S4E6 - Letting You Go

Transcript

(* Note - the transcript is as-written before recording. I usually change a few sentences or words here and there on the hoof as I'm speaking.)

Good morning, good afternoon, or good evening, my fine friends. Welcome to season four, episode six of the Tom Petty Project Podcast! I am your host, Kevin Brown. This is the podcast that digs into the entire Tom Petty catalog song by song, album by album and includes conversations with musicians, fans, and people connected with Tom along the way.

Before I talk about today’s episode, I just wanted to give a shout out to my friends Peter Nestor and Brian Ruskin. They are the hosts of the excellent podcast Honest and Unmerciful, which is a record review podcast that I was incredibly lucky to guest host with them this week. We covered my favourite David Bowie album, Hunky Dory and it was such a blast to actually chat face to face with people I’ve met online as a roundabout product of starting this podcast. I’ll put a link to that show in the episode notes and would love it if you gave it a listen. Brian and Pete are really thorough in the research and reviews and have tons of warmth and personality that you’ll be bound to enjoy. It’s just two old friends chatting about music, which is something I think most of us do anyway! So thanks again chaps and everyone else, go listen to that episode.

Back to this podcast. For the last couple of weeks we’ve been catching up on album wrap episodes with John Paulsen and I hope you all enjoyed those episodes! Today though we’re heading back to Hard Promises, starting with the first song from side two of the album, Letting You Go. As you know, I don’t embed the songs in the episodes themselves due to legal reasons and respect for the Petty estate, so shuffle over to the YouTube link in the episode notes if you wanna listen to the track before we start and you know what, give it a listen afterwards too to see if any of my notes highlight something you didn’t hear before.

As with Insider, although the song wasn’t released as a single, a video was still produced for Letting You Go. I assume that this was to take advantage of the MTV explosion, which happened later in 1981. In any case. The video for Letting you Go is a fun, behind-the-scenes look at the filming of a traditional rock band video, with the musicians on risers at different heights. The video shows lots of shots of the cameras themselves and uses whimsical set pieces such as Benmont kicking the camera away or Tom jumping onto one of the high-angle cameras. In “Conversations with Tom Petty”, Tom tells Paul Zolla that the song was written on his Gibson Dove guitar and in his words “trying to do a Buddy Holly kind of thing.”

The song leads in with short tom fill and from there leads straight into a modified ooo whooa section that mirrors how the chorus will later start, before heading straight into the first verse. There’s a cool, clean-toned guitar lick in that right at the top that has a very cool back story. Tom tells Paul Zollo that “That wasn’t on the record. It was a very last-minute afterthought. We’d already mixed the record. So what we did was make a 2-track stereo copy of the master and as we made the copy, we actually recorded the lick onot the two track copy as it was going down.” This is hugely unusual thing to do and it would be interesting to speak to Jimmy Iovine or Shelley Yakus about how nervous they would have been adding in a guitar part after everything had been recorded and completely mixed. Basically, if you’re not familiar with the recording process. The band members will often play a live version of the song through to a point that they’re happy to use as a base, then each musician will record their final parts individually, or just re-play certain sections if the “scratch track” as it’s known, is good enough to use. Or, just the rhythm section might play to a really simply guitar track etc. Once all the tracks have been recorded, the producer and engineer will then mix the song so that all the levels are good, panning of any instruments to the left or right channels is performed and all the frequencies are separated out so as not to clash with one another. At that point, a song is quote unquote complete and is mixed down to what’s called a master, which is what then goes away to a production plant to be pressed to vinyl etc. To record an extra track onto the master, as was done on this song, is hugely irregular and though I’m sure it has been done quite a lot, this is the first time I’ve heard of it happening on such a major studio release as Hard Promises. Having said all that, you can’t imagine Letting You Go without that laconic lick leading it in.

There’s a two bar pause between the intro and the first verse, which is a simply acoustic strummed guitar part from Tom, with Mike adding in ascending muted electric guitar runs, quietly in the background. The verses are a very simple 4 bar A-E-D-E progression repeated twice before going immediately into the chorus, which itself is is a repeated four bar progression with a Bm added. There’s then a two bar lead back into the next verse with matched descending runs from Mike on guitar and Benmont on the organ. Through the verses, Benmont sits in the lower octaves on the organ, adding in that color to that part of the aural palate and then in chorus, he jumps up an octave so that his part is much more assertive. It’s a fairly old songwriting trick that the Heartbreakers’ wound into their sound to the extent that it became a part of their DNA.  Without that organ, these songs would still be great, but they’re bumped up to that next level with the addition of those wonderfully soupy, Tenchy parts!

Speaking of Benmont, when the song goes into the bridge, we hear a really cool piano part sitting in double time on the beat, adding in some glorious major chord arpeggios. I’m not sure if it’s an electric piano sound - as it seems to be in the music video - or just a heavily processed acoustic piano. The 12 bar bridge really makes this song pop as it really breaks the easy, laid back feel the song has to this point. Tom has been sitting very comfortably in his lower mid range to this point but he starts to ramp up the vocal during this section, really pushing up a full octave and more into the minor chords for the lines “What about the broken ones? What about the lonely ones?”
In Conversations with Tom Petty, Paul Zollo notes that the song shows what a large vocal range Tom has. Tom’s responses is “I only realized that recently”. Someone was talking about another singer and said they only have two octaves and I wondered how many I have”. This is in 2005 and after this exchange, Tom goes to the piano, sings four octaves and says “I probably have four”. Any trained singers will know that that’s a pretty impressive range for a rock n roller. Especially as Tom doesn’t typically go to falsetto when singing in those upper octaves.

