S4E9 - The Criminal Kind

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 episode nine of season four 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.

I hope everyone is staying safe and avoiding the heatwaves which seem to be battering large parts of the world. Thankfully I have air conditioning at home and the worst I’m having to deal with is a pinched sciatic nerve which has reduced me to hobbling around the house at the pace of an arthritic turtle! Anyway, my sore butt isn’t really the focus of this podcast, so let’s get back to that! Today’s episode looks at the penultimate track from the fourth Heartbreakers’ album, The Criminal Kind. If you’re tuning in for the first time, I don’t embed the music in the episode itself for copyright reasons, so please go look for a link to the song in the episode notes and give it a listen before we dig in.

In August 1964, the USS Maddox is allegedly attacked by North Vietnamese patrol boats in the Gulf of Tonkin (an attack which is later disputed). President Johnson calls for airstrikes on Vietnamese patrol boat bases, signaling the start of the US’s more direct involvement in the war, which raged until1975, claiming the lives of more than 58,000 American soldiers. Approximately 2.7 million men and women served during the conflict and it formed a rift in American society and sparked the start of the hippie counterculture movement and the summer of love.

It was also the inspiration for the lyrics to The Criminal Kind. Specifically, as Tom tells Paul Zollo in Conversations With Tom Petty, “I think it was inspired by Vietnam veterans who had been back for quite a while, but they got no respect at all. And I had been reading this thing about how they had been shoved over to one side.” The plight of veterans returning from the war and the lack of financial and medical support they received, as well as cultural isolation by many of their fellow Americans, is well documented at this point and led indirectly to the coining of the term post-traumatic stress disorder, formerly known as shell shock. In response to Paul mentioning the line “they’re calling you a sickness, disease of the mind” Tom says “Agent Orange had made them all sick, and the veteran’s hospitals weren’t treating them. I think that inspired that line, and probably a lot of the song. Dog tags on the mirror, hanging down on a chain. That was that, Vietnam vets.”

The Criminal Kind starts with a four count count in from Tom, with Stan joining on the two-three before coming in with a steady drum fill to begin the song. The immediately noticeable feature of this track is Mike Campbell’s slide guitar, mixed all the way over in the left channel as frequently was on the first two albums. I’ve talked plenty about the interplay between Tom and Mike and I’m sure I will talk about it plenty more, but this song might be the best example of how they play off each other on Hard Promises. The chord progression in this song sounds super simple at first glance with the verses plays around an A chord and suspended or minor A chord, which gives that sort of foreboding sound. But, I can’t tell exactly what that second chord is though and the chord charts online list is as A sus 2, but to my ear I can still hear the minor third note in that chime. The slide part also sounds minor as does Benmont’s keyboard, or at least it sound smore like fifths than full major chords. That could just be my ears playing tricks on me. One for Mike Campbell if I ever get to speak to him! The third line slides up to C major and the same suspension in C. On the change back from C to A, that most definitely sounds like Tom is playing a full A major chord, so this progression isn’t quite as simple as you might think at first. During the verses, the two guitars basically keep time, with Mike sliding up to the C and adding in the slide licks over top of Tom’s slow, rhythmic strumming pattern. Into the chorus, we get that bright, full D major chord and then the suspended A chord that I can’t quite place, up to E7 and then down to D7 and back to the suspended A before ending on the suspended C chord. So again, straightforward enough (if you know which chords they’re playing) but with just a little subtle variation.

There’s then a two bar break in that same A/A sus progression before the second verse starts and this is where the track gets really funky, with Benmont playing some deliciously filthy organ licks, sliding around the progression in opposition to the guitar slides. Into the second chorus, that organ part fills out the treble space beautifully and Benmont isn’t sitting in the pocket but taking some lead.

The four bar bridge on this one really changes the mood of the song and has it’s roots in those southern rock bands as it sits on one chord, a D7, before dropping back into the verse-chorus pattern for the guitar solo, which extends the chorus progression for an extra four bars. This one is another, what I’d call a “ textural” solo, if that makes sense. It’s not a ripping blues jag like Runnin Down a Dream or really melodic lead solo like American Girl, it’s one of those that just builds the energy of the bridge back out into the last verse.

Ron Blair plays one of this trademark runs in the intro and then sits on the root notes for the verses before adding in more sauce to the choruses and stepping up the octaves. He adds a few more fifth notes and broken chords into the second chorus and there’s a really tasty little run after the line “what you gonna do, you’re runnin out of time” that I love. In the bridge, he throws in a trademark Ron octave switch on the root and then adds those little runs in again which continues through the chorus as he matches those double kick drum hits. It’s another really tight, really complimentary bassline from Ron and builds through the solo, adding more pace and energy to that section.
Everything about Stan Lynch’s drum groove in this one just swings, but rather than being a bluesy/jazzy swing on the cymbals, he swings the kick and snare pattern. If you listen to the fills, you get the best sense of this as they’re coming on the quarter measures between notes as well as the root notes. There’s also some added percussion, I think shakers again, likely played by Phil Jones who appears again on the album. If you listen carefully, the shakers are actually coming in on an eight, or maybe even a sixteenth note timing before or after some of the main beats in the four beat bar. That’s a cool little addition that just adds to the overall rhythm section. On a very slightly note, I adore how bright and clean Stan’s cymbals are in this track. I talk lots about the drums during some episodes and this one is a great groove but doesn’t stretch Stan too much but I think again that because the drums are recorded so beautifully and sound so big and so present, it really adds to that big swing feel. They’re not quite as bombastic as they are on some of the heavier rockers, but they still shine through wonderfully in the mix.

