S6E14 The Best of Everything

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 the fourteenth episode of season six of the Tom Petty Project Podcast! I am your host, Kevin Brown. This is the weekly 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’m writing this during what I’m hoping is my last day of isolation with the dreaded covid. I assume that most of you have probably already had a bout of it at least once and I know I’ve been fortunate in surviving this long without being hit with it. I also had a relatively mild bout I think. Really awful congestion, headache and fatigue the first day, congestion and fatigue gradually lessening over the next five, but with a really sore throat. Like I’d swallowed a bunch  of razor blades. I’ve had all kinds of tonsil/strep issues periodically in my life but that’s definitely the most discomfort I’ve ever been in with a throat issue, I can tell you that! I might still be a little scratchy when I record this and if so, my apologies. Two days in, I sounded like a constipated toad on 40 Malboro a day, so trust me, this would be an improvement! As I was whiling away the hours in isolation, I got to thinking about how damn lucky I am that I’ve my vaccination and boosters, have no major underlying issues that could complicate covid for me and have a warm house to hole up in with a laptop, a guitar, books, and music to keep me occupied. Also, that I had a job where taking time off to recover isn’t a problem. I guess it just made me feel thankful for what I have and for the company I’m able to keep, even remotely, during times like this. I try to ever take those things for granted and this past week has been a good reminder that while I’ve worked really hard to reach the position in life that I find myself in, I’ve also been very lucky in many ways. So to anyone out there who is having a hard time of things, just keep pushing ahead. 

Anyway, enough maudlin slush from me, you came here to listen to me talk about Tom Petty, not a half-baked introspective nonsense! (I put an exclamation mark after that sentence!) Today’s episode covers the last track from Southern Accents, The Best of Everything.

You wouldn’t expect the name Robert De Niro to come up in a conversation about a Tom Petty song but its place on Southern Accents probably owes a little to the 1982 Scorcese movie, The King of Comedy, that De Niro starred in. The song was originally written and recorded for Hard Promises but it didn’t fit with the album and in Conversations with Tom Petty, Tom tells Paul Zollo, “I’m glad we didn’t use it, because I think it was a much better record after Robbie Robertson got a hold of it.” Robbie Robertson becomes the link now between The King of Comedy and The Best of Everything. Robertson was the musical director for the movie. He approached Tom to see if he had a song that they could use for the movie and this is the song that Tom suggested. After hearing the song, Robertson asked “Do you mind if I added some horns?” and Tom being a big fan of The Band and the way they used horns in their songs or course said yes. Oh, I should explain too, for those who aren’t aware; that’s the band, the band… you know, the ones who backed Dylan in the 60s when he went electric? The guys who did The Weight and The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down…. Anyway. Robertson takes the song and gives it a production overhaul, adding a full horn section as well as additional backing vocals by The Band’s Richard Manuel, who tragically took his own life in March of 1986. Tom tells Paul Zollo, “He was one of my favourite singers, but I wasn’t there when he did it. Robbie did that.” When asked if he liked how their voices sounded, Tom replied “Oh, it was a dream come true. I really looked up to him as a singer. I’m kind of glad I wasn’t there, because I might have screwed it up!” This is a great reminder that even our heroes have their own heroes and a certain amount of trepidation about working with them sometimes. Of course that would all be blown out of the water in the very near future for Tom, but that’s another story for another day! I suspect that the song wasn’t included on Long After Dark either because of the horns and how different they would have sounded to the rest of the album and I’d love to hear the original version that was recorded for Hard Promises. There is an alternate take included on American Treasure, but it retains the majority of Robertson’s additions while also including the extra verse that Robertson removed for the version included in the movie. Finally finding a home on the end of Southern Accents makes much more sonic sense and it’s a good album closer, in the vein of Louisiana Rain, with which it shares some similarities in terms of chord progression and structure. Maybe another reason to leave it off the album following Damn The Torpedoes. Interestingly, the song didn’t actually make it onto the soundtrack to the movie due to a dispute between Warner Brothers, who were releasing the soundtrack album for the film, and Backstreet/MCA who the Heartbreakers were under contract to at the time.

The song opens with a very delicate arpeggiated keyboard and piano lead over top of a gentle ride cymbal percussive beat. The horn comes in to add a little flourish early on. I suspect it’s a French Horn or a Trombone perhaps, from the tone. Straight away one of the things that I like about this song is that the first verse doesn’t start in root key, which is G. Instead it moves up the fourth note, a C chord as the first bar of the verse comes in, before dropping back down to G. There’s some bass too in this intro but it’s mixed way, way down low so the keyboards can take centre stage. As the song moves through the first half the verse, with this very stripped down arrangement, there’s a slight build into the second half. Here, we get a single kick drum beat from Stan and some tambourine added in, presumably by Jim Keltner, who is credited with adding percussion on this track. There’s also another keyboard part, which sounds like a really trebly organ track and I’m going out on a limb to guess that this was added by The Band’s Garth Hudson by Robertson after the fact during those sessions too. It just fills out the space a little more and adds to the gentle build into the chorus. Stan’s rattle snare then slaps a very simple fill into the chorus and then we hear the full band come in. Worth noting that as well as production from Robbie Robertson, the addition of several members of the Band (though curiously, not Robertson himself) as well as Jim Keltner, there’s one player who wasn’t part of the Heartbreaker’s at the time of the album’s release; Ron Blair, who’s laying down that bass. It makes sense once you realize that the song was written in 1980 at the latest, before Ron had left full time. And one of the things that jumps right out at me as the first chorus starts is how good the drums and the bass sound. You can tell it’s a different production style immediately as that rhythm section is really present and strong. It just sounds so much fuller than the rest of the album. It also sounds really joyful and at-ease. It’s not a tone filled with conflict, or regret, or danger. 