I’m not going to delve too far into the rhythm section in this song as it’s a really simple, steady beat that Stan and Ron keep sitting in the pocket, leaving maximum space for the melody to roll gently over your ears. It’s all very reserved, very nicely played, and perfect for what the song needs.

Alrighty, it’s time for some Petty Trivia!

I gave you a bonus question this past Friday on social media as we don’t include them in the album wrap episodes, but maybe we should! Your question from this past week was: Put the following events in the correct chronological order:
- The Heartbreakers play the last of the 20-night residency at the Fillmore in San Francisco
- The Heartbreakers' Star is unveiled on the Hollywood Walk of Fame
- The Playback boxset is released

The correct order, as several of you hit me with really quickly was; Playback, release on November 20th, 1995. The last show in the 20-run Fillmore residency happened on February 7, 1997 and the Heartbreakers received their star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on April 28, 1999.

Your question for this week is this: Gainesville is the birthplace of several hall of fame musicians, but can you tell me which founding member of the Eagles was born in Tom’s home town?

OK, back to the song. This is a really mature, confident vocal performance from a singer who had really settled on his sound and personality by the time the band went into the studio to record Hard Promises. Armed with those four octaves of range and a deep arsenal of vocal styles he could employ, Tom dials all that way back to really serve the song. With a tempo and melody like a lazy Sunday stroll down by the river, this track doesn’t need any punch or pain in itm even though it’s a song about loss. Not until those two lines in the bridge does any of the anguish of the song really break through. When you think about the main refrain from the song “I’m having trouble letting you go”, that’s a neat little device. The singer is clearly trying to keep it together during this breakup but his emotions get the better of him for that one brief window into his heartbreak. Letting you Go is also one of those songs where Tom throws in more syllables than you think will fit at times, and the number of those syllables also changes verse to verse. Compound this by the fact that none of the lines in the second verse rhyme. But you don’t really notice it because Tom delivers the lines so effortlessly. I adore the second verse in this song.

Baby look out your window
It's raining on your summer home
You by the fire keeping warm and dry
There's no one as honest as those in pain
Oh honey can you see me?
Will you let me inside?

I’ve talked before about how brilliant Tom was at painting pictures with his words and this one is such a clear vignette. Those first three lines show someone huddled up against the weather outside, but comfortable despite the rain. Then the singer is on the outside looking in and asking to be brought back into the warmth. Such a clever, subtle lyric that ties the theme up beautifully.
Listen then to the way he delivers those first lines of the last verse. It’s off in the distance. But he doesn’t actually enunciate the word “the” clearly and then uses “thee road” rather than “the road”. His attention to phrasing is truly remarkable once you start paying attention to it. It just gives a slightly different flavour to the songs and he does it so often that you don’t always notice it.

OK folks, that’s all for this week.  Letting you go is a wistful, easy-listening mid tempo ballad that harks back lyrically to the first couple of albums and Tom regretting the demise of a relationship. But rather than being a really angry, bitter, song, there’s a real sweetness to most of it that is, as I said, jarred slightly by those two more anguished lines in the bridge. Overall, it’s a song I don’t listen to a ton in my playlist, but one that I always enjoy when I’m listening to Hard Promises. Learning about that guitar lick and really listening closely to Tom’s delivery however have definitely raised it in my estimation. I might surprise people here by giving Letting You Go a 7. It’s a very subtle, refined vocal performance and a good piece of writing and if was doing half points I’d probably go 7.5 but that way madness lies. So I’ll stick with a really solid 7 and say that compared to the 10s on this album, I think that that’s probably about right. The warmth and ease of this song is such a lovely break in tone and sets the mood for a second side that has more tenderness to it than the first.

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Petty Trivia

QUESTION: Gainesville is the birthplace of several hall of fame musicians, but can you tell me which founding member of the Eagles was born in Tom’s home town?

ANSWER: The answer is…. It was a trick question! I was feeling tricksy last week and decided to throw a curveball in to see who I could catch out! Don Felder was born in Gainesville in 1947 but joined the band late on in the recording sessions for their third album On The Border. Felder was an old friend of founding member Bernie Leadon, who recommended him to the band. Leadon is the other Eagle commonly associated with Gainesville, but he was born in Minneapolis, also in 1947, before his family moved to Florida. He would eventually graduate from Gainesville High School and was an important member of the local music scene during Tom’s formative musical years.

Lyrics

I used to think that when this was all over
Yo might feel different 'bout me
Yeah I always knew, one of these days you'd come around
Now I wonder if dreams are just dreams

Whoa oh, whoa oh oh
I'm having trouble
Letting you go
Whoa oh, whoa oh oh
I'm having trouble
Letting you go

Baby look out your window
It's raining on your summer home
You by the fire keeping warm and dry
There's no one as honest as those in pain
Oh honey can you see me?
Will you let me inside?

Whoa oh, whoa oh oh
I'm having trouble
Letting you go
Whoa oh, whoa oh oh
I 'm having trouble
Letting you go

It's a restless world, uncertain times
You said hope was getting hard to find
But time rolls on, days roll by
What about the broken ones?
What about the lonely ones?
Oh honey I'm having trouble letting you go
It's off in the distance somewhere up the road
There's some easy answer for the tears you've cried
And it makes me unhappy, makes me feel different
Do you get scared when you close your eyes?

Whoa oh, whoa oh oh
I'm having trouble
Letting you go
Whoa oh, whoa oh oh
I'm having trouble

Letting you go

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