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers!

♪ Well, the talk on the
street says you might go solo

♪ A good friend of mine saw
you leaving by your back door

♪ I need to know Need to know

♪ Need to know Need to know

♪ If you think you're gonna leave

♪ Then you better say so

♪ I need to know Need to know

♪ Need to know Need to know

♪ Because I don't know how long

♪ I can hold on

♪ If you're making me wait

♪ If you're leading me on

♪ I need to know

♪ Need to know

♪ Need to know I need to know

♪ Ow! ♪

Tom was just...

blossoming as a writer... I
mean, all those great...

they're still some of my favorite songs,

like "American Girl," "Breakdown,".

"Stranger In The Night," "Fooled Again,."

"I Need To Know."

♪ Baby, I need to know

♪ Need to know

♪ Need to know... ♪

It all felt really great.

Successful rock band, that's great.

You're playing music you
love, people love it.

It's just a day-to-day thing.

Didn't feel like some big dream came true.

It felt like what I was
supposed to be doing.

That period, I was starting to drink a lot.

You know, there was a
lot of cocaine around,

and sometimes I would just be blind.

I think for the most part during the shows,

I was pretty together, 'cause
I really respected it.

But after the show,

I'd get pretty obliterated
a lot of the time.

So a lot of that period

is a bit of a blur.

♪ Too much

♪ Baby

♪ Ain't enough

♪ No way

♪ Too much Baby

♪ Ain't enough No way

♪ Aw, come on, baby, I'm down on my knees

♪ Guess some little girls
just can't be pleased... ♪

The band was getting
better and better and better.

They were playing more and building.

They were going from headlining in clubs

to headlining small halls, and
the enthusiasm was starting.

First you can't get gigs... you
know, you want to get gigs...

and then you can't get out of them.

You know? Like, there's so many.

We weren't home much in those years.

We worked, and we loved working.

♪ Oh

♪ Ain't enough... ♪

Always smoking my fucking reefers.

That's their problem.

The crowds are all great.

They're just fantastic, you know?

There's never a bad one.

Can you say, I love rock and roll music?

Can you say,

It makes me feel good inside?

♪ Sometimes

♪ Sometimes

♪ Sometimes... ♪ Easy.

I leaned out over, and somebody just got me

right around the legs.

You know, in we go.

That was, you know, pretty scary.

They, uh...

It was one of the first times
it really registered to me

that, you know, the crowd is dangerous.

The crowd, a crowd, you know,
out of control, is dangerous,

because that was dangerous, you know?

I was beat up pretty good there.

And it doesn't seem on the tape

like it takes very long
at all to get me out,

but I mean, it was a lifetime.

I don't know, I think they really thought

that they could just...

take a finger home, you know, take this...

I don't know what they thought,
to tell you the truth.

I got back up and finished the show.

They were a great audience, really.

It was a great show.

And I don't hold anything
against the audience,

'cause, I mean, I'm the one
that stirred it all up

in the first place.

I just should know better than to...
to get too close.

The songs of a second
record in a lot of albums

that I have found in the '70s

was, especially
singer-songwriter type guys,

the second album, you know,
they wrote that first album

for ten, 15 years and the second album

in ten months, you know?

And it always showed.

And then you have to go
in on the third album

and really just, you know...

That's what Bruce, Patti, and
Tom Petty had in common.

To me, they were all third albums.

Cordell had become...

too busy with whatever was going on

in his company to produce records.

I, as a producer, you know,

I-I know that I can only...

take some people so far.

And there was a record out
at the time by the...

the Patti Smith Group that
I liked the sound of,

and it was produced

by a guy named Jimmy
lovine out of New York.

At the time, I had been lucky.

I'd worked on a few third albums.

You know, it was Patti's third album.

I did Born To Run with Bruce;
It was his third album.

And I knew this was.

Tom's third album.

I was hiring him

to be an engineer and a coproducer.

I just didn't listen, you know what I mean?

I just came out there with my own engineer.

He comes with his own engineer.

He's no longer doing that.

You know, I kind of pushed
my way in a little bit.

And he was quite a character.

Tom and I hit it off immediately.

We got very close.

We were about the same age.

Both of us came from humble backgrounds.

His was New York City, you know?

Mine was the south.

He was from hell's kitchen.

We get together the first night,

he wants to hear what songs I've got.

I played him, "Here Comes My Girl"

on my guitar.

And I see he's... he's
looking kind of excited,

and he... just kind of, that one ends,

and he goes, "Whew, man!"

What-what else have you got?"

You know, and I...

and I played him "Refugee" on the guitar.

When he played me those
two songs, I said, "Wow",

This is gonna
be an incredible project."

And it's the first and the last time

I ever said to someone,

"You don't need any more songs."

I've never said that to anyone since.

I love Jimmy, but, you know, he...

I think he sometimes got frustrated,

because we were, you know,

from the South, a little slower...

he's from New York... and we would sit back

and, you know, get stoned
and discuss it for a while

and then jam for a while, and,
"Okay, let's try the song."

And he'd be, like, "come
on, guys," you know,

"we got to make a record," you know?

We finally got into a place

where we knew the people and
things were working well,

but then problems started when
MCA acquired Shelter Records.

I felt like they'd just sold us

like we were groceries or, you know,

frozen... pork or something.

We had a clause that said

if our contract is sold to anyone else,

you have to have our consent.

So we went to them and said,

"You're gonna have to let us go."

And we were pretty much told

we just had to forget about that

and that we weren't in
any financial position

to fight a large corporation.

This made me really mad.

Like so many young artists,
he'd signed a bad deal,

and when he found out what it...
what it entailed,

he did what very few artists do,

is he actually said, "I'll
go to war over this."

The publishing deal wasn't a fair deal,

because it had been signed under duress.

They had said, "You sign
the publishing deal",

or we won't sign the recording deal."

That's illegal.

So my songs had really
been taken away from me

when I didn't even know
what publishing was.

Here's this huge corporation,
like Universal was, and...

they want to take my songs away from me?

You don't have any right.

And when you made me sign this paper,

I thought publishing was songbooks.

I swear to God, I just thought that meant

that you could put it in a songbook.

I didn't know you owned

the copyright to my song and I
would never see a dime for it.

And our record deal was just as bad.

You know, it was
pennies-a-record we were making.

And the record business,
the way it works is,

they front you money,

but you really pay to make your record,

because they deduct all
the costs of the record

against your royalties.

Technically, you're bankrupt,

'cause you can't possibly
pay this huge bill back,

and if you're bankrupt,
all contracts are void.

So if you prove that in
court, you could walk.

And so he filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy,

which is the first time anybody
did that in the music business.

And that was a big, you know...

there was huge reverberations
around the business.

This turned into
a big thing, because...

it would set an industry standard

where lots and lots of people

could use the same argument
and leave their contracts.

Suddenly, I'm not in a battle
with one record company,

I'm in a battle with all of them.

During that period,

you know, I wrote a song
called "Century City,"

because that's where we
had to go every day.

That's where the lawyers
live, Century City.

♪ Sometimes I wanna leave here

♪ Sometimes I wanna go

♪ Right back where I came from

♪ Back where I belong... ♪

And he was
really scared... outside,

but once we went in the
room with the lawyers

and he sat down, like, he was...

he was a totally different
personality, you know.

He made them believe that
he didn't give a shit.

And, in fact, he had a
penknife that he'd got out,

opened the penknife, and
started cleaning his nails.

Now, he swears to me that he
didn't even think about it.

He just thought, he wanted something to do.

You know? The lawyers took it as,

here's this young punk,

you know, he's got a knife, you know,

he's, like... he's, like,

threatening, and he doesn't give a shit.

That's how they took him.

The big guy comes in and goes,
"let me tell you something, kid.

"You're gonna forget this,

"you're gonna go make
your records and shut up.

You know, I said, "look,
I'll sell fucking peanuts"

"before I'll give in to you.

I refuse to give in to you."

I said, "you can break me,
but you can't make records."

So in order to pay the legal bills,

we did a short tour and called it...

"The Lawsuit Tour."

And we had shirts that said.

"Why MCA?" on the front.

♪ There goes my baby,
there goes my only one

♪ I thinks she loves me, but
she don't want to let on

♪ Yeah, she likes to keep me guessing

♪ She's got me on the fence

♪ With that little bit of mystery

♪ She's a complex kid

♪ And she's always been
so hard to figure out

♪ Yeah, she always likes to leave me

♪ With a shadow of a doubt

♪ Oh! ♪

We
were recording an album

at the time,

and we made it clear that we weren't going

to deliver the album.

Incredible pressure, and artistically,

I knew this is certainly my greatest work,

and I don't know if I'm going
to be able to put it out.

The worst thing to me was that
Tom and Cordell fell out.

I felt betrayed by Denny.

The funny thing was he
never took it personal.

He can't understand why we
couldn't still be friends.

He came from that '60s

school of, "Well, it's
just business, you know?"

"It's just business.

"Of course, I'm going to try to take you

if you give me a chance, but I
still, I'm still your friend."

I didn't see it that way, you know?

I thought, "if you're my friend",

"you should have been up
front with me about this,

"because you knew damn well

I didn't know what I was getting into."

The guys in the band were very supportive.

They trusted me so
implicitly that if I said,

"That's what we're gonna do,

by God, that's what we're gonna do."

But it's the old story of we
could fight among ourselves,

but if somebody else starts something,

we were all on him, you know.

And Jimmy, Jimmy was
very much there for me.

I used to talk to Tom Petty...
this is no bullshit...

two to four hours a night on the phone,

seven nights a week for at least
400 to 500 days in a row.

Jimmy used to call me at night and go,

"Do you think it'll ever come out?

What if it never comes out?"

And you know, I go, "I don't know",

"but we got to make it, right?
We've got to make it."

I had no doubt that
we were going to do something

that no one ever heard before.

I knew that we were going to
have an impact sonically.

I knew it. I just felt it, you know?

♪ We got something, we both know it

♪ We don't talk too much about it

♪ Ain't no real big secret

♪ All the same, somehow we get around it

♪ Listen, it don't really
matter to me, baby

♪ You can believe what you want to believe

♪ You see, you don't have
to live like a refugee

♪ Don't have to live like a refugee

♪ Somewhere, somehow, somebody must have

♪ Kicked you around some

♪ Tell me why you want to lay there

♪ Revel in your abandon

♪ Honey, it don't make no
difference to me, baby

♪ Everybody's had to fight to be free

♪ You see, you don't have
to live like a refugee

♪ Don't have to live like a refugee

♪ Now, baby, you don't have
to live like a refugee

♪ Don't have to live like a refugee

♪ No! ♪

We worked so... hard.

We worked 18-hour days.

"Refugee," we
must have done 150 takes.

We wanted a live performance,

all the band playing at the same time,

which means, you know, you
have to get five guys

to capture that emotional,
kinetic energy of magic

all at the same time and get it on tape.

It was just getting
that one special performance

that really did the song justice.

There was just roomfuls of tapes

with nothing but "Refugee,"
"Refugee," "Refugee."

And somehow, nobody ever
said, when we cut "Refugee,".

"Why don't we edit two takes together,"

which every band in the world does.

But we'd gotten so
hypnotised with working on it,

we never knew when to quit.

Once we had the finished record,

we were still trying to
mix it again, you know,

like Jimmy was going,

"I don't know, we got to
mix it one more time.

Let's go to New York and see
what it sounds like there."

We got, Jimmy and I flew to
New York with the tapes.

We were crazy.

♪ No, you don't have to live like a refugee

♪ Don't have to live... ♪

You can go through
that if the song is really good.

These songs, we felt, were
going to be timeless.

We just had a feeling that these
were really powerful songs,

and so it was worth all the
slaving to get them good.

If you spent that much
time on a mediocre song,

you'd probably want to kill yourself.

Up until about five years ago,

if I heard it on the radio,
I would still call them.

I would. I would call them and say,

"This fucking thing sounds
amazing on the radio,

doesn't it?"

And he'd get annoyed.

The only that I didn't
like about the experience

was that they were down on
Stan, and I didn't like that.

Actually they weren't.

I think it was just Jimmy
and Stan didn't hit it off.

I don't think Jimmy liked the
way that Stanley played.

I felt the way Tom sang and Stanley played,

that it never, it would always be hard

for it to connect for me.

Stanley was a really good drummer,

and Tom was a great singer,

but I always felt there was
a little bit of a rub there

and a little bit of a plodding
that made the songs sound slower

than they were.

The bass drum feels real loose right now.

Okay, bring it up a fraction.

No, I was thinking like maybe
put some more packing in it

or something, yeah?

All right, go ahead, try that.

It's kind of got shitty action.

Well, my experience with Jimmy

was he was a professional record producer,

and he came with a professional engineer

who was terrific, Shelly Akison.

The first thing they did was
Shelly took me drum shopping.

He said, "you know, your
drum sound is punk-ass",

because your drums are punk-ass.

And Jimmy was basically like,

"Get the drum tracks and
get out of my way."

Okay, this is the same beater with the...
more packing.

We'd been in there,
I think, for three days,

just hitting the drum, trying
to get the drum to sound right,

trying to play, and of course, then,

after you get tired of getting the sounds,

you don't have the spirit to play,

and just getting bummed out.

I just left the studio one day.
I left town.

I'm out of here. I can't take the pressure.

Just went to Santa Barbara
for three days, cooled out.

Whoa...!

Jimmy would say, "well, you know",

you shouldn't have to work
this hard to get the takes,"

but I will say, when other
drummers were brought in,

they weren't Stan Lynch.

You know, he had a certain power,

like we were all fingers of the same hand.

Stan made a sound with us.

And I can't downplay how good he was.

In that album, we developed a
drum sound that was very big.

♪ You know, sometimes I don't know why

♪ But this old town just seems so hopeless

For years, that drum sound
was imitated by everyone

for a long time.

It changed the way drums
were recorded, really.

Tom puts a lot
of guitars on records,

so when you layer those guitars,

if you don't have

the right illusion going on,

the drums go away, in those days.

This is, you know, this is,
this is before sampling,

before anything, you know.

So you had to create an
illusion in the studio

so where you can put those
kinds of guitars on there,

and Tom's voice has to fit right
in the middle of those things.

♪ Hey, here comes my girl

♪ Here comes my girl

♪ Yeah, and she looks so right

♪ She is all I need tonight... ♪

Every now and then I get
down to the end of a day

I have to stop, ask
myself why I'm doing it.

It just seems so useless
to have to work so hard

and nothing ever really
seem to come from it.

♪ And then she looks me in the eye

♪ Says, "we gonna last forever"

♪ Man, you know, I can't begin to doubt it

♪ No, 'cause it feels so good,
and so free and so right

♪ I know we ain't never gonna
change our minds about it

♪ Hey, here comes my girl

♪ Here comes my girl. ♪

And of course, while
we were recording the album,

the lawsuit was still going on,

and this lawsuit is in the papers

and it's becoming a huge
anchor around my neck,

but I'm still gonna make

this record, you know, this
Damn The Torpedoes record.

We're still working away on it.

Then the court, they start to
imply that they have the right

to come in and seize the tapes
of anything that I'm working on.

Trusty bugs again, I know bugs
isn't going to be in this film,

because he refuses to be interviewed...

says something about him...

but he's been there the whole
time, my right-hand guy.

We say, "Bugs, you got to change the name"

on every tape box."

And so he came up with this name,

"Morgan Lane," that he
wrote on every tape box

and took our name off.

"And at the end of every session,

"I want you to take all
the tapes somewhere,

"but I don't want to know where,

and then bring 'em back the next session."

So if I'm asked in court
where these tapes are,

"I don't know where they are." Got it?

He goes, "Got it."

And so we used to hide the
tapes every night in my car

so that they couldn't be
confiscated by the court

or by the record company.

Something I didn't know
is that they had drills

to see how fast they could get
the tapes off the machine,

in the box and out of the studio.

They never could find the tapes.

We're in the courtroom...

and uh, the case is being heard,
witnesses are being called,

and... at the last minute,

they buckled.

They realised he's not
going to say "I give,"

which I wasn't.

What did I have to lose, you know?

Even if I lose, what are you going to do,

take my songs from me?

I mean, you've already done it.

So they call us to the settlement table,

and what they did was they
gave us our own label at MCA.

It was like, okay, we're not
going to let you leave MCA,

but we're going to give
your publishing back.

You can own your publishing,

and you can have your own record label

and set your own deal,

but we want to distribute the record.

Thank you very much, you know.

Danny Bramson was brought in.

He started a label

called Backstreet Records,

and our first release was.

Damn The Torpedoes, which the title came

from that experience, and life
was great all of a sudden.

♪ Well it was nearly
summer we sat on your roof

♪ Yeah, we smoked cigarettes
and we stared at the moon

♪ And I showed you stars
you never could see

♪ Baby, it couldn't have been
so easy to forget about me... ♪

It was a huge hit.

It was our first really big, big, record.

It sort of kicked us up into
a whole other stratosphere.

We felt really like the conquering heroes.

We'd all been pushing together
for a long time for this.

Even though it was happening all around us,

it's still hard to believe
that it's real, you know,

but it was really real,

and I'm sure everybody's
life was changing rapidly.

♪ Baby, even the losers

♪ Get lucky sometimes... ♪

And so you're just trying to
hang on to ride this thing out,

wherever it's going.

♪ Keep a little bit of pride ♪

♪ They get lucky sometimes

♪ Hey... ♪

We toured from late in '79

until almost the fall of the next year.

Then all the way around the world.

We were really pushing it then.

Now it's 8:00 in the morning
and everyone's happy.

Are you happy, Ben?

I'm so happy, Ron.

Sign me, please?

Sure.

You dirty dog.

We got Mr. Tom Petty, rock and roll star,

come all the way over here
to play for you tonight.

Tom, how are you doing?
Hey, hey, I feel good.

I feel very good.

Damn The Torpedoes?

It means... see, it's American
slang for full speed ahead.

♪ Baby, even the losers

♪ Get lucky sometimes

♪ Even the losers

♪ Keep a little bit of pride

♪ They get lucky sometimes

♪ Baby, even the losers

♪ Get lucky sometimes

♪ Even the losers

♪ Keep a little bit of pride

♪ Yeah, they get lucky sometimes

♪ Baby, even the losers

♪ Get lucky sometimes

♪ Even the losers... ♪

Very rarely do you allow
yourself the luxury of saying,

"Wow, we're making a smash record."

I mean, the whole thing was like,

it had a feel to it that was unique,

that'll never happen again,

that's once in a life for all
of us that were part of it.

Damn The Torpedoes was one of those records

that re-energised rock and roll

and made rock and roll
relevant for radio again.

I mean, I was just so amazed
that we had like found

the treasure without a map, you know.

It's about four hours before show time

here at The Whisky on the Sunset Strip,

where one of the premier
rock stars of the new decade

is getting ready to rock and roll.

His latest album,

Damn The Torpedoes, is
already a million seller

and rose to number three

on Billboard magazine's
national charts this week.

When a star of this calibre decides

to play a small club,

those treasured tickets
are normally doled out

to the so-called industry
people of the record world.

But tonight, Tom Petty made
sure they went to the people

who really counted and cared, his fans.

He played the forum for 18,000 people,

but he comes here to play just for
a few hundred dedicated people.

He understands the things that
made rock and roll important,

I think, the innocence and
romanticism and so forth,

and he's never lost that,

and that's what makes his songs so good.

They're real simple songs in a way,

but they have kind of
complex undercurrents,

and you can listen to them on
different levels and enjoy it,

and you can just dance to it,

or it's kind of like an emotional release,

so it hits you on several levels,

and that's what's so rewarding about it.

From the United States of America,

Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers.

♪ Listen, honey, can't you see?

♪ Baby, it would bury me

♪ If you were in the public eye ♪

♪ Givin' someone else a try... ♪

The success comes,

and then it's like you're
on your own from here.

Look out, you're on your own.

There's no book.

There's nothing in your manual
about success, you know.

And then, you know, one
day they give you a check

out of the blue for hundreds
of thousands of dollars.

Now, there is no handbook
for that, you know.

That's just downright
dangerous to take some kid

and say, here's this pile of money

that you can't even relate
to the zeros on the end,

and you can get in a lot of
trouble with that much money.

Fortunately, I think we were pretty,

almost levelheaded about it all.

♪ Shout, just a little bit louder now

♪ Shout, just a little bit louder now

♪ Shout, just a little bit louder now

♪ Shout, just a little bit louder now... ♪

It's been said Tom Petty
has rock and roll in his veins.

His sincerity and passion on stage

is full of the raw energy and excitement

of rock music at its best, and it made

for one heck of a coming
home party at The Whisky.

Billy Juggs, Channel 7 Eyewitness News.

But the people who make it and who make it

for as long as Petty has

made it have to have some kind
of rocket fuel driving them.

I get the sense from the
songs that there was

some anger in Tom

that was bigger than
normal teenage rebellion.

There was something that
drove him out of Gainesville

and drove him through all of these battles

and all this refusal to
back down to the normal way

business is done or even to
make the normal compromises

that people make in order to get ahead.

I was always struck by how
many great rock musicians

lost their mothers when
they were very young.

That would be Lennon and
McCartney, the guys in U2,

Madonna, Jimi Hendrix,

Aretha Franklin, Sinead O'Connor.

It becomes an incredible
list if you look for it.

And I said that to Bono once.

Both he and Larry Mullen in U2

lost their mothers when they were kids.

And he said, it seems like the
untold story of rock and roll

is either your mother died
or your father hated you.

And he said, and if like
me, you were lucky enough

to have both, there's no limit
to what you can accomplish.

Those two factors, you know,

the dangerous shadowy figure of a dad

and the sweet mom that left
too early in your life,

I think that gives you a certain drive,

though I wasn't aware of it at the time.

But if I look back on it,

I kind of turned that anger into ambition.

There was an extreme rage in me

that from time to time would show its head

through a lot of my life.

Any sort of injustice just outraged me.

I just couldn't contain myself.

And this comes from... from my dad

just being so incredibly
verbally abusive to me,

and he was certainly
physically abusive at times.

He would give me pretty good
beatings most of my life.

Oh, he was just crazy, you know.

The house could erupt into a fist fight.

Myself or my mother, if we were there,

which we usually always were,

we would get in the middle of it, too,

and obviously try to stop it.

I know on numerous occasions,

I, you know, basically
tried to tackle my father

to try, you know, so that
my brother could get away.

I remember my mom even
taking a few to the face,

trying to get between me
and my dad, you know.

I think he was harder on Tom,

because Tom was not
really willing to conform

to what he wanted as a son.

I wasn't a fisherman, I wasn't a hunter.

I was just this mild-mannered little kid

that was really interested in
the arts more than anything.

My mother was always kind of the glue

that held the family together.

She was an angel,

just wonderful and very good to me.

You know, she's the one
that really made it seem

like a home, though she worked every day.

My grandmother on my mother's
side was very close to me,

and she was very supportive
all through my childhood

and just told me always,

you know, "You can do anything
you set your mind to."

My brother is a prince, you
know, just a wonderful guy.

Don't think we've ever had
an argument in our lives.

It was a strange household.

I didn't even have a southern accent,

and my family, you know,

they talked with these
really thick accents,

but for some reason I never got one.

I often, I remember being,
you know, five years old

and really thinking that my parents

had been replaced by aliens.

And so I think when music came along,

that's where I escaped to.

As my brother became more
and more successful,

then my father became
more and more supportive,

and obviously he started to realise that...

he was, uh... he was wrong.

Reconcile, I don't think so.

I think he certainly loved my success,

and it became his identity
in Gainesville, you know.

He was my dad, which really
sort of insulted me,

that he embraced rock in such a big way

when he'd been so against it.

You don't get to where he got to

from where he started out unless
you have something to prove

to somebody who's not listening to you.

♪ They put me out on the
Old King's Road... ♪

This was the glory days of FM radio,

and The Torpedoes was just made for it.

Here we had the big, successful album,

and now you have to follow it up,

so it was quite a challenge.

Hard promise is a, is a really good record.

I don't listen to that record
and hear a lot of happiness,

and it always felt to me like

there was a tension in that record.

Most every day
and every night, I was

trying to write more songs,

and the rest of them, God knows
they're out chasing women

or whatever it is...

..they do,

but I was always writing.

I wanted something that had a little lick

from the beginning, and
I just hit that, uh...

And that's all I had, see.

I did that for weeks.

And then finally I'd hit...

♪ Waiting is the hardest part

♪ Every day you get one more yard

♪ You take it on faith

♪ You take it to the heart

♪ The waiting is the hardest part. ♪

You know, I'd get to that,

and then I'd go, "well,
now what?" you know?

And I'd be like all week...

<

You'd eat dinner, you'd come back, sit down

and pick up the guitar...

People start banging on the wall.

"Don't play that anymore!"

The Waiting's a great way

to start a record with the line,

"Baby, don't it feel
like heaven right now?"

It's a great... great opening line.

♪ Oh, baby, don't it feel
like heaven right now

♪ Don't it feel like something from a dream

♪ Yeah, I've never known
nothing quite like this

♪ Don't it feel like tonight
might never be again

♪ Baby, we know better
than to try and pretend

♪ No one could have ever told me 'bout this

♪ I said, "yeah, yeah"

♪ Yeah, yeah

♪ Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah

♪ The waiting is the hardest part

♪ Every day you see one more card

♪ You take it on faith,
you take it to the heart

♪ The waiting is the hardest part... ♪

The Waiting came out.
I think... I was such

a follower of his music
that I was waiting in line,

you know, to get his
record the, the minute it

came out, bought the record,
brought it home at lunch,

learned that song, went back

to school, you know, with it in my head,

and then was playing it
by the time I got home.

♪ ...feel right now, baby... ♪

The girls that I was going after

when I was a kid,

they just loved fucking Tom Petty.

Everything was Tom Petty,
Tom Petty, Tom Petty.

It got to the point where
it became kind of an issue.

You know, you put on the Tom Petty record,

but then all the focus went onto Tom.

When you asked about
playing a song with him,

it's interesting now,

because I feel like I can
finally let go of all that.

All right, here you go.

I'm playing with him now.

Take that, ladies.

♪ I said, "yeah, yeah"

♪ Yeah, yeah

♪ Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah

♪ The waiting is the hardest part

♪ Every day you see one more card

♪ You take it on faith,
you take it to the heart

♪ The waiting is the hardest part

♪ Yeah, the waiting is

♪ The hardest

♪ Part

♪ Go on

♪ Yeah, it's the hardest part

♪ Oh...

♪ Yeah, it's the hardest part. ♪

I don't know if an artist
completely understands

or needs to be reminded of sometimes,

is how deeply these songs
affect people, in such a way

that when you hear the song, you know,

like, where you were and
even the feeling in your gut

when you were 14, hearing that song,

and the artist, like, if
they can accept that,

that's a potent thing.

It's really...

What a...

What a gracious situation.

Oone, two, three, four.

♪ Oh... Oh...

♪ I'm not in trouble, I'm
that in control... ♪

I had started the hard promises album,

and I was in the studio
pretty much every day.

The last time I had seen my mother

was toward the end of the
Damn the Torpedoes tour

and we had had a nice visit,
but she was in terrible pain.

I felt so bad for her, and
it'd been a long struggle.

I knew then that was probably the last time

I was going to see her.

So when the call came,
after a session one night,

and she had passed away,

I think I felt a sense of
relief for her and me.

I think we were all relieved

from a standpoint that
she wasn't suffering,

but it was really hard, um, to lose her,

because she was the family, you know.

It was very tough for me.

They were very close.

If she was alive today,

she'd be living in California with him.

There's no question.

Then it was around that
time when Stevie entered our lives.

Well, Stevie was going
to make a solo album,

her first solo record.

I almost preferred.

The Heartbreakers' music

to Fleetwood Mac's music at that point,

so I called Jimmy lovine and asked him

if he would consider producing my record.

I felt maybe this is the way

to get that kind of Tom Petty
and The Heartbreakers sound,

and I really wanted that friendship.

I wanted to be friends with Tom,

and I wanted to be friends
with The Heartbreakers.

She said it all the time,

"I'm going to leave Fleetwood Mac

and join The Heartbreakers."

And we'd say,

"Yeah, but there aren't any
girls in The Heartbreakers,"

and she'd say, "No, but..."

"I really want to join the band,"

and we'd say, "Well, that's good",

"but there aren't any girls
in The Heartbreakers."

Stevie was at the height of her success.

We didn't want to take
on someone else's trip.

We had our own thing.

But then she started to campaign

for me to write her a song,

and I, I... "No, I don't have time."

"Please, just write me a song."

So she wore me down, and I wrote her a song

called "Insider," and I played it

for Jimmy, and he was just elated.

He just loved the song.

♪ I'm an insider

♪ I been burned by the fire... ♪

Stevie did appear the next day

and we played the song for her.

She liked it, but she
didn't sing the lead on it.

When I was showing her how the song went,

she sang a harmony.

I'm an insider...

It sounded beautiful,

but it was me singing the lead,

and I started to really love the song,

and I said, "Stevie, I'm really sorry",

"but I don't want to give you this song.

"I'd rather keep it," and she was great.

She says, "no, I completely understand",

"and I don't want to take it away from you,

"and anyway, to tell the truth,

"I was looking for something

with a little more tempo."

When you write a song for other people,

you sit down and you write
something just like them.

Often you'll write right in their style.

The truth is, that if
somebody's come to you,

looking for a song, they're really looking

for something that sounds like you.

They've got plenty of things
that sound like them.

She was more attracted to the swampier,

bluesier kind of music,

because it was something she didn't do.

I had four or five songs that
I'd cut for hard promises

that I didn't think I was going to use.

They weren't complete.

So I played her these songs,

and the one she likes is "Stop
draggin' my heart around."

♪ Ooh...

♪ Ooh... ooh

♪ Ooh... ♪

I had a notion that I
wanted to finish the song

and then decide if I wanted

to give it away, because
of what had happened

with the last song,

but Jimmy was like, "uh...
no, this is, uh..."

"I hear a girl singing this song."

I always love girls singing
guys' point of view.

♪ ...make a meal of some bright-eyed kid

♪ You need someone to look after you... ♪

"And to make a meal of
some bright-eyed kid.

You need someone lookin' after you"

with a girl singing that lyric,

I knew the record would go.

I said, "Wow, we're going to win."

♪ Baby, you'll come
knocking on my front door

♪ Same old line... ♪

- Let me show you how the melody goes.
- OK.

♪ There's people running
round loose in the world

♪ That ain't got nothing better to do... ♪

OK, creative writing, right?

Did you ever take that?

I tell you, I just barely got

through school at all. It was just, uh...

We never ventured out of, uh...

♪ You come knocking on my... ♪

English was about as deep as it goes.

♪ Ain't got nothing better to do... ♪

I might be wrong, but I
have a feeling that Jimmy lovine,

in his "genius," heard it as a duet,

and he was starting to,
he was just getting ready

to produce her record, and I thought he...

I think he kind of thought,
"Oh, this would be a good..."

"Put this over here, and
put this over here,"

"and I'll be king of the world,"

which he, he was right.

It worked out good.

I think it's kind of better as a duet,

and she's a great singer, and
they sang great together.

♪ So you've had a little trouble in town

♪ Now you're keeping some demon down

♪ Stop draggin' my... stop draggin' my...

♪ Stop draggin' my heart around. ♪

I pretty much credit.

Tom with my solo career,
and he'll laugh and...

be sweet and not conceited about it,

but it really is true.

♪ She's a woman in love

♪ She's a woman in love

♪ And he's gonna break her heart to pieces

♪ She don't wanna see

♪ She's a woman in love

♪ But it's not me. ♪

"Stop draggin' my
heart around" was a big hit.

She put it on her record,

and we had A Woman In
Love out as our single.

And her single came out.

It kind of just killed our single.

The radio wasn't going to
play two Heartbreakers songs,

and it was billed.

"Stevie Nicks with Tom Petty
and The Heartbreakers."

That was a bad weekend.

We were on tour in New York,

and she was checking into
the hotel at the same time

we were checking out, and
she came running up to me

going, "Did you hear? Our
song, it's a big hit."

And the first thing out of my mouth was,

"Yeah, it killed our single dead."

And I just saw her face go...

And I go, "Oh, it's OK",

I didn't mean it in a bad way, you know."

If you've had an occasion to
go into a record store lately,

you're probably aware that record prices

have risen dramatically
over the past few years.

The record industry started

hitting its decline about five years ago.

The recession, coupled with the rising cost

of petroleum-based vinyl forced prices up

and record sales down.

We'd just had huge
success with damn The Torpedoes.

There was great anticipation
for the next album.

And I walked into a record store,

and I saw this sign up behind
the counter which said,

New Tom Petty 9.98."

So I called the record company and...

"I saw this thing, 9.98."

He says, "Oh, yeah, we're
going to put it up."

"We can make more money
on this album," you know.

"This is the time to put record
prices up and make more money."

I said, "but I'm sure Tom's
not going to want that."

And they were using our popularity

to increase profit across the board.

They were going to raise

the list price of records
in general on our backs.

It's just like the western.
It's like the...

you know, the two grubstakers
at the gold mine.

It's like, "but I could
kill him while he's asleep"

"and get it all, you know."

It's that mentality that enraged us.

He says, "I'm not the guy."

"This is not about selling shoes

"and raising the price and
nobody's going to notice.

This is a Tom Petty album.
It's got my name on it."

Well, it's really
funny, but at the time,

9.98 seemed like an outrageous
price for a record.

There I am again in hot water
with the record company.

I didn't want it to get to that,

but I think once the press got involved,

it became a kind of standoff,

where neither one of us would give in.

They finally blinked, and they said,

"Well, we'll sneak the price up
with someone else later on."

But, you know, it was many a year

before the price did go up,

and I was kind of proud of that.

I don't think I was quite
the same human after that.

I was toasted.

I'd been through a long
album, months of touring.

My mom had died.

I think I was a little different then.

I think I was just on my guard,

and it would take a while for me

to be the person I was.

Well, we were five years into it.

We had virtually

no time to ourselves.

We were always traveling.

From the get-go, it was just

one thing after another, like tonight

the little radio guy's going to be here,

and the next night it's the programmer,

and then, you know, the record company guy,

and then the money guy, and then...

It's just a lot of stress and pressure

for years, and, you know, it
kind of wore on my attitude.

He's so sweet and
gentle, a kind guy,

and I think our life at the time

was anything but sweet and gentle.

It was the situation where

we were taking the recording
really seriously.

We could get really hard on people,

and we were really hard on him.

At times, I think he just wanted to do it

the way he was going to do it,

where Mike and I had definite ideas

about how we wanted the bass to go.

And it'd get down to,

"Well, why don't you just
play it yourself then?"

"Thank you very much, I will."

There was never any evil animosity.

It was just musical frustration.

Making records is very stressful.

If it's going well, it's great,

but if it's not, it can be very hard.

Which resulted in him leaving

the music business.

Not leaving to go to another
band, leaving the whole thing.

I seemed to have a lot of
issues with the music business.

I thought it was a little sleazy and funky

and full of people with egos,

and I was right.

But I soon found out that, you know,

the world is just like that.

You know, any business is like that,

and I just did something different.

Oh, he's got an enviable job now, man.

He bought a real nice bikini
store on Ventura Boulevard,

and he's just down there

watching them try on bikinis all day.

I would never have called that one, boy.

And I remember feeling
really good after that.

I didn't harbor any ill feelings,

and I went to a lot of shows.

I saw the band dozens of times

and just would go watch the band just to...

as a fan, you know.

And I remember at the amphitheater

sitting next to Jimmy
lovine, and Jimmy's going,

"Ron, what's it like
watching your band, man?"

And I'm kind of going, "It's fine."

"It's a good band."

It was weird, Ron not being there.

It was weird to lose somebody in the band.

And there was a lot of concern,

because everybody loved the way Ron played,

and everybody knew that
a band had a chemistry,

and if you change anybody,
you change things a lot.

So we played with a few different

bass players who had very

disparate styles, but were very good,

and Tom was producing Del
Shannon at the time...

Who was a rock and roll legend

from the late '50s, early
'60s, and big hero of ours.

And we needed a bass player
for a couple of tracks,

and Del said, "well",

"there's a guy in my road
band who's really great."

And I said, "Great, we'll
call him and bring him down."

And so in walks...

I'm not from Gainesville, Florida.

I'm not from the South.

I'm from Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
That's where I'm from.

Well, what are you doing
in this band then, Howie?

I don't know. What am I doing in this band?

He looked fantastic...

four feet of hair

and gold earrings and Cuban heels.

And he played great.

And then I heard him sing,

and I went, "Oh, man, we
got to have this guy."

It had always been my dream

to have a really good high harmony singer,

and he was one of the best.

So I cornered Howie and said,

"What would you think
about joining the band?"

And he was like, "Wow, I'd love it."

Now I'm in an awkward spot,

because I'm the producer of this record,

and I'm certainly not supposed to steal

the artist's bass player, you know.

Well, I get home and Del
Shannon's on the phone,

and he's furious, just furious.

He says, "Don't take Howie."

"He's the guy I count on. He runs my band."

"How can you take Howie? You're my friend."

"You can have anybody you want."

"Don't take Howie."

And I said, "Del, I love you."

I'm taking Howie."

And he got over it, sort of.

Sometimes I wondered,

like, how it was for them,

being together and growing up together,

like what it would be for them, like,

to get this new guy in the band,

and I don't know, sometimes I think maybe

it was weirder for them than it was for me.

He was an entirely different
type of bass player than Ron,

but somehow it still worked with Stan.

So he came in, and there
wasn't any need for panic

because the band could continue,

and he turned out to be great

and turned out to be my
best friend in the band.

I like the band a lot.

I mean, I would, if someone
at that time would ask me,

like, what band I'd like to
join, they were one of them.

And that's always a big help.

If somebody loves your
music and wants to play it

and knows the obscure stuff,

well, you know...

you can't pass that up,

especially if they can
play like Howie Epstein.

♪ They said love was a thing of the past

♪ That these days nothing ever lasts

♪ This old world is moving too fast

♪ And it feels so good to know

♪ I got you where you belong

♪ Here in my heart, right by my side... ♪

I tried to do it as long as I could.

What happened?

This vocal mike is so fucking loud.

Oh, sorry.

It'll just blow your head off.

Does happen.

- Sorry, guys.
- It's OK.

One, turn this thing down.

Not in my cue.

One. Ah!

No, no, no, you're turning it up in my cue.

One, one. We want it down.

Hey.

That's good right now in this cue.

Sorry. Really.

♪ Well, sometimes we ride around

♪ She plays her radio up loud

♪ If I was sad, well, I'm happy now

♪ And it feels so good to know

♪ I got you where you belong

♪ Here in my heart, right by my side

♪ Honey, you're getting me by

♪ Yeah, you're keeping me alive. ♪

Oh!

There was some music
recorded for long after dark

that didn't get on the record,

that I thought would have
made it a better album.

There's a really good song on
there called Keepin' Me Alive

that I really love,

but Jimmy lovine and I
did not see eye to eye.

He thought they sounded too acoustic,

therefore, didn't put them in the album.

I think it hurt the album.

Tom and I, on the third album,

and it maybe was mostly my fault,

I don't think I was as focused.

After three albums, you
should shoot your producer.

♪ Yeah, and it feels so good to know

♪ I got you where you belong

♪ Here in my heart, right by my side

♪ Honey, you're getting me by

♪ Yeah, you're keeping me alive. ♪

It's a great album, but
I didn't push them hard enough.

I think that the growth
from You're Gonna Get It

to Damn the Torpedoes to hard promises,

we didn't go the same distance.

It wasn't really
going forward, you know.

It was just sort of a tread
water album, I thought.

That's why I didn't
do the follow-up album.

Yeah. I dug that.

That's one
small step for a man,

one giant leap for mankind.

Jim Lenahan, our
lighting director, and I,

we had to make a promo
clip for You Got Lucky.

"Well, I don't want to lip synch it."

"What if we made a little movie?"

And we did. We made this kind
of science fiction western.

We had a little intro on the
beginning that I scored,

and I'm sure it was the
first video that ever had

a sort of intro to it that
wasn't part of the track.

And that, later on,

became very common, but it wasn't then.

It was a huge MTV track.

So, the next thing we
know, everywhere we go,

people recognize all of us, you know.

Not just me, but everybody
is being recognized,

and I started realizing, man,

a lot of people are seeing this.

All of a sudden,

the biggest radio station
there was was the TV.

♪ Go

♪ Yeah, go

♪ But remember

♪ Good love is hard to find

♪ Good love is hard to find

♪ You got lucky, babe

♪ You got lucky, babe

♪ When I found you. ♪

I think because his career
preceded MTV and the video era

he wasn't always recognized as having

contributed as much as he did to the form,

but he was a very, very big part
of MTV for... for 20 years.

I mean, he's also very lucky

that he's not branded a video
artist, because people

who are tend to kind of get
treated like the Monkees,

regardless of how good they are.

They tend to kind of get dismissed

when the hairstyles change.

I didn't know there were synthesizers

on this fucking record!

That's what I want to hear.

We're going back to our fucking roots.

That's what I want to hear.

We're going to be pure, like
back on the first album.

That's bullshit.

Yeah, well, we are about

to go over to the wrong side of the tracks,

so ya'll bear with us.

♪ There's a southern accent

♪ Where I come from... ♪

When we came off the road
for the first time in many years

and we had this unlimited
time to make a record,

and while on that last tour,
I had become interested

in doing something about the South.

All the beginnings of rock 'n' roll

come from the South, you know.

It's Jerry Lee Lewis and Elvis,

Carl Perkins, Muddy Waters.

It all emanates from the south.

And I just felt the idea suited us,

and then the phrase
"Southern accents" hit me,

and off we went.

I started without Jimmy.

Mike and I were going to
produce it, and it was a joke.

We couldn't police ourselves.

It was hellish.

You know? It didn't work.

We would listen to a producer...

There was some level of authority there...

but without one, we just weren't
working in an efficient way.

Coming off the road for a couple of years

was a big mistake.

We didn't know how to function that well.

We didn't do anything
but run off the rails.

Everybody's life was in turmoil.

You know, the Heartbreakers had
always been a very closed set.

There weren't a lot of stray people around.

And, suddenly, there were
lots of stray people around

and people that just weren't
there for a good reason.

You put a big pile of drugs out
there, and flies are buzzing.

That's how I see it.

It's just like where you attract
a real low-class group of people

when you get enough dope around.

Life started to get
really lousy, and I felt lost.

And that's the way it is with drugs.

All it does really is make you
want some more, you know.

They're useless.

You don't have any drugs, do you?

Never.

♪ Hey, hey, hey

♪ I was born a rebel

♪ Down in Dixie

♪ Hey, hey, hey

♪ On a Sunday morning... ♪

I was working on
this track called Rebels,

and had I been sober, it would
have been so simple to do.

But because we were all gacked up,

we weren't getting anywhere with it,

and we worked on it for months.

It's an awful thing when
you're this far from a song,

and you can't... What is it?

Is it like, should the bass line move?

Should the drums do something differently?

And you're so sunk as soon
as you get to that world.

You'll never find it.

I went into the next room.
I saw the original demo.

I put the demo on,

and it sounded fantastic.

It sounded so much better than
the track we were working on,

it made me furious.

So I started up the stairwell to the house,

and out of frustration, I just
took my hand and hit the wall.

I didn't just break the hand.

I pulverized it. I had powdered it.

♪ Hey, hey, hey... ♪

Well, the next thing I know,
I got Mickey Mouse's hand.

You know, I got this great big hand.

All these tendons were...
were cut and broken

and, you know, he went to the doctor,

who said, "Well, you know",

"you may never be able to play again."

It's so bad that doctors
are coming, you know,

from all over the hospital.

It's like, "Hey, come here.
Get a look at this hand."

Well, I went through a long operation then.

They put, like, metal studs,
and they wrapped wire

around the studs.

And there was a long
period of recuperation.

At times, the hand hurt

so bad to move it and it
would get so atrophied

that they would hook it to electrodes

and give me, like, an electric shock,

and that would make the hand close,

because the brain doesn't want to do it

because it hurts so bad.

It was really a manifestation
of self-destruction.

After that, I sobered up greatly.

It was a huge wake-up call.

Well, I brought Jimmy lovine in

to help me finish what I had
intended to be a double album,

and Jimmy came in and said,

"There's no way you have
a double album here."

"Let's concentrate on making
a really good single album."

At the same time, he was
working on Stevie's new album,

and was looking for songs for her.

He asked me, "Are there any
good songwriters around?"

"Anybody new on the scene?"

And I said, "well, you know",

"I think this guy named Dave Stewart"

"is a really good songwriter."

And he was just breaking on
the scene with Eurythmics.

Jimmy suggested

we go in the studio together
with Stevie and cut this song,

which I'd already had the sitar

and the chorus and the sort of rhythm.

And he puts on this little
four-track that he had,

and you hear the drums,
and all you hear is,

♪ Don't come around here no more

♪ Don't come around here no more... ♪

I say, "Wow! A girl singing that.
That's a great idea."

Tom came down, and that's where I met him,

in a studio with Stevie
Nicks and Jimmy lovine,

and we were doing this song,

Don't Come Around Here No More,

and Jimmy was getting mad at Stevie

'cause he didn't think she was writing

the verse lyrics how he wanted them.

Stevie says, "I want Tom
to write the lyrics."

Tom comes down, writes the lyrics... Right?

♪ And steals the song.

♪ Hey

♪ Don't come around here

♪ No more

♪ I've given up

♪ Stop...

♪ Ah... Ah...

♪ Ooh... Ooh... ♪

Most of his band were
going, "What the fuck is this?"

The album was called Southern Accents,

and this sounded like we're
in India all of a sudden.

The band was slow to accept Dave.

I was like this kind of weird sort of imp.

We had a great time.

It was one of the only bright
lights in that period.

It was sober and funny and crazy.

We used to laugh a lot, you know.

I think it was, like, a tension breaker.

We finished the song, and then, you know,

the video was like icing on the cake.

No pun intended.

Hey!

The whole Mad Hatter's tea party

was kind of a bit like what was happening.

Tom's life was, like, complete
sort of madness at the time.

And I ended up being the guy
on top of the mushroom,

which is quite symbolic, actually, because

it starts off with... the video...

me on the mushroom smoking a hookah pipe

and getting everybody
to go off on this trip,

which is kind of what I did really.

♪ So listen, honey... ♪

Southern Accents isn't
the record I set out to make,

but I liked the record it became.

♪ I wish you the best of everything

♪ In the world... ♪

As soon as we went back
and started to work again

and went back on the road,
and cut that shit out,

everything was back to normal.

♪ Whatever you were looking for... ♪

When you catch a
really great songwriter,

the song is about something
else, but you say, "That's me."

He writes very romantic lyrics.

The combination of that and
the sound of his voice

is when I really love it.

It's a guy in pain, but it's very romantic.

I thought he was a brilliant poet,

and poetry's absolutely essential,

and he's got it.

I've never heard him write a bad lyric.

I'm always irritated at
seeing these writers on tv

that go, "Well, you know, I sat
down to write a song about dogs",

"and I wrote..." you know.

It's not that simple.

You know, it isn't for me.

I just start writing and start singing,

and usually a line will
appear with the melody,

and that's usually a good
signpost to go down,

you know, take that road.

All right, I'm going to
try this one for you.

I haven't sung this song

since the last time we
were here, 13 years ago.

And well, I'm going to
try to do it for you.

I'll do my best.

This is Southern Accents.

♪ There's a southern accent

♪ Where I come from

♪ The young 'uns call it country

♪ The Yankees call it dumb

♪ I got my own way of talkin'

♪ But everything is done

♪ With a southern accent

♪ Where I come from... ♪

♪ Now, that drunk tank in Atlanta

♪ Just a motel room to me

♪ I think I might go

♪ Work Orlando

♪ If them orange groves

♪ Don't freeze

♪ I got my own

♪ Way of working

♪ And everything

♪ Is run

♪ With a southern accent

♪ Where I come from... ♪

♪ For just a minute there

♪ I was dreaming

♪ For just a minute

♪ It was all so real

♪ For just a minute

♪ She was standing there

♪ With me

♪ And there's a dream

♪ I keep having

♪ Where my mama comes to me

♪ And kneels down over by the window

♪ And says a prayer

♪ For me

♪ I got my own way of praying

♪ And everyone's begun

♪ With a southern accent

♪ Where I come from... ♪

Hey.

Oh...

♪ Got my own way of living

♪ And everything

♪ Is done

♪ With a southern accent

♪ Where I come from... ♪

Bob Dylan.

I don't think there's
anyone we admire more.

And Bob had a show. The
first Farm Aid show.

I was managing Bob at the time who said,
"Can't we find a band that's cool?"

And I went, "I happen to know one."

I knew that Tom loved Bob and I
said, Tom Petty would open for us

and then he'll play with you.

Tom was already a big headliner.

I went, "There's no-one in the world that Tom
would open for but I bet he'd open for you."

And I called Tom that night
and went, "Tom, this is wild."

"I have this idea."

"Would you play with Bob?"

"You guys open, stay out there
and then be Bob's band."

Tom went, "No, are you
kidding?!" I'd love to!

♪ I ain't gonna work for
Maggie's brother no more

♪ I ain't a-gonna work for
Maggie's brother no more

♪ Well, he hands you a nickel
then he hands you a dime

♪ He asks you with a grin
"Are you having a good time?"

♪ Fines you every time
you slam the door... ♪

And that night in the dressing room,

Bob said, "How would you guys feel about"

"doing a tour of Australia with me?"

And we said, "Great, let's go."

♪ How does it feel?

♪ How does it feel?

♪ To be without a home

♪ With no direction home

♪ Like a complete unknown

♪ Like a rolling stone. ♪

He hadn't worked with an actual band

since he'd worked with The Band,

way back when.

It was really fun.

We went around the world with
him in a couple of years.

It just kept going on.

It was like, let's do America.

What do you think about going
over to Europe, Japan?

We love Bob Dylan and Tom Petty.

I wouldn't take
that back for anything.

I think it was
a perfect backup band for Bob,

because Tom, he's got this great sound.

It's like this slur,

that kind of twangy sound to the voice

and the slur that there is,
the whiny kind of sound.

And that fits in so good with Bob.

It's something that's very
similar about the sound

or the attitude of Tom and Bob.

It's a very
spontaneous sort of music.

Arrangements can change very quickly.

Maybe... maybe a song comes up
that you never rehearsed before,

and you just do it.

You had to improvise.

You had to improvise,
because he might decide

to play it in a different time
signature or a different key,

not all the time, but every now and then,

the song would start,
and it'd be different.

When I look back,
it's some of the most crazy,

enjoyable times I've ever had playing live,

because it was such anarchy.

You're on your toes. You're
playing for your life.

It's the real deal, man.

That's one of the
things we learned from him,

is by breaking all that down,

these accidental things would happen

that were just magical, that
would've never happened

if you just played your show
stock from start to finish.

And that's what he was reaching
for, was those bigger moments,

these places where new things happen

and spontaneous things happen.

It happened at a time

when the band was very
bored with each other,

and that gave us something to do

that wasn't just being The Heartbreakers.

It was backing up this guy that we loved.

We just kind of saw it
as working with a true master,

the greatest songwriter ever,

and we were going to
learn whatever we could.

I think we came out of it a better band.

When we went back to playing our own shows,

we weren't afraid to try something

that might be a little bit daring.

So it had kind of restarted

the band's juices flowing.

♪ Mama, take this badge off of me

♪ I can't use it anymore

♪ It's getting dark, too dark to see

♪ Feel like I'm knocking on heaven's door

♪ Knock, knock, knockin' on heaven's door

♪ Knock, knock, knockin' on heaven's door

♪ Knock, knock, knockin' on heaven's door

♪ Just like so many times before... ♪

♪ You're jammin' me

♪ You're jammin' me

♪ You're jammin' me... ♪

"Jammin' Me", I wrote with Bob Dylan

and Mike Campbell.

We wrote a couple of songs,

one that went on his record

and one that went on ours.

♪ I'd rather die... ♪

Let Me Up, I've Had Enough

is one of my favorite Tom Petty records.

I don't think Tom feels that way.

I don't know that the band feels that way.

I don't know that anybody feels that way.

But it has a great mix of
two things I really love -

the rambunctious Rolling
Stones kind of sound,

like on the title song, "Let
Me Up, I've Had Enough"

where this is just a great
rock band, cutting loose.

Artistically,

it was a mess.

I remember playing some gigs,

and just Tom seemed pretty frustrated.

Let Me Up, I've Had Enough,

it speaks for itself.

During the Dylan tour,

someone burned my house down.

A few feet from where my
daughter Kim was sleeping,

fire started.

I was in seventh grade,
and I'd spent the night

at someone else's house,

and I was trying to call my parents,

cos they didn't come to pick me up.

The phone was busy, and
we had call waiting,

so I knew something was wrong.
And so I called Benmont.

He said there'd been a tragedy,
and he came and picked me up,

and it was my mother's birthday.

There was supposed to be a barbecue

that day at their house.

So people were kind of turning up

while the hoses were going
and the fire was there.

It was very surreal.

You know, the guys from the Eurythmics

and all these people were
walking up the driveway

with presents, and there was fire trucks

and the press and my dad in his pyjamas.

I just started to cry,

and my dad put his arm around me,

and he just said, "You know,
this is no time to do this."

"You can't get upset.

"You know, we got to hang in here together,

"and we're all we got.

It's only stuff."

And I thought that was cool.

We're lucky to have survived
with our lives there,

and you really appreciate
being able to be alive

is one thing it did for me.

I was glad just to wake
up the following day.

I went round his house and
stood with Tom and the kids.

It's very difficult,
standing with a family,

just looking at the embers.

All his memorabilia,
everything he had collected

since he was a little kid,

all that was gone.

I lost pretty much
everything I owned there.

I didn't even have shoes
when I came out of that.

I sent the family to a hotel.

So at the end of the day,
when I got to the hotel,

Annie Lennox, Dave's partner
in the Eurythmics, was there,

and she'd bought everyone a new wardrobe,

which, you know, kind of broke me up.

Those were the clothes actually that I wore

for the next few months.

Then they told me it was arson,

and you could have knocked
me down with a feather.

And I thought, well, no,
nobody would do this.

It can't be arson.

But then the arson investigators

walked me around the property and showed me

that someone had poured
something around the house

and lit the place on fire.

It scared us all.

Why in the world would anybody do that,

especially to somebody like
Tom Petty, who was just cool.

Well, the funny thing is, right away,

people started confessing all
across the United states.

You know, guys in New
Jersey confessed to it.

And, you know, it makes you
feel really good to be alive

if you sort of escape "assassination".

You have to keep your eyes open,

but I'm not going to live in fear,

cos if I do that, they've won.

Shortly after that,

he had to go on the road,
decided not to cancel the tour.

We all got
on the bus together,

and we became very close.

It was actually a happy time.

It was pretty cool.

♪ So you want to be a rock and roll star

♪ Listen now, hear what I say... ♪

You know, he used the tour
as therapy for himself.

I'm really glad there was a
show and something to do

the next day, because

I'm sure it helped, you know,

steer my mind to something else,

and I've got a lot of friends,

and one positive thing is you realise

how many friends you really have

and what they're worth, and
how you can't burn that up.

♪ Then it's time to go downtown... ♪

We played all over, and we
were having a terrific time.

Then we got to England,

and things were really great in London.

And one night

after the show, there was
a knock on the door,

and it was George Harrison and
Jeff Lynne, Roger McGuinn,

Bob, and I think Mike and Ben,

and they'd brought me a
little birthday cake.

It was my birthday.

We had a really nice
celebration, great party,

Ringo, Derek Taylor, lots of
really sweet people there.

When we got home to the hotel,

a hurricane hit London.

I didn't know that happened there,

but one certainly happened that night,

and it wasn't predicted or anything.

But I always saw it

as a historic moment in my life.

The hurricane came, and everything changed.

I had a new set of friends,

and a whole new world just opened up to me.

During the party,

someone slipped me a tape
of George's new record -

I think it was Jeff, who had produced it -

and when I got home and played it,

I thought it sounded amazing.

And on Thanksgiving Day,

I was just driving down
to buy a baseball mitt,

and I stopped at the red
light and looked over,

and there was Jeff Lynne
in the car next to me.

And he was shouting, "Jeff!"
and hooting his horn at me.

And, um, we pulled over to
the side of the street,

and, uh, he said, "I've just listened"

to George Harrison's album
that you just worked on,"

and, um, "How would you fancy
working on some songs with me?"

I went, "Yeah, great, that'd be
a great thing, I'd like that."

A lot of mystical things
went on around that time.

I was actually having lunch

with the promo men from,
uh, Warner Brothers,

and Tom walked out of
the restaurant past us

with his two daughters.

George was just asking
Jeff for my phone number

when I walked into the room.

So there were a lot of just...

strange coincidences.

Jeff and I loved the music
of Roy Orbison, and, uh,

it was a great thrill to get
to write a song with him.

When he came to do an album
that Jeff was producing,

they invited me over,
and I met Roy Orbison,

and on that very day, we sat down and wrote

this song called "You Got It".

♪ Anything you want

♪ You got it

♪ Anything you need

♪ You got it ♪

♪ Anything at all

♪ You got it

♪ Oh, baby... ♪

♪ I live

♪ My life

♪ To be

♪ With you

♪ La, la, la, la

♪ La, la, la, la

♪ La, la, la, la

♪ Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa

♪ Anything you want

♪ You got it

♪ Anything you need

♪ You got it

♪ Anything at all

♪ You got it

♪ Baby... ♪

The Wilburys

were starting to kind of
circle at that point.

We were becoming friendly,
all those people.

George had a single coming
out, and he needed a new...

B side.

I just thought, I'll just go in
the studio tomorrow and do one,

and it happened that Jeff
was working with roy,

and Roy wanted to come.

My guitar was at Tom's
house for some reason.

So he drove up one
night to get his guitars,

and he said, "I've got this
session going down tomorrow",

"you know, Roy Orbison and Jeff.
Would you like to come?"

And I said, "Yeah," you
know, "I'll be there."

And the only studio

we could find available was Bob's.

You know, I just thought,
"Well, we'll go..."

"Bob's got one - we'll just call him up."

It just happened.

It was just, like, everything
was just coincidental.

And so all of us
kind of sat together

over a meal and worked out

the lyrics to the song "Handle With Care".

And I thought,
"Well, I'm not gonna just"

sing it myself.
I've got Roy Orbison standing there.

I'm gonna write a bit for Roy to sing.

And then as it progressed, you know,

I just thought, well, might
as well see if, you know,

I'll push it a bit and get Tom
and Bob to sing the bridge.

The next thing I
know, he came over one day

and said, "I played the
track to Warner Brothers",

and they think it's too
good to be a B side."

I was saying to him, "Look, you know",

"the only thing to do is, let's
do another nine of these tunes,"

"and then we've got the Wilburys."

So then that night, Roy was playing

in the place down in
Anaheim, so we got a...

a car, and we all went
down there in the car.

And then we got... we were
in Roy's band room, and...

we kicked everybody out,
his band and his wife,

and we just said, "We've got
to talk to you on your own."

We said, "Look, we're gonna have
this group called the Wilburys."

"Do you want to be in it?"

And he said, "Yeah."

It was... destiny.

♪ Everybody's

♪ Got somebody

♪ To lean on

♪ Put your body

♪ Next to mine

♪ And dream on... ♪

We're all fans
of each other, you know.

I get Roy's autograph every day.

The best time, you
know, really became...

Some long-lasting friendships
were born there.

I think the Wilburys
was kind of good for Tom,

because of the fact that
there's other people there.

We were hanging out
around the clock, but it was

kind of a good, healthy party.

♪ Thinking 'bout last night

♪ Thinking 'bout last night... ♪

From my old band,
I never really wrote tunes

with the other people in the band.

I enjoy writing with Tom,

because, you know, he's just so... so easy.

He's not on a trip of any kind.

You know, Tom is... he'll go any way.

The thing I learned from the Wilburys is...

was just the luxury of
sitting and watching,

you know, four of my
favorite writers write.

I got out of the car.
No, she was long and tall.

Or short and fat.

She was dressed to kill.

Yeah, that's good.

Out to give me a thrill.
She was over the hill.

♪ And it's all right

♪ Riding around in the breeze

♪ Well, it's

♪ All right

♪ If you live the life you please

♪ Well, it's

♪ All right

♪ Doing the best you can

♪ Well, it's all right

♪ As long as you lend a hand... ♪

The record was a big success.

And then Roy died, which was a real shock

and real sadness, you know.

It was terrible.

Just thought, wow, we can just
make hundreds of records now,

cos we got this really
good group, you know,

and then suddenly he was gone.

He went out on top,
and I'm sure he knew that.

I think the last conversation
I had with him was

a couple of days before
he died, on the phone,

and he was just so thrilled
that the Wilburys was...

had gone platinum, and he was just,

"Isn't it great? It's great!"

♪ Everything will work out fine

♪ Well, it's all right

♪ We're going to the end of the line... ♪

I'd been aware of Tom's
music my whole life growing up.

The album that really...

made me a fan, though, was
the Full Moon Fever album.

♪ It was a beautiful day

♪ The sun beat down

♪ I had the radio on

♪ I was drivin'... ♪

I must have listened to that
album a thousand times,

just over and over and over again,

and didn't stop, and for
a year or two years,

that was sort of my album of choice.

♪ Now I'm running down a dream

♪ Never would come to me

♪ Working on a mystery

♪ Going wherever it leads

♪ Runnin' down a dream. ♪

It was the first one
that I did as a solo artist,

and it wasn't even something
that I really planned out.

I just had written a few
songs with Jeff Lynne,

and really what it was about
was Jeff was gonna leave

and go back to England,

and I wanted to get these
songs down before he left.

So we raced out to Mike Campbell's studio.

Mike was there, obviously.

A friend of ours, Phil Jones,

we called over to play the drums, and...

the recording went much quicker
than I had ever experienced.

The tracks were done in days,

and they clearly weren't
Heartbreakers records,

didn't sound anything like
Heartbreakers records.

I thought, well, maybe
this is that opportunity

I've kind of had in the back of my mind

of doing something on my own.

♪ And you were just

♪ A face in the crowd... ♪

I thought we were
making a band record,

and so I called Bugs and said,

"When are we supposed to be there?"

cos I thought we were starting

on a Wednesday or whatever,
and he went, "Uh..."

"they're making a record with
Jeff, just Tom and Mike."

And I didn't know.

Well, I had mixed emotions,

but, then, the other side
of it was, there were more

than a couple songs on that
record I just didn't like.

I wasn't surprised the band
felt a little threatened by it,

you know, especially in view of
the Travelling Wilburys coming up

and all these outside projects.

I told them up front that, you know,

I'm not leaving the group,
but I am enjoying being free

of the Heartbreakers thing for a while.

I played on one song, you know,

um, and I didn't really get to play.

It was just, "Can you come in here"

"and go ding, ding, ding, ding, ding?"

And the feel of the
record was awkward for me

to play to, so I couldn't even go

ding, ding, ding, ding, ding very well.

And I think I was clean.

Benmont was still wild as
an Indian at that time,

and he didn't want anything to do with it.

And as a matter of fact, the whole time

I was making that record, I would hear

from different people
that the Heartbreakers

were badmouthing it.

Not Mike, but the other three.

I'd run into somebody, and they'd say,

"Oh, I talked to so and so,"

"and they said you're
making a lousy record."

And I'd be stunned, you know?

I'd say, "Well, I don't think so."

"I think I'm doing all right."

One time Howie came down to the studio,

and he was sitting outside the
door, looking really irritated.

I came out, and I said, "Well, we're
gonna get to the bass really soon."

He says, "It's not that.
I don't like this song."

And I was, like, "You don't like the song?"

He says, "No."

And I said, "Well, if you don't like the
song, you don't have to play on it."

He's, like, "Right, bye."

It was "Free Fallin'."

♪ She's a good girl

♪ Loves her mama

♪ Loves Jesus

♪ And America, too

♪ She's a good girl

♪ She's crazy about elvis

♪ Loves horses

♪ And her boyfriend, too

♪ But it's a long day

♪ Living in Reseda

♪ There's a freeway

♪ Running through the yard

♪ And I'm a bad boy

♪ Cos I don't even miss her

♪ I'm a bad boy

♪ For breaking her heart

♪ And I'm free, free

♪ I'm free fallin', fallin'

♪ Yeah, I'm free, free

♪ I'm free fallin', fallin'... ♪

"Free Fallin',"
that was a huge song.

You know, that's one of those songs

that kind of came out
and stopped the clock.

It's just that kind of suspended,

swinging chord structure
that makes you feel

like you're floating up in
the air and coming down.

And then the lyric is so beautiful,

and again, has that fantastic combination

of being specific but still open -

not abstract, but open -

so that you don't know all the details,

and you can fill them in for yourself.

♪ And I'm free...

♪ I'm free fallin' ♪

Look out, look out, look out!

♪ I'm free

♪ Free fallin', free fallin'

♪ Free fallin'

♪ Free fallin', free fallin'

♪ I'm free

♪ Free fallin', free fallin'... ♪

I was in Los
Angeles, and he asked me

would I listen to something.
I said, "Sure."

So he put on the "Free Fallin'" album.
I loved it.

I jumped about and shouted and
laughed, and it was just great.

And he said, "Well," he
said, "I'm glad you like it

"because the record company
don't want to release it."

And I said, "What do you mean?"

He said, "They think it's
inconsistent with my image",

"and they don't want to release it."

So anyway, I fired off a
letter to the president

saying he should fire his A&R
staff and himself and whatever.

But anyway, he... finally
someone made them see sense

and they did release it.

But isn't that amazing?

It was a great time.

I felt very inspired, writing,
you know, the rest of the album.

I think I started off writing
"Yer So Bad" and "Free Fallin',"

and wrote one every day and
then recorded it the next day.

I remember we would mix down.

We would make the record,
finish it, mix it down,

and then start another track.

While we were mixing down "Free Fallin',".

Jeff and I wrote "I Won't
Back Down" in the next room.

♪ Well, I won't back down

♪ No, I won't back down

♪ You could 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

♪ But I stand my ground

♪ And I won't back down

♪ I won't back down Hey, baby

♪ There ain't no easy way out

♪ I won't back down Hey, I... ♪

Of all the songs I've written,

I think I get the most
feedback about that song,

and it is a personal song.

When I did it, I'd sort of
thought that I had laid it out,

you know, with no ambiguity at all,

like I just said it very plainly,

that I kind of felt nervous about it,

like maybe I should take it back
and disguise it a little bit.

But I'm glad I didn't, and
it's very much like me.

♪ I won't back down Hey, baby... ♪

Full Moon Fever became the
biggest record I'd made

up to that point.

It was a huge success with five singles.

Suddenly, we're into a whole new world.

I think I had kind of reinvented
what I did at that point.

♪ Oh, you're so bad

♪ Best that I ever had

♪ In a world gone mad

♪ You're so bad. ♪

I felt very happy.

When I'm in a good place emotionally,

I seem to do the best music.

It wasn't any effort at all.

You can't just play with the
same five guys all the time.

You get stuck.

It's good to go out and do other things,

and then when you get back together,

you come back with fresh energy.

♪ Yeah, runnin' down a dream

♪ That never would come to me

♪ Working on a mystery... ♪

We'd gotten to the point where
we had overdubs on the record

where we needed an extra
part to perform them live,

and I think it was Stan.
Stan suggested Scott.

He's a good all-around musician,

multi-instrumentalist.

He came down. He was really
just going to do a tour, right?

- A couple weeks.
- Couple weeks.

And he's now been here,

what is it, 15-20 years?

At first, I did
very little with him.

I would just be enjoying the show really.

I'd never had that experience
quite like it, you know.

I could have been the roadie.

I would have been happy.

As time went on, you know, I
did more and more and more,

and pretty much I was
involved in all of it.

Into The Great Wide Open.

And we all played on it.

We were never there all at
the same time, you know?

Why?

Well, we were just,

were being a little moody at the time.

♪ When the time gets right

♪ I'm gonna pick you up

♪ And take you far away
from trouble, my love

♪ Under a big ol' sky

♪ Out in a field of green

♪ There's gotta be something
left for us to believe

♪ Oh, I await the day

♪ Good fortune comes our way

♪ And we ride down the king's highway... ♪

We'd done the record
Full Moon Fever with Jeff,

and we'd loved it so much

but we wanted to bring the
band in to work with Jeff,

so that was... The Great Wide Open was Jeff

with The Heartbreakers

trying to get those two
things to fit together.

A successful
experiment, but a tough one

because Jeff doesn't really
like to produce groups.

The Heartbreakers' way of doing things

is to track everything live all at once

and live or die by that.

Jeff's approach is not to
have everybody play live,

it's to work up from a foundation,

have each guy play
individually in an overdub.

I couldn't help
but try it, you know?

I was so impressed with
Jeff that I wanted to see

what happened if we brought them in

and made a record together.

Each guy has their own
separate way of doing things.

Iovine had his way,

where he wasn't really a musician per se,

but an overseer, where Jeff

is definitely a musician,

you know, so he can tell you
in the sense of, for instance,

if you have your parts not working

or something's not working, he
can actually get to specifics.

So on Into The Great Wide Open,

I got a phone call occasionally, and unlike

earlier in The Heartbreakers,
where I'd come in and play

and go "What about this?"
and do this or that,

they'd kind of roll the tape
up to a certain spot and say,

"Could you play a lick here?"

or roll it up to a certain spot and say,

"Could you go ding, ding,
ding, ding, ding here?"

And I'd do that, and it just,
you know, wasn't any fun.

I was sort of saddened that
I wasn't allowed to hang.

It was like, "Get in here, do
your shit, get out of here,"

and it was a... so it, you
know, it wasn't, it wasn't

a real high point for me creatively.

I like whatever makes good records.

I don't care how it's made.

