When questioned about the inspiration behind his songs, Tom Petty once explained that he never looked at the germ that kickstarted or drove his songwriting as he felt it was kind of creative magic for which he, like many of his legendary peers, served as a conduit. The song “Forgotten Man,” one of Petty’s most recent and arguably, ferocious, offerings, is a testament to the wider vision the musician had for his material, with a pounding, groove-sodden rhythm section that forms the perfect foundations for the explosive vocal and guitar work that define the theme of the song-a masterclass in lifelong professionalism and persistence. Tom Petty’s thirst for groove and the cohesion he cultivated in the musicians he worked with become increasingly obvious the more you listen to his music.
After persisting with the song in rehearsals, he would wait for his fellow bandmates to confirm that the arrangement was “good,” and continue developing the tune in an open, collaborative environment. Speaking in his conversion with Open Culture, Petty talked about how he would often make a basic home recording on an acoustic guitar before showcasing it to the band. Tom’s songwriting techniques and overall process often involved persisting with an acorn of an idea, developing the lyrical content and melody early on and writing his parts with the band in mind-if he couldn’t envision a groove or space for the band to take his arrangement to another dimension, Petty would often leave a song to settle until he could rework it accordingly. In this case especially, the end result was well worth the wait. Knowing that he had something worth pursuing, Petty returned to his chorus frequently, experimenting with different elements including rhythm, speed and alternatives of his existing chord progression, and little by little, the song fell into place. On “The Waiting,” one of Tom Petty’s seminal anthems, the chorus came fast but the rest of the arrangement took weeks to form. This cast iron will to develop the ideas that arrived in his mind led him to some of his greatest moments of musical triumph-famously, “The Waiting” was one of those songs. In one of his last interviews based on his approach to the creative process, Tom Petty confirmed that a big part of his consistent songwriting success boiled down to persistence. Of course, that topic is heavily debated, but the point here is that Tom Petty held a great deal of value in people squeezing every sonic drop from their instruments, capturing the natural essence of the sound and ultimately creating something that sounds and feels authentic.
In fact, he believed that some modern recordings only deliver 5% of the quality of older, more analogue recordings. In an interview with Open Culture, Petty confirmed that he didn’t like the way that today’s digitization detracts from the quality of a song’s recorded sound. The use of dynamics in the majority of Tom Petty's work is often accentuated by the natural acoustic tones of the recordings themselves. The songs " Refugee" and "Even the Losers," for example, are delivered with urgency and brought to life with a savvy use of dynamics, building up and dropping back down in all the right places.
#TOM PETTY I NEED TO KNOW FULL#
Most of Tom Petty's albums, " Damn the Torpedoes" and " Full Moon Fever" in particular, possess a confident, melodic snarl, the type of which that you can only capture by lyrical phrasing and arrangements that are organic, rather than forced, contrived or (what is commonplace in the digital age) cut and pasted. Like any artist worth their salt, Tom Petty’s body of work is varied and eclectic, but every single song that the musician has ever been involved with shares one common trait-authenticity.
It’s been a little over a year since Tom Petty’s passing, and to celebrate his work, we’re revisiting patented Petty songwriting techniques and themes. From the Heartbreakers to the Traveling Wilburys and everything in between, Tom Petty's unique recording style and iconic arrangements transcended generational appeal, and continue to be revered by old and young alike. There's little doubt about it: Tom Petty was one of the finest and most accomplished songwriters to walk the planet.
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