The song fades out wonderfully with Mike Campbell taking us home with that gorgeous slide fills and Benmont adding in some more great organ licks.

Alrighty, it’s time for some Petty Trivia!

Last week’s question was this; As well as Tom and Mike, which other Heartbreaker has a writing credit on Stevie Nicks’ album Bella Donna? The answer is, Benmont Tench, who co-wrote Kind of Woman, which is track two on the album. Benmont also played on this album and seven out of eight of Stevie’s solo records through the years, forming a close musical bond. As well as being a founding member of the Heartbreakers, Benmont went on to have a career as a prolific collaborator and session player with dozens of other artists including Bob Dylan, Aretha Franklin, Don Henley, Warren Zevon, Jackson Browne, and Ringo Starr.

Your question for this week is this: Ron Blair left the band after the recording of Hard Promises, but which was the first album he appeared on after his departure?

OK, back to the song. Tom is painting one of his sinister mood pictures in the lyrics of this one. As I started out by saying, most of the lyrics are deliberately inspired by Vietnam Vets and their treatment by their government when they returned home. Lots of them became destitute and coupled with the mental health challenges they faced meant that lots of them also ended up in situations where they drifted into the criminal life. Tom really throws his weight behind them getting revenge in that last verse; Then I hope they give hell to every son of a bitch and whoever let him get a taste of the criminal life. And again, that excellent line, “Yeh they’re callin you a sickness, disease of the mind”. I like it because he really makes that personal. He doesn’t say “they’re callin IT a sickness” but rather “calling  YOU a sickness” which is far more direct and confrontational. I love the line at the end of the second verse, which starts “Oh don’t you ever get tired. Oh don’t you ever wanna quit. No matter’s been a long time and you still don’t fit. Dog tags on your mirror, hangin down from a chain” Tom then finishes this one “Give up little sister, this ain’t gonna change”. I like that because it’s directly acknowledging the female vets who came back from the war. At least that’s my read on that one. I think it was Gwen Jones who I was discussing Tom’s respect and regard for women with and this is another example of female characters or women in general not being stage props in a song.  Vocally, it’s a solid performance with Tom sitting right in his mid-range and leaning into his drawl at times and playing with pronunciation, which he always does so well. Listen to the way he sings the word sickness in that first chorus. He just lets the word fall away, emphasizing the insult that he feels this word implies. In the second chorus, he delivers it in a very Dylan-esque way, again making it the key word in that chorus and in the third chorus he leans full into the Dylan style to finish off the song.

This one hasn’t been included in any of the compilations to date and as far as I can tell, was never played live. So it sits as one of those rock solid album tracks that Tom had a knack for writing. Not killer, but not exactly filler either

OK folks, that’s all for this week. For me, The Criminal Kind is all about the organ work Benmont lays down, especially starting in that second verse, which shows his real character and chops. It gives the song such a sleazy feel and compliments the swing beat really well. It’s also an interesting song thematically and like Something Big, it’s another track that doesn’t sound like anything they’d recorded up to this point. I’m going to give The Criminal Kind. It was going to be a six, but Benmont’s sexy organ…. Oh come on, grow up! … anyway, yeh that organ really elevates it to a 7 for me. Keyboard was the first instrument I played so I’m always happy to hear Ben taking a lead melodic role in a song.

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Petty Trivia

QUESTION: Ron Blair left the band after the recording of Hard Promises, but which was the first album he appeared on after his departure?

ANSWER: This one threw quite a few of you. Maybe the wording was less obvious than I thought, but the question wasn’t “on which album did Ron rejoin the band. Had it been, you could make the argument that it was The Last DJ, which he jumped into the recording sessions late on, or you could say that it was Mojo, which was his first full album back with the band. However, the question was, which was the first album that Ron “APPEARED ON” and as a couple of people correctly identified, Ron played bass on Between Two Worlds, from Long After Dark. He also guested on the final track of Southern Accents; The Best of Everything.

Lyrics

You've got a dangerous background
And everything you've dreamed of
Yeah, you're the dark angel
It don't show when you break up
And I'm the one who oughta know
I'm the one left in the dust
Yeah, I'm the broken-hearted fool
Who was never quite enough

I'm an insider
I been burned by the fire
And I've had to live with
Some hard promises
I've crawled through the briars
I'm an insider

It's a circle of deception
It's a hall of strangers
It's a cage without the key
You can feel the danger
And I'm the one who oughta know
I'm the one you couldn't trust
I'm the lonely, silent one
I'm the one left in the dust

I'm an insider
I been burned by the fire
And I've had to live with
Some hard promises
I've crawled through the briars
I'm an insider

I'll bet you're his masterpiece
I'll bet you're his self-control
Yeah, you'll become his legacy
His quiet world of white and gold
And I'm the one who oughta know
I'm the one you left to rust
Not one of your twisted friends
I'm the one you couldn't love

I'm an insider
I been burned by the fire
And I've had to live with
Some hard promises
I've crawled through the briar
I'm an insider

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