Throughout this first verse chorus pair, and it’s a long verse and a shorter chorus, Tom is in his crooner mode. Not really leaning hard into any of his characters or different voicings. Like Insider, it’s Tom singing with his most natural voice. He’s painting a character, but letting the words rather than his voice evoke the imagery. You can really hear Richard Manuel’s harmonies on lines like “in the world” too and it’s such a distinctly different voice from Howie’s and again, a really good match with Tom’s. 

We’re a minute and a half into the song now and head straight into a solo after that first chorus. Both Tom and Mike Campbell are credited with playing guitar on this one but it’s most definitely Mike playing this solo and that initial lick really, really reminds me of something George Harrison would play. With the slide doing very minimal work but layering a soulful lead over the minor key changes, it just has that warm cozy feel that George could drop into a song when it was needed.  Think about the slide melody he plays on My Sweet Lord and you can hear echoes of it in Mike’s note selection. You can also hear the other guitar just following the chord progression, playing big open chords, slightly into the left channel, but the sonic space is really dominated by those horns, with the guitar cutting through. 

Everything then drops out leaving that arpeggiated keyboard again with the addition of that “other” keyboard part that I think was added afterward. You also get some panned percussion, with tambourine hits in the left channel and some side stick on the snare in the right, with that ride cymbal tapping away lightly behind it. There’s not a ton of panning in the song to this point and this gives a sense of width here to drop back into after the wall of sound approach from the chorus. In the second half of the chorus, the harmonies are brought back in along with the horns adding fills and Stan now playing around the kick and snare a little. This brings us back into the big chorus again. The chorus repeats once before everything is dropped away to leave the twin vocals of Tom and Richard to sing “whatever you were” and then the bass, drums, and keys, before a nice tight rock finish. No fade, no extended outro, just a really clean finish to the track.

Alright folks, It’s time for some Petty Trivia! 

Your question from two weeks ago was this: What is the title of the Winslow Homer painting that is used as the cover for the Southern Accents album? Is it a) The Veteran in a New Field, b) Reaper, c) From Field to Table, or d) The Work of the Honest Man. 

The answer is a) The Veteran in a New Field. Born in Boston Massachusetts in 1821, Winslow Homer was an American landscape painter and illustrator, best known for his marine subjects. He is considered one of the foremost painters in 19th-century America and a preeminent figure in American art. Set in the aftermath of the Civil War, the painting is often interpreted as an emblem of postbellum American society. The painting depicts a farmer harvesting wheat in a field with a scythe. The farmer in the painting is identified as a former Union Soldier from his discarded jacket and canteen in the right foreground of the painting. So this is a very interesting choice of artwork for an album that was initially conceived as a love letter to The South. I would love to know how much input Tom had into the selection of the artwork and I’ll dig around online to see if I can figure out who did the album design and see if there’s any way to contact them. If it’s a conscious selection of a Union soldier, depicted after the war tending his crops, it would undercut some of the accusations of Tom showing support for the Lost Cause or for those elements of the South, like the confederate flag, that he would go on to strongly distance himself from.

I’ve been throwing out some fairly tricky ones lately so I thought I’d lay up a soft one for you to dunk. If you’ve listened to all the episodes this season, you’ll know this one for sure. So, your question for this week is this; Which legendary artist covered the title track from Southern Accents, in 1996. Was it a) Waylon Jennings, b) Willie Nelson, c) Johnny Cash, or d) Kris Kristofferson?

OK, back to the song. Lyrically this one is basically a story song. Another brilliant Tom Petty opener; “She probably works in a restaurant. That's what her momma did.” So that small town “fee”l that he goes to now and again without really fleshing all the parts out. We get the sense that this is a fleeting situation. Maybe an overheard conversation in a diner or a just an observation of someone the narrator knows peripherally, because we learn in the next couplet that “sometimes she used to sing” as he ventures “maybe she sings in a nightclub”. So it’s that faraway dreamy recollection that we’re dropped into where the picture is just very slightly out of focus and we can’t quite make out what’s happening. No matter, whatever the deal is for this girl, the chorus shows that the narrator really hopes that it all works out. “Wherever you are tonight. I wish you the best of everything in the world. And I hope you found whatever you were looking for.” Such a beautiful, generous sentiment and not one that’s undercut with any darkness or conditions, just a very real sense of wishing someone well. 

