Favorite Tom Petty Songs

10. "Waiting For Tonight" (Playback box set; Nobody's Children)
Never officially on a Tom Petty & The Heartbreaks album, but turned up on a few compilations. I think it's a gem among the B-sides and I think what raises it above the rest is the backing vocals; which are contributed by The Bangles. Maybe that made it a little too 'pop' sounding, so it didn't fit musically with the albums.

9. "Two Gunslingers" (Into The Great Wide Open)
I kind of prefer Lynne's polished Petty sound on Full Moon Fever, so I'm glad it was carried over to this album with the Heartbreakers. This is my favorite Petty album, too, and every track is solid from start to finish.

8. "American Girl" (Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers)
Some songs seem to stand out more for me after hearing them within movies and t-shows, and hearing this one always reminds me of Silence of the Lambs.

7. "You Don't Know How It Feels" (Wildflowers)
Wildflowers was a stripped down affair compared to the pair of Petty albums produced by Jeff Lynne. The harmonica puts this song ahead of the pack.

6. "Runnin Down A Dream" (Full Moon Fever)
If this song doesn't pump you up, you don't have a pulse.

5. "You Wreck Me" (Wildflowers)
I think this song is one that is meant to be played while driving around with the windows down on a sunny afternoon.

4. "The Last DJ" (The Last DJ)
This song is so real, it's scary! I first heard this song a few years ago when my friend Brent played an acoustic version during an outdoor summer show and I looked up the Petty version as soon as I could. I tracked down the full album, and even used a snippet of this song once when mixing imaging for 95.5 GLO. I felt that was a clever thing to do.

3. "I Won't Back Down" (Full Moon Fever)
I like the lyrics of this song, but even more than that, I love the guitar. After becoming more knowledgeable about music, it's clear to hear the influence of The Traveling Wilburys on this song. Tom had just come off working with George Harrison, Bob Dylan, Rob Orbison, and Jeff Lynne, and half of those guys hung around for Tom's solo album, Full Moon Fever. It was produced by Lynne, while George Harrison contributed guitar to this song.

2. "Into The Great Wide Open" (Into The Great Wide Open)
This was already my favorite Petty album but it took on a new level of specialness a few summers back. I was given the task of driving members of Skid Row (Snake, Rachel Bolan, and drummer Rob Hammersmith) back to their hotel after a show at the fair here in Peoria. I turned on GLO kinda quietly, just for some background noise, but what did it was trigger a conversation with the guys reminiscing about the music of CCR and Tom Petty.

1. "Makin Some Noise" (Into The Great Wide Open)
A lot of the music I liked as a kid seemed to always have some relation to pro-wrestling. I had a door opened to several classic rock artists that were featured on a Stone Cold Steve Austin compilation, Stone Cold Metal, when I was in high school. The album included bands like the Scorpions, Dokken, and KISS. Other instances were because a rock band's song was used for a wrestler's entrance music. This time was different. Bret Hart was my favorite wrestler, is my favorite, and always will be my favorite wrestler and one of the TV shows used this Tom Petty song for a Bret Hart highlight reel. It took me years to discover where the song came from, since it's not like you could just Google things back in the 1990's like you can today. I was hooked from the moment I heard this song and it's always stuck with me.