Serious Contenders: Tom Petty, "Mary Jane's Last Dance"

Tom Petty has one of the most incredible Greatest Hits albums in history. A lot of great artists pad theirs out with lesser-known tracks, or singles nobody heard or cares about. But I was listening to his the whole way through the other day, and literally every song on it is incredible. He's one of those artists I rarely think about, but when I do, I realize he's been the background music to my life for a very long time. Any song on that album could be one of my "Serious Contenders" as well as a few he recorded later (I see you there, "You Don't Know How It Feels.")

I just posted about "American Girl" a few weeks ago but I was humming this one to myself, trying to remember the (relevant to my life?) lyrics, "Tired of screwing up / Tired of going down / Tired of myself / Tired of this town / " This song has a lot in common with that earlier one, in that its lyrics seem to tell a story, ostensibly about a girl who gets in with the wrong people, but in a distant, detached way so that you never really worry what the song is supposed to be about. Those carefully-chosen lyrics, combined with the solemn blues-rock stomp, put the whole story in terms you can understand without knowing you're even being told.

I don't talk a lot about lyrics on the blog. Lately I've been wondering whether, most of the time, it's even important to know what a song is about, or if it can be enough to accept that the "meaning" of a song is usually just a premise to create music. I can remember a number of people telling me last year, how much they liked Foster the People's "Pumped Up Kicks,"... "and then I found out it was about a school shooting." Well, the lyrics in the verses are a bit obscure on that, but the chorus does fairly-audibly (not perfectly, of course) say "gun" and "bullets." And you can decide for yourself whether it's important what that song, or this one, is even about.

But good lyrics, whether or not they "mean" anything in context, can utterly make a song. A turn of phrase or line that you like hearing can make you want to re-listen to a song that otherwise isn't as inviting. The music of "Mary Jane's Last Dance" is great, but the lyrics really make the song, despite, or perhaps because, they are so sketchy in details and exact meaning. "Mary Jane's Last Dance" is loaded with great descriptions and implications, but it's up to you to put them together in your head. Incidentally, this great song was recorded specifically for Petty's Greatest Hits, which was prescient.

Serious Contenders: Tom Petty, "American Girl"

Whenever anybody talks about Tom Petty, they always seem to think of "Free Fallin'," but for some reason my mind goes right to "American Girl." He's one of those artists who has so many great songs that even some of the better ones get lost in the shuffle. This seems to be the case even though this song really does stand out, cutting a faster pace than most of his later stuff, and just being so balls-to-the-wall awesome.

There's a lot to talk about with this song. There's the way the intro riff just rings out while the bass drops in delicately. There's the lyrics, which don't go into much detail at all but seem to come together to paint a full picture. There's Petty's ultimate rock and roll delivery, especially "God it's so painful / How somethin' can be so close / And still so far out of reeeeeeeeeee-eeeeach!" And that grunting, "Oh yeah, all right / Take it easy baby, make it last all night." And that funky middle section that leads into the climactic outro. It's all fairly unconventional, but not too showy about it, and it comes together so wonderfully. And it was, like, his first go.