The second verse becomes a little more personal and at the same time a little more nebulous. The first half is more a pondering on the nature of life itself and contains one of those top shelf Petty gems; “Yeah the bad nights take forever and the good nights don't ever seem to last.” Again, that would be the hook for most people. If I’d written that line, I’d have tried to form the whole song around and it and get it repeated, but here Tom just throws it into a second verse like it’s no big deal. We also hear the narrator reminisce about a past relationship that either failed or just ran its course. There’s no bitterness or sadness in it. He sings “man, we never had the real thing , but sometimes we used to kiss. Back when we didn't understand what we were caught up in.“ It almost has a nostalgic glow cast from a first love. That naivety of youth where you don’t recognize that something is special or that you’ll one day think back on it with fondness. And again, despite not grabbing onto this experience with both hands, the narrator simply wishes the person in the other half of the story the best of everything. So gentle and loving.

OK Pettyheads, that’s all for this week. I love the sentiment and the tone of this track a ton. After what I always think of as the banality of Mary’s New Car, this one finishes the album by wrapping you in a warm blanket and rocking you to sleep with a lullaby. You can sort of see why Tom thought of this song for Robbie Robertson and with the addition of several of The Band plus that horn section, you really do get an early seventies Band vibe from the song. It’s a wonderfully poignant lyric without being schmaltzy or trite and the four minutes clip along and are over before you know it. Tom tells Paul Zollo that Robertson actually cut a verse because it was, quote, “superfluous”. He also says “It may be one of the best songs I ever wrote. It’s a really good song and he really did it justice.” Tom wasn’t allowed in the studio while Robertson was working on it as he wanted Tom to hear the final thing as a whole rather than in-progress and told Tom “Stay away until I’m done and then if you don’t like it, we’ll change it.” Tom says “And I didn’t change a note.”

If there’s one thing I’d change, it would be that horn line in the intro that’s repeated at that part of the song a couple more times. I don’t hate it, I just think it’s the only part of the song that feels a little, well to quote Tom, superfluous. I think that section is so simply enjoyable that it doesn’t need that accent. But that’s really splitting hairs. I wouldn’t put this one on the top shelf with Tom’s very best and obviously Tom would be connected to this song in a completely different way because of the people who ended up working on it. Imagine someone like Robbie Robertson wanting to work on one of your unreleased tracks at that point in your career! You’d bite their hand off. I love the horns in the middle section and I really like the production on this song to the point that I actually wonder what the album would have sounded like with production from Robbie for the whole project. My spidey senses tell me he would have found a way to cohere the more fragmented sounds and arrangements into something a little closer to a more natural sounding whole. For me, The Best of Everything is strong closer, it’s one of those gentle ballads that Tom became really adept at writing. So I’m going to give it a rock solid 7 out of 10 but would say that without that lead line on the horns in that intro passage and repeated a couple times more, I’d likely bump it to an 8. 

There’s a live version from the 1980 Damn The Torpedoes tour that includes the extra verse and is introduced by Tom as being a new song that hasn’t been recorded yet. This version features the more traditional arrangement that you’d expect, with Benmont playing an organ part that would essentially be replaced by the horns by Robbie Robertson. It also doesn’t have that horn intro line and swings a little more toward that country line that again may have suited Southern Accents. I’ll leave a link to this performance in the episode notes so you can give it a listen.

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Petty Trivia

QUESTION: Which legendary artist covered the title track from Southern Accents, in 1996. Was it a) Waylon Jennings, b) Willie Nelson, c) Johnny Cash, or d) Kris Kristofferson?

ANSWER: The answer, of course, was the Man in Black. It must have been quite a trip for the band to record that song but have Cash sing it. The Heartbreakers were the house band for the album,  with handful of other musicians dropping by to sit in. The Heartbreakers in 1996 though all played on Cash’s cover. I will say that although I love Johnny Cash, I struggle with this cover as I love the original so, so much. Johnny’s vocal is much different, as you’d expect, especially when drops into that low register of course. And then the arrangement fits his vocal so brilliantly. It must have been a ton of fun to reimagine the song for a different singer. Also really cool how Johnny changed “that drunk tank in Atlanta is just a motel room to me” to “was just a motel room to me”. I think I remember reading somewhere that that line really connected with Johnny and reminded him of his younger self. Pretty cool!

Lyrics

She probably works in a restaurant
That's what her mamma did
But I don't know if she ever really
Could've put up with it
Or maybe she sings in a nightclub
'Cause sometimes she used to sing
But I don't know if it ever
Amounted to anything

Said, listen honey
Wherever you are tonight
I wish you the best of everything, in the world
And, honey, I hope you found
Whatever you were looking for

Yeah and it's over before you know it
It all goes by so fast
And the bad nights take forever
And the good nights don't ever seