| February 8, 2018 | |||||||||
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Lyrics: You better watch what you say
Good love is hard to find You put a hand on my cheek Yeah go, but remember, good love Get It: If you’re in the market for a copy of Tom Petty’s Long After Dark, be sure to get the remastered version. The sound quality is much improved: The deluxe version of Petty’s Damn the Torpedoes is available at Amazon. It’s also one of the best rock albums in a generation.
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The year was 1982, and rocker Tom Petty had just come off a string of five top 40 hits from his Damn the Torpedoes and Hard Promises records. His new release, Long After Dark, got off to a great start with You Got Lucky, which soared to number 1 on the charts, thanks in part to the emergence of MTV and its power to bring music from around the world right into our homes in a way that local radio just couldn’t and wouldn’t do. And while You Got Lucky was a number 1 hit, two other singles from the album—Change of Heart and Straight into Darkness—failed to strike it big. That doesn’t diminish, however, the strength of the record (which is in my top three Petty albums). Petty was born in Gainesville, Florida, and he became a budding musician at the age of 10 after meeting Elvis Presley on the set of one of Presley’s movies (Petty’s uncle worked on the set). Petty became an Elvis fan and devoted his life to music shortly thereafter. One of Petty’s first guitar teachers was none other than Don Felder, who would later be a member of the Eagles and would write one of the most famous guitar solos in rock and roll history, the guitar duel with Joe Walsh in Hotel California. Petty’s first band, Mudcrutch, formed in 1976 and included two future members of The Heartbreakers, Mike Campbell and Benmont Tench. After Mudcrutch failed to garner radio support, the group called it quits, and Petty decided to embark upon a solo career with The Heartbreakers as his band. The band’s 1977 eponymous debut included the hit single, Breakdown. For the next 40 years (nearly to the day) Petty would be one of the most successful and enduring artists, pleasing both fickle radio executives and hardcore music fans who typically eschew the radio. Petty released 16 studio albums, 11 live and compilation albums, and 68 singles. Sadly, after having finished a long tour in which he was in tremendous physical pain from a broken hip and suffering from emphysema, rock legend Tom Petty died October 2, 2017 from an accidental overdose on prescription medication he was taking to combat the pain. Video: Here is the official video for You Got Lucky:
And while Here Comes My Girl is not found on Long After Dark (it appears on Dances with Bass staff favorite Petty album, Damn the Torpedoes), I would feel remiss not to give this track a little love. No joke: This song after runs through my head when I see Mrs. Dances with Bass coming my way. Really. I’m not making that up or trying to score points.¹ ¹Okay, so maybe I am trying to score points.
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