Nobody cares how a record is made.

They care if they like it or not.

♪ I'm learning to fly

♪ Learning to fly

♪ But I ain't got wings

♪ Learning to fly

♪ Coming down

♪ Learning to fly

♪ Is the hardest thing... ♪

One of my favorite songs
would be "Learning To Fly,"

that we co-wrote.

It's such a complete
record, the sound of it,

and the words are brilliant.

Tom wrote all the words except

for a few little ideas
that I had here and there,

a couple of, a couple of
"and" I'd put in there

and "the", "but" there was, I think.

And now I'd like to
tell you the story of Eddie

and his adventures in
"The Great Wide Open."

♪ Into the great wide open

♪ Under the skies of blue

♪ Out in the great wide open

♪ A rebel without a clue... ♪

When I was making the video
for "Learning To Fly,"

all of us were out in Tucson, Arizona,

because we wanted the clouds

to get those John Ford kind of clouds,

and we waited for days for
these clouds, you know.

So of course, there'd be a rainstorm

in the middle of the day,

and so we were in a trailer in a rainstorm,

and then in from the rain came
Johnny Depp and Faye Dunaway.

Apparently, Johnny knew Benmont somehow.

Well, then I thought, how
about getting those two

to play Eddie and the fairy godmother?

They'd be perfect.

I got asked to do the video.

That's when I called Faye,
you know, and I said,

"I'm gonna do this video for Tom Petty."

"Maybe you should come
play the fairy godmother."

And she became a teenage girl,

squealing, you know, "Oh, Tom Petty!"

She was real into it.

That was one of the only
times that we edited the song

to fit the video.

We had so much good film,
the first cut of the video

was 18 minutes long.

It was a four-minute song.

So I was working with
Julian Temple, and I said,

"Julian, this is not gonna fly," you know?

And he said, "I know, but it's so good."

I said, "Well, you'd better
take another pass at it."

So I came back a few days later,

and he had a seven-and-a-half minute cut.

That was great, you know, and
had him arriving in town,

becoming a rock star,
throwing his video awards,

all the things that we wanted to see.

So now somebody says,

MTV is never going to play a
seven-and-a-half-minute song.

And I said, "Well, just don't
say anything about it."

"Just send it."

And so we did and they played it
in heavy rotation for months.

And I don't know to this day
if they know that it was,

or knew that it was
seven-and-a-half minutes long.

Well, McGuinn and
I, we had been friends

since '77, I think, was when we first met,

and we'd been on the road
together with Bob Dylan.

We had a day off
in Gothenburg, Sweden.

I had this tune that I'd
been working on, like...

And I showed it to Tom,

and he and I got some
words together for it.

We'd just been reading this
book about this rock guy,

and so it kind of gave us
the idea for the song,

and the song is called "King Of The Hill."

♪ And you feel like the
king of the hill... ♪

It'd been a long time
since he made a record,

and so he started an album,

and he invited me down

to sing with him on this record.

And the record
company guy had a song for me

that I was supposed to do.

I really don't see that
you're going to make much on this.

I'd rather hear him sing anything else.

The song was terrible,

and it wasn't a song he wrote,

and I was very suspicious as
to why he was being encouraged

to record material like this.

You know, it sounds very commercial,

like planned commercial, like.

"Gonna love you, gonna need you."

"This time I've got both
feet on the ground."

I could smoke a joint and come up
with three better lines than that.

You could, too.

"Got to hold on, it won't be long."

I mean...

It's just extremely simple.

The man who sang,
"Turn, turn, turn."

Let's go get him a fucking song.

You know, this is a great man standing here

that's done great things,
and you know, these guys,

you know, are just students
of what he's done.

I don't think that that's
what he should sing.

The A&R guy, the guy
from the record company,

seemed awfully young to me.

I don't think he understood,

you know, the depth of the
artist he was working with.

- Sorry, Roger...
- No, I appreciate it, man.

I just can't hold it in any
longer, cos I love you so much.

- I love you man.
- I hate to see you get fucked around.

You're doing what you do, and that's great.

We're not trying to fuck him around.

I know you're not trying
to fuck him around,

but you are if you make him do this song.

Because sometimes the
commercial road, you know,

thinking that that's the road to take

isn't always the road to take.

Sometimes it's doing stuff from your heart,

and being really honest with
people works much better.

Well, let's change some lyrics.

Why don't you just get him a song?

Let's change some lyrics.

The music's good.

What, are you getting a kickback on this?

I mean, like this is a bad song.

Get another song.

What have you got the publishing
on this or something?

I don't have anything to do with it.

- You got two points, something.
- I do not.

- Don't bullshit me.
- I don't.

Oh, yeah.

Those days of the record
business have long been over.

Yeah, so is Payola.

This is just perpetrating

the depth of shit we're in
with pop music, you know.

You think it's like a sellout, right?

Yeah, yeah, right.

Well, listen, I knew when I heard,
some people might think that.

Then it's not worth doing.

I can say I'm not that
crazy about it either.

They were trying to make the artist

into something he wasn't in order
to sell him a certain way,

and in truth, they'd have been
better off letting him do

what he did naturally,

and to his credit, he didn't do the song.

He was my hero, you know.

It's like he was standing up to these guys,

and I was being a little too passive.

I was going, oh, well, you know,

I'll do what the producer wants,
the record company wants.

I'll go along with the
flow, not to make trouble.

I went home thinking, I've
never done that in a session.

I was really out of line.

Tom was right.

It was my album, and my
name was going on it,

and who's going to know who these guys were

or why they wanted that song on there?

To make a good rock and roll album

takes some time and some consideration.

It's another art, making a record,

as opposed to stepping out on
stage and doing a performance.

Some people don't realise that,

but they are two different arts.

You're not facing an audience.

You are the audience.

He's, of anyone I've worked
with, the most a craftsman.

He can write a song

and then know how to take that song

and make it into the best
record that it could be.

He's also got the inspiration

where the songs come through him.

I've sat down with him where

he'll play me a song that's
written in five minutes,

complicated story, and
I'll ask him afterwards,

you know, what's that about
or who's the inspiration,

he'll say he has no idea.

He doesn't know what it's about at all.

It just kind of comes through him.

So he can channel material

in a pretty strong way,
and I've seen him do it.

♪ I dreamed you

♪ I saw your face

♪ Cut my life line

♪ When drifting through space

♪ I saw an angel

♪ I saw my fate

♪ I can only thank God
it was not too late... ♪

It's so hard to understand.

I don't really understand it.

But I do know that it seems that
the best ones often just appear.

Like you're sitting there with
your guitar or the piano,

and bang, there it is.

It just falls out of the sky.

♪ I followed an angel... ♪

I hesitate to even try to understand it

for fear that it might make it go away.

It's a spiritual thing.

Tom kind of flies
up to the stratosphere

and grabs an idea and comes
back down and puts it down.

He's capable of abstraction,
great abstraction.

But he puts it in terms
that can be related to

from a lot of different ways.

It doesn't seem like if he were
to force it, it would happen.

It seems like it just has
to be the right time,

and he's just playing around on the guitar,

and then all of a sudden the song starts,

and it doesn't stop,

and it just keeps going
for the whole thing.

The next solo record
I did was Wildflowers.

It's not a solo record, you know,

because it started that way,

but I wound up playing with them anyway.

I brought them all back except Stan.

♪ Run away, go find a lover

♪ Run away, let your heart be your guide

♪ You deserve the deepest of cover

♪ You belong in that home by and by

♪ You belong among the wildflowers

♪ You belong somewhere close to me

♪ You belong with your
love on your arm... ♪

We wanted to do
that record different

than our last two records.

The two previous records had
been done with Jeff Lynne.

Rick Rubin's approach was
to get the band back in

and have live playing, cos
that's the way he works.

So he wanted to get back to that.

And then we would go into Sound City,

which was where he recorded
Damn The Torpedoes actually,

went in with a band, started recording,

and just see what came from it.

Wonderful, wonderful.

One, two,

a-one, two, three, four...

We had assembled a band in the studio.

We were auditioning drummers,

and he'd bring in a drummer,
we'd play through the song once,

and I'd go, "No," and the drummer would go.

So finally Steve Ferrone shows up.

And as I was going in, another guy's drums

were coming out, and I
thought, "what's this?"

"This looks like an audition," you know.

And so I sat down,

and we played "You Don't
Know How It Feels."

One, two, three, four...

He played the track one time
through without hearing it,

and we got a take, and I said,

"Now, that's what I'm looking for."

Tom turned around
at the mic and he said,

"Well, what a difference
a drummer can make,"

and then he looked right
at me, and he said,

"Don't worry, you won."

And that was it,

so from then on, we just,
uh, continued recording.

He's incredible.

Steve really rose above everyone
else who played at that time,

and it was pretty clear, and it really,

I know that Tom really enjoyed playing.

It's like he didn't have to
think about the drums anymore.

It was just taken care of.

♪ And you don't know how it feels

♪ You don't know how it feels

♪ To be me... ♪

Now, Stanley was still
in the Heartbreakers,

and it must have just been
really, really lousy for him

for us to be making a record without him.

I think what finally tore it with me

was Mike and Stan had a conversation

where Stan said something to the effect

that he didn't like the
material I was writing.

He didn't think it was what
he wanted to be doing.

I didn't fit in
to the music being made.

I didn't know how to fit in.

Furthermore, I was too
damn old and successful

to want to fit in.

I was doing my thing.

♪ It's hard to find a friend

♪ It's hard to find a friend... ♪

Mike and I were always really interested

in the craft of recording.

Stan's point of view of recording

was you do it just like you do it on stage.

You just capture that.

We thought, no, there's
more to it than that.

We want to create textures.

We want to get into using the
studio as an instrument.

He didn't fit into that world.

I'm not a session player. I'm a...

You know, it's sort of like,
hell, I did what I could do.

I took that ride as far
as it would go, man.

I mean, the '70s were
great, the '80s were great,

and the '90s were tough.

I don't think
it's what Stan wanted.

He wanted to be an all-out
rock and roll band.

Tom was writing some mellower songs.

Then Stan had to perform
those songs on the road

if he wanted to stay in the Heartbreakers.

And it's like - I think he used the term -

"I feel like I'm in a cover band."

♪ It's good to be king

♪ And have your own way

♪ Get a feeling of peace

♪ At the end of the day... ♪

We were making the Wildflowers album

over a long period of time,

and then the Greatest Hits was due.

I was so against the Greatest Hits.

I had the thought that the
songs really should be part

of the albums that we made them for.

But it was a contractual obligation

that we do this Greatest Hits album,

and I was really against the idea

of writing a new song for
it, which they wanted,

and I thought, how can it be a
hit if I haven't written it yet?

How can it be on the Greatest Hits?

So I took a song that I had started

during Full Moon Fever

and finished it, and that became.

"Mary Jane's Last Dance"

and the album went on to
sell ten million records.

So what do I know?

We thought now, you know,
for the Greatest Hits,

that we really should

all get together, the five of us,

and make these records...

at the same time, make them live.

♪ Well, I don't know

♪ But I've been told

♪ You never slow down, you never grow old

♪ I'm tired of screwing up

♪ I'm tired of going down

♪ I'm tired of myself

♪ I'm tired of this town

♪ Oh, my, my

♪ Oh, hell, yes

♪ Honey, put on that party dress

♪ Buy me a drink

♪ Sing me a song

♪ Take me as I come cos I can't stay long

♪ Last dance with Mary Jane

♪ One more time to kill the pain

♪ I feel summer creeping in

♪ And I'm tired of this town again... ♪

There was a little bit of tension,

because there had been, obviously,

a lot of history of difficulty there,

but I think they were all

glad to be in the room together,

doing what they were doing.

I think they... there may have been a sense

of this may be the last
time we're doing it.

"Mary Jane's Last
Dance" was a huge hit for us,

and that's the last thing.

Stanley ever did with us,
which is really cool to me,

and he plays his ass off on it.

During that session, Johnny Depp,

he was opening this club, The Viper Room,

and he asked us if we would
play the opening night

of the club for a benefit.

And they couldn't have been
more accommodating, you know.

It was like a yes right
away, and they came.

You know... you know, it
was a tiny, tiny place.

Stan was quiet,

didn't really say much about it,

didn't say yes or no.

And then he... he vanished
from that session

without saying good-bye.

Stan had moved to Florida -

and... I don't... I'm not
even sure whether he actually

officially told everybody
that he'd moved to Florida -

but Tom called him and said,
"We're going to do this thing,"

and he says, "Hey, you know,
I'm living in Florida now."

"Why should I do it?"

"I mean, is there any money in it?"

"No, it's a charity."

I said, "Look, the band
is gonna play, you know?"

"Are you coming or not?"

"I can't do it."

Now, this, you know, I was outraged.

And Tom said, OK,

we'll get somebody else to play the drums.

I told the office, "Just
tell Stan never mind",

"Ringo's gonna do it."

And Stan showed up within 24 hours.

♪ Ooh...

♪ I keep crawling back to you... ♪

That's amazing.

That's just amazing. No, I had no idea.

God, it would've been
cool to see Ringo play.

♪ Surprised

♪ Thought she'd seen the last of him

♪ She shook her head

♪ And let him in

♪ Ooh

♪ I keep crawling back to you... ♪

Stan had done everything
he could do to be fired,

just everything he could do to push us

as far as we could be pushed.

It got worse to the point that I'd hear

that Stan had auditioned for another group.

We were at a gig, and I heard
him through the window

talking to a guy in another band,

and he described us as not his main thing.

Well, I think in theory
I was a part of the band,

but at that point, it's,
like, well, guys, you know,

at what point is somebody
gonna call this game?

♪ Who could've seen

♪ You'd be so hard to please

♪ Somehow... ♪

I didn't want to play with him.
It had got to the point

where the music didn't sound right

to me, and I told him so.

I told him, I just don't think

you have the right feel for this music.

And he was very upset,

and I understand why.

♪ And it's wake-up time... ♪

The vibe was so bad.

Tom said, "Look, you
know, I can't do this."

"Just call Stan up, he knows it's coming."

"Call him up, and tell him
he's out of the band."

"We're gonna get somebody else."

And I called Stan,

and the first thing that came
out, he says, "Am I fired?"

And I said, "You are, Stan."

♪ And rise

♪ And shine. ♪

I always thought that Tom
and Stanley were really close.

Sometimes those are the
people that fall out.

♪ Talking to myself again

♪ Wondering if this travelling is good

♪ Is there something better doing

♪ We'd be doing if we could?

♪ And, oh, the stories we could tell

♪ And if this all blows up and goes to hell

♪ I can still see us sitting
on a bed in some motel

♪ Listening to the stories
we could tell... ♪

Yeah.

Yeah.

♪ Remember that guitar in
the museum in Tennessee

♪ The name plate on the glass
brought back 20 melodies

♪ And the scratches on the face

♪ Told of all the times he'd fell

♪ Singing every story he could tell

♪ And, oh, the stories it could tell

♪ And I'll bet you it still
rings like a bell... ♪

He left after 20 years,

and he certainly went on

to be very successful after leaving us

as a producer and songwriter.

♪ ..Listen to the stories we could tell. ♪

Drummer Stan Lynch from Petty's
band, the Heartbreakers,

has announced that he's leaving
that group after 19 years

to pursue independent writing
and producing projects.

The split is amicable, Lynch says.

He simply found himself
growing apart from the group.

Dave Grohl of Nirvana

will sit in for Lynch when
the Heartbreakers appear

on Saturday Night Live next month.

Someone from my management calls and says,

"Hey, Tom Petty just called
and, uh, wants to know"

"if you'll play drums with
him on Saturday Night Live."

I'm, like, what...

What the fuck is he calling me for?

He couldn't find a good drummer?

I said, of course, I'll do it.

No question, I'll do it.

It was the first time that
I'd really looked forward

to playing the drums
since Nirvana had ended.

♪ Come on, now

♪ Give me some sugar

♪ Give me some sugar

♪ Little honey bee... ♪

I was really excited
to play both songs,

but mostly "Honey Bee,"

because "Honey Bee" is just such a rocker.

It's, like, the kind of thing a bunch of...

16-year-olds would play
in the garage to get off.

It's a killer. It's a barn-burner.

That's right.

Right after that, we
had the David Letterman show

and Ferrone finished his tour he was on

and came in and did that show.

A day later the
phone rang and Tommy said,

"What are you doing next year?"

And I said, "Well... nothing."

I said... He said, "Well, you
know, you want to come out"

"on the road and play with us,"
and I said, "I'd love to."

♪ It's time to move on

♪ Time to get going

♪ What lies ahead I have no way of knowing

♪ But under my feet, baby, grass is growing

♪ It's time to move on

♪ Time to get going. ♪

I think by the
time that album was done,

and especially by the time
Steve Ferrone had come in,

and we had decided he was going to stay,

we were very unified.

We were so on top of our
game, it was ridiculous.

While we were working
on the Wildflowers album,

I signed Johnny Cash.

♪ I've been everywhere, man

♪ I've been everywhere, man

♪ Across the desert, it's bare, man

♪ I breathed the mountain air, man

♪ Of travel, I've had my share, man

♪ I've been everywhere. ♪

Johnny always loved Tom.

I remember it was a funny period

where the Heartbreakers were
taking a break, so we invited.

Tom to come down and play bass,

cos he really likes to play bass.

So Tom ended up coming, and then

by the end of the day,
most of the Heartbreakers

were there, playing on the session.

They ended up being Johnny's backup band.

♪ The lights in the harbour

♪ Don't shine for me... ♪

We were kind of interested
in all forms of American music,

pure forms of it,

not what they would call country today.

What they would call country today

is sort of like bad rock
groups with a fiddle.

♪ The sea of heartbreak... ♪

The stuff that we liked
was late sort of '50s

and early '60s stuff, so
when we worked with Cash,

we didn't have any trouble

putting on that hat, so to speak.

♪ Sea of heartbreak

♪ Sea of heartbreak. ♪

It was a real kick
doing the record with him.

The album won Country
Grammy of the Year,

and Tom thinks it's one of the best.

Heartbreakers albums.

Just because they were so in the moment,

and they were such inspired sessions,

and everything happened really easily,

and there was very little
pressure, because it was,

you know, really it was all on Johnny.

And then later on, he
recorded "I Won't Back Down,"

which almost made me
wish I'd never sung it.

It was so good.

He sang it with such an authority.

It sounded like it was written for him.

♪ 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 won't back down. ♪

My favorite memory of Cash was

on my 50th birthday, he sent
me a note, and it just said,

"You're a good man to ride
the river with. John."

♪ No, I won't back down. ♪

Let's try this Hank
Williams song for a minute.

You know this one, "Lost Highway"?

We're a rock and roll band,

but a lot of the roots of rock
and roll comes from country.

So from time to time in a rehearsal,

even in a show, we've been known

to kind of bust into a country number.

♪ Hey, I'm a rolling stone

♪ All alone and lost

♪ And for a life of sin

♪ I've paid the cost

♪ When I pass by

♪ All the people say

♪ Just another guy

♪ On a lost highway

♪ Just a deck of cards

♪ And a jug of wine

♪ And a woman's lies

♪ Make a life like mine

♪ The day we met, I went astray

♪ I started rolling down that lost highway

♪ I was just a lad, nearly 22

♪ Neither good nor bad, just a kid like you

♪ And now I'm lost, too late to pray

♪ Lord, I pay the cost on the lost highway

♪ Just another guy on the lost highway. ♪

Beautiful.

Isn't that a great fucking song?

- It's an amazing song.
- One of my favorites.

Never played it in my life, but...

Well, you played it right.

I heard it this morning.

- Wrote down the words while I was driving here.
- I know, I know.

You played it good.

A deck of cards and a jug of wine.

A woman's lies can
make a life like mine.

A deck of cards and a jug of wine, right?

Make a life like mine.

This is a new song for you.

♪ I got a room at the top
of the world tonight

♪ I can see everything tonight... ♪

I always felt like.

Echo was maybe the one time

where in some way Tom's nerve
failed him a little bit.

To me, it's the big
divorce album, you know.

It's Blood On The tracks.

♪ Can have a drink and forget those things

♪ That went wrong... ♪

Getting a divorce is pretty
overwhelming, as anyone knows,

and this was a really tough one.

♪ I got a room at the top
of the world tonight

♪ I got a room at the top
of the world tonight

♪ I got room at the top
of the world tonight

♪ And I ain't...

♪ Coming...

♪ Down... ♪

It's amazing the record
came out as good as it did,

because it wasn't something
that I was at the helm of.

I wrote the songs, but I
wasn't driving the car.

♪ I got someone who loves me tonight

♪ I got over a thousand dollars in the bank

♪ And I'm all right... ♪

He was going through something
that was traumatic,

and it's kind of alluded to in the songs.

It's certainly alluded to in
the feeling of the record,

but he didn't come out and say it.

And I don't mean that it
has to be confessional.

I don't mean that the
artist has any obligation

to air his dirty laundry.

But I felt that there was

a kind of a backpedalling in Echo.

I felt that he was
starting to say something

and then not committing to it.

But if he had been the type of person

who was willing to expose
himself and his family,

then I think maybe that would
have been a better record,

but maybe he'd be a worse person.

♪ I ain't...

♪ Coming...

♪ Down. ♪

It was a dark period,

but sometimes you make really
good music out of dark periods.

Two-thirds of Echo was a great record,

but there's a lot of sadness,

because there was some loss going on,

and that's happening right in front of us.

The heroin addict,
they're always in denial,

and so it's hard to talk logic to them,

cos it's like you're talking English,

and they're talking Greek.

I think everybody in the band
had tried talking to him

or stopped talking to him,

got too angry and stopped talking to him.

You know, you try tough love.

There was the album cover shoot,

and Howie was supposed
to turn up from Santa Fe

where he was living,

and he missed the plane.

And he was going to be on the next plane.

We didn't know where he was, and you know,

and the photographer was there,

and Tom said, "Let's go, let's
do the album cover shoot."

So they went and did it without him,

and he followed up on that by
making it the album cover.

He made his point that way.

You know, Howie
was noticeably weaker,

but still, you know, you can't go,

"Howie was, you know, one chunk,
and he's just half there."

If you hear the song, "Swingin',"

the hook to "Swingin'" is this.
♪ Down... ♪

Every chorus, and that wasn't Tom.

That's Howie.

♪ Yeah, she went down

♪ Down

♪ Swingin'

♪ Yeah, she went down

♪ Down

♪ Swingin'... ♪

Echo...

Hi.

- Hey.
- Thank you.

One, two, three..

Eventually, I settled
into writing "The Last DJ."

♪ Well, you can't turn
him into a company man

♪ You can't turn him into a whore

♪ And the boys upstairs just
don't understand anymore

♪ Well, the top brass don't
like him talking so much

♪ And he won't play what they say to play

♪ And he don't want to change
what don't need to change

♪ And there goes the last DJ

♪ Who plays what he wants to play

♪ And says what he wants to say

♪ Hey, hey, hey

♪ And there goes your freedom of choice

♪ There goes the last human voice

♪ There goes the last DJ... ♪

It's a moral play.

It's like... how far is too far.

I used to draw the line here,

and now I draw it over there, and why.

Rock stars were being
invented on game shows.

♪ As we celebrate mediocrity

♪ All the boys upstairs want to see

♪ How much you'll pay for what
you used to get for free... ♪

FM radio began as an outlaw alternative

to the straight media,

and we found these new bands

that you couldn't hear anywhere else.

There was another component,
which was, we felt

we were the alternative
conduit of information

from the straight media.

We would report on the Vietnam
War in a different way

than you would hear at night.

And all of this was in the songs.

So, it wasn't just that we
got to play what we wanted.

It's what we did with that.

Big business came in,

and Ronald Reagan came in and
deregulated the industry.

Now you have fewer and fewer people

owning more and more of the media,

controlling that information,

putting out a list after 9/11
of songs you couldn't play,

and "Imagine" from John
Lennon was on that list.

♪ And there goes the last DJ... ♪

The album was about more than radio.

It was about disappearing freedoms

in a lot of different places.

What Tom was talking about was the
erosion of a kind of quality,

you know, and the receding
of certain values.

People used to be curious about

somebody really interesting's take on life.

Now people are excited about

who this or that celebrity is sleeping with

or who they're mad at

or what they're wearing
or are they bulimic.

♪ Lord shine a light on

♪ All these lost children

♪ Far away from their home... ♪

Everybody used to care,

and they don't seem to care.

Please let it matter.

♪ Like it was Dreamville

♪ A long time ago... ♪

I love "Dreamville,"

because it's a wonderful

kind of look at a simpler,
more loving time.

There's no doubt

that we're in a period of
instant gratification.

A lot of young people are
less inclined to sit and say,

"Let's put a band together, and
we'll stay a band for 30 years."

You don't hear anybody saying that.

There's more of that, "Geez,
can I get on American Idol?"

"How fast can I get up there?"

"How fast can I shoot to the top?"

♪ And money became king... ♪

I couldn't watch the
world changing to that degree

and not comment on it.

Radio looked
at it as an attack on them,

and in fact, some stations
refused to play it.

I didn't expect people
to greet it with open arms,

especially in the music business.

When I played it to the record company,

you could have heard a pin drop, you know.

The record finished, and
silence all around the room,

and then someone says, "Well,
that's not about us, is it?"

♪ But she goes on forever... ♪

At the time of The Last DJ,

life was in a constant stage of change.

The previous summer, I had married Dana,

who has had a way of giving, you know, hope

and putting some redemption in my life.

♪ Like a diamond

♪ In the sunlight... ♪

But with Howie,
his problems got worse

and worse to, uh...

to tragic proportions.

We really saw him deteriorate
over time, and it really was,

it was painful to everyone,
but particularly Tom,

just because they sang
together and were so close.

Looking back on it,

we probably should have
been more vocal about it.

You know, we knew it was there for years...

but I just thought that's his business.

I'm not... I'm not going to
tell him how to live, you know.

And as long as he's doing his gig,

I can't really say much about
how he lives his life.

We tried to help
him, you know, we really did.

We tried everything we could.

But, uh... he couldn't,
he wouldn't be stopped.

I've kind of been the new guy
in the band for 21 years.

And I'd like to thank,

I'm definitely for the
band, and thank you. Yeah.

The band got
inducted into the Hall of Fame,

and they included, you
know, me for the first era

and Howie for the, you know, second era.

One was going to play on one song,

then Howie was going to play on
one of the ones that he'd done.

So there were two rehearsals
on two different days.

The first day was with Ron,

and it went really well, had a great time.

You know, we were only rehearsing one song,

but we were there for hours, playing.

The next day, Howie's going to play.

He comes in, and Stan was
really shocked when he saw him.

And then we went to play,

and the difference between
the day before...

it was just stunning.

At that time, you could tell

he was really trying to keep it together,

but he was sort of falling apart.

We all knew Howie was on a...

on a train to somewhere
that nobody could stop him,

and that was very, very sad.

I think Tom saw it as the band

in some way falling apart,
and it really scared him.

Nobody could figure out
what to do to save him.

Everybody loved Howie.

He was the coolest guy in the band.

He was. He was the coolest guy in the band.

Tremendously talented.

He could play about anything
with strings on it.

He could sing like a bird.

He was a record producer, too.

Produced a folksinger named
John Prine, won the Grammy

for his album.

He had all the promise
that you could ask for.

♪ Into the great wide open... ♪

Musically, I
mostly miss his voice.

He had an amazing harmony voice for Tom.

He could blend in perfectly
and phrase just right.

♪ Out in the great wide open... ♪

You know, he just got caught in a trap.

After the induction,
we were talking, you know,

and Stevie said, "Where's Howie?"

"I want to see Howie."

She insisted that we call him.

"Let's call him, and
tell him to come over."

So I think it was Dana, my wife,
got on the phone and said,

"Howie, your presence is required.

"You have to come." You know?

And he came in, and he was
in a really good mood.

He was very sweet, and he
sat with us for a while.

And then, then when he got up to go,

you know, he stood in the
door and waved good-bye,

and I knew somehow that I was
never going to see him again.

It's the great tragedy
of the Heartbreakers,

losing him,

this beautiful, wonderful man.

I think I just needed to stop.

It was just becoming a little too much

and I just needed to stop,

and it was just kind of
agreed that, you know,

I would leave the band and
they'd bring in somebody else,

and it's been, you know, a
real friendly situation,

and I'm scheduled to rejoin the
band in 2001, so it's all cool.

But...

Does Howie know that?

Yeah, no, I'm just joking.

Son of a bitch, you know...

if it didn't come true.

What's really interesting
about the Heartbreakers is...

Ron comes back, they bring
him off the reserve bench,

so there is that sense -

and I know it's important to Tom
cos I've heard him say it -

that the Heartbreakers
have to really be a band.

It can never become what some bands become,

just a brand name with
a bunch of hired guns.

♪ You never had a chance, did you, baby?

♪ So good lookin', so insecure

♪ And now you say you can't remember

♪ When the lines you
drew began to blur... ♪

When we did the Hall
of Fame induction ceremony,

you know, I played live with the band

and it just felt really great.

I ended up playing on a couple
of tracks on The Last DJ.

I remember on one of the last nights.

Tom just asking me, you know,
what was I doing that summer?

And I go, "Nothing, brother,"
you know, and he asked me

if I'd, you know, want to
go out and do some gigs.

The Heartbreakers wouldn't have
stood auditioning bass players

and bringing in a stranger.

I think it would have
collapsed the whole thing.

I think I would have said,

"Let's call it a day."

Ron was a gift from heaven.

It couldn't have worked out better really.

One of the first
shows we did together

when he came back in the band,

he was sitting at a
table, writing, you know,

and I was just joking, I said,
"What's that, a letter home?"

And he said, "No, it's notes for the show,"

and I was just like, "Damn,
this guy makes notes."

♪ And when all of this is over

♪ Should I lose you in this world... ♪

I feel pretty lucky
to be playing with people

that I have known for a
long, long time and love

and just people that you
can get right to the point

with minimum, uh, minimum words.

♪ And may my love travel

♪ With you everywhere

♪ Yeah, may my love travel

♪ With you always... ♪

I think Tom knew exactly
what he was doing with Last DJ

and I think he went into
it with his eyes open,

and he made one of the
most interesting records

anybody's made in the last ten years.

All right, here we go.

♪ There's some friends that I know

♪ Living in this town

♪ And I've come far to see them

♪ Gonna track 'em down

♪ They live in a brick house

♪ Painted white and brown

♪ Left a tip for the maid
and I packed up my guitar

♪ Dropped my key on the counter

♪ Rented a car

♪ Gonna hook up with 'em later

♪ And go hit the bar... ♪

Highway Companion was made
just in a couple of months.

♪ I need a big weekend

♪ Kick up the dust

♪ Yeah, big weekend

♪ If you don't run, you rust... ♪

Wanted to work with Jeff Lynne again,

who I hadn't got to work with in years,

and I like to hang out with Jeff

and I hadn't seen him in a long time.

It's been different

cos we haven't cowritten
any songs on this one.

Tom's written them all himself
and they're great songs.

He already had the songs,
you know, basically,

and he came to me and played them for me,

and I thought they were
brilliant as they were

and didn't need any interfering with.

Not that we would have let me, probably.

♪ You keep running for another place

♪ To find that saving grace

♪ Don't you, baby? ♪

Oh!

Highway Companion was a
really satisfying record for me.

I got to make it in a very casual way.

Heartbreakers records are more work

because you're dealing with
a set lineup of people.

They all have strong opinions.

But for this, I wanted it to
be a little more personal,

a simpler acoustic-based record.

♪ You're flirting with time, baby

♪ Flirting with time, baby... ♪

I did keep returning to
that concept of time,

but it wasn't something
that I was conscious of

until I started looking
at the songs as a group.

♪ You're flirting with time, baby... ♪

And I think about it,

I played with Mike
Campbell and Benmont Tench

since I was 18, 19.

♪ Time, baby, is catching up with you... ♪

Benmont is an extraordinary person.

He's such a great musician.

What he hears in his head is really...

there's no challenge in getting
that down to his fingers.

It's really so simple for him.

There's a lot of artistic integrity in him.

He doesn't put up with anything
that he views as insincere.

He's pretty tough on us

if he even suspects

that we're veering off the trail.

It's interesting to be in a band

that is not an equal band

like you at least perceive
somebody like U2 to be

but is a band that has a leader.

But I got an opinion, you know.

He may be sick of hearing it.

Fucking play it - we're musicians.

We're in the goddamn rock
and roll Hall of Fame.

Play your fucking guitars.

Jesus.

You're too reserved, you hold yourself in.

Honest to God, Tom, come on.

If you keep holding yourself in...

Come on, man.

- You're gonna pop.
- Just fucking play.

It's certainly not some job where I feel

like I'm Tom Petty's backup piano player.

I feel like I'm in a band with the guy.

Going to do a little number here.

This is from the Highway Companion album.

And this is one that celebrates
the southern United States

and this is called "Down South."

♪ Headed back down south

♪ Gonna see my daddy's mistress

♪ Gonna buy back her forgiveness

♪ And pay off every witness... ♪

Mike has become
definitely the co-captain,

certainly covering every base that I can't,

and he's a fabulous musician.

He's taught me a great deal.

I don't think I could play
the guitar nearly as well

if I hadn't been taught by him,

and I think he's often taken for granted

when people come to think
about guitar players.

You kind of have to remind them of Mike.

He's not a showboat, but he's as talented

as any guitar player I've ever come across.

He loves recording.

He really writes a lot.

I would work on music on my own

and if I got something
I liked, I would say,

"Here, let's do this,"

and he'd go, "Oh, I could hear
how I could sing over that."

And sometimes
he'll send me something

and I can't make it work

and then he'll go to somebody else

and have a huge hit with it.

I feel very blessed.

You know, I'm a kid who saw the Beatles

and had a fantasy dream,

"God, wouldn't it be great
to do something like that?"

And then I had my dream come true.

Actually there was a point

where I met some of the
Beatles and worked with them

and had them tell me they
liked the way I play.

It's almost unreal that I've
been so lucky, you know.

Like Benmont,

the group just simply
couldn't exist without him.

We are all one.

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

♪ I'm gonna stand my ground

♪ Won't be turned around

♪ And I'll keep this world
from draggin' me down

♪ Gonna stand my ground

♪ And I won't back down

♪ Hey, baby

♪ There ain't no easy way out

♪ Hey, I

♪ Will stand my ground

♪ And I won't back down... ♪

I'm happy to take
second seat to this guy

because he doesn't take shit
and he's always right on,

and he doesn't let anybody push him around.

For me, you know, he's just
one of the nicest people

because he's, you know, he's
not full of shit, as they say.

I can't think of any
other band that sounded

like Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers,

you know, and at times it was like,

"Whoa, he's like a Beatle."

"No, he's not, he's like, you
know, he's like Johnny Rotten."

"No, he's not, he's..."

He's just a badass.

♪ Last dance with Mary Jane

♪ One more time to kill the pain

♪ I feel summer creepin' in

♪ And I'm tired of this town again... ♪

I think that he captures

a side of America that is as relevant today

as it was in 1978.

The world's such a different
place than when they started,

and they're essentially

doing what they did from the beginning.

All the young songwriters
tend to look up to Tom Petty.

They feel the truth in what he's doing.

He's always evolving as an artist.

I don't think there's a better band,

and I don't think there's a
better performer than Tom.

And as long as he keeps
discovering the inspirations,

he'll go further.

♪ Oh, and what could I do, what could I do

♪ What could I do, what can I do

♪ But trust you, baby?

♪ Oh, what could I do, what could I do

♪ What could I do, what could I do

♪ But trust you, baby?

♪ Well, gaze into... your mystic eyes

♪ Yes, and gaze into... your mystic eyes ♪

And I thought to myself,

"Wouldn't it be great,"

"wouldn't it be great if
just for one moment..."

"...everything was all right?"

If for just one moment,
one moment in time...

where everything was all right?

♪ Oh, and I want to give that to you, baby

♪ I'll give you a moment

♪ Yeah, where everything is all right

♪ A moment where everything's
good, everything's safe

♪ Everything's more

♪ Where everything... is all right

♪ Whoa-oa

♪ Whoa-oa

♪ Whoa-oa-oa

♪ Whoa-oa-oa

♪ Whoa-oa

♪ Whoa-oa

♪ Whoa-oa-oa

♪ whoa-oa-oa... ♪

Play the piano, play the piano.

To be onstage with
Tom and watch him put

that kind of effort into a song, you know,

I don't know how he still does it.

It's, it's kind of mind-blowing.

He's dedicated to music, you know,

like nobody I've ever known.

I'm sure that Tom
will carry on writing songs

and lyrics that'll move me

right to... hopefully,
when I'm getting older

and in a wheelchair,

I'll have the old Tom Petty
song on of the moment.

They're one of those iconic
bands that, you know,

they'll be around forever now.

There's that little, they
call it that little light

in your eyes that's,
whether you're, you know,

20 or 40 or 60, you still
have that little light.

Tom's got the light.

♪ Yeah, gaze into... your mystic eyes... ♪

Your mystic eyes.

Mystic eyes.

Mystic eyes.

Mystic eyes.

♪ Your mystic eyes

♪ Your mystic eyes

♪ Whoa-oa

♪ Whoa-oa-oa... ♪

Tom Petty really developed a band.

They're an integral part.

I mean, look at him try
to do a solo record.

The band always leaks in there.

Most folks assert their leadership

by not letting the people
they're working with

get too close.

But you lose out creatively

if you don't let them get close enough.

That, to me, is what
he's really pulled off.

He's remained the leader,

but he's let the band get
about as close as they can.

And to maintain that over
the course of 30 years,

show me, show me another.

♪ Well, I started out

♪ Down a dirty road

♪ Started out

♪ All alone

♪ And the sun went down

♪ As I crossed the hill

♪ And the town lit up

♪ And the world got still

♪ I'm learning to fly

♪ But I ain't got wings

♪ Coming down is the hardest thing... ♪

You've had a success for 30 years.

Does that amaze you?

Yeah.

Yeah, it amazes me.

I didn't think about it
for the longest time.

It just seemed like that was

how life went, you know.

This was my family.

I live with them and work with them.

♪ I'm learning to fly

♪ Learning to fly

♪ Oh, but I ain't got wings... ♪

People say, "Well,
does it seem that long?"

And I say, "Yeah, it really does."

It seems like 30 years plus to me.

I hope it never stops.

I just hope it never stops.

The day Tom says, "This is over,"

I'm going to be heartbroken.

I'm happy where we've wound up.

We've still got an audience.

Just that alone is worth a lot.

♪ Well, some say life... ♪

It's really an accomplishment
to keep a band, you know,

the core of a band together for that long.

Not many people can do it,

cos you know, with a rock and
roll band, you never know

if it's going to last another week.

I didn't think the band
would last 30 minutes.

I've always thought every tour is the last.

At the end of the tour, I've
always thought that was it.

But at the same time,

I've always been thoroughly
committed to it,

even when I'm unhappy with
this aspect or that aspect.

There's something about it that
just is so important to me

that I will stick with it as long as.

Tom and Mike want to have a band.

It's much more than a job.

It's something that you have to do.

♪ I'm learning to fly... ♪

Some people get possessed with the Lord

and have to go out and preach sermons

the rest of their lives.

And it's sort of the same way

in that we were possessed
by rock and roll music

and had to go out and play
gigs the rest of our lives.

I mean, you can quit,

but it's kind of like
the sailor and the sea.

If he never goes back, he's going
to think about it forever.

♪ Coming down

♪ Is the hardest thing

♪ Learning to fly

♪ Yeah, I'm learning to fly

♪ But I ain't got wings

Sing it out, baby!

♪ Coming down

♪ Yeah, oh

♪ Is the hardest thing

♪ One day

♪ One drop, our eyes open

♪ Learning to fly

♪ Fly over my trouble

♪ Day by day

♪ I'll fly over my worries

♪ Coming down

♪ Oh, baby

♪ That's the hardest thing. ♪

We played, uh, in Milwaukee,

so we did a couple songs, and at the end,

we all kind of took a bow,
and I said, you know,

"Thanks, Tom," as he's
kind of next to me in the,

in the, this large crowd, summer crowd,

and massive, and they just
had a really great time,

and they're expressing themselves

and massive adulation coming
from really happy people.

And Tom said, "Look at that,
Eddie, rock and roll heaven."

And I said, I said, "Yeah, here on earth."

And he goes, "Exactly."

♪ It was a beautiful day

♪ The sun beat down

♪ I had my radio on

♪ I was drivin'

♪ Trees went by

♪ Me and Del were singin'

♪ Little runaway

♪ I was flyin'

♪ Yeah runnin' down a dream

♪ That never would come to me

♪ Workin' on a mystery

♪ Goin' wherever it leads

♪ I'm runnin' down a dream

♪ I felt so good

♪ Like anything was possible

♪ I hit cruise control and rubbed my eyes

♪ The last three days the
rain was unstoppable

♪ And it was always cold

♪ No sunshine

♪ Yeah, runnin' down a dream

♪ That never would come to me

♪ Workin' on a mystery

♪ Goin' wherever it lead

♪ I'm runnin' down a dream

♪ Ooh ooh

♪ Ooh ooh

♪ Ooh ooh

♪ Ooh ooh

♪ Ooh ooh

♪ I rolled on

♪ The sky grew dark

♪ I put my pedal down to make some time

♪ And there's something
good waitin' down this road

♪ And I'm pickin' up whatever's mine

♪ Yeah, I'm runnin' down a dream

♪ That never would come to me

♪ Workin' on a mystery

♪ Goin' wherever it leads

♪ I'm runnin' down a dream

♪ Yeah, I'm runnin' down a dream

♪ That never would come to me

♪ Workin' on a mystery

♪ Goin' wherever it leads

♪ I'm runnin' down a dream

♪ Ooh ooh

♪ Ooh ooh

♪ Ooh ooh

♪ Ooh ooh

♪ Ooh ooh

♪ Ooh ooh

♪ Ooh ooh

♪ Ooh ooh

♪ Ooh ooh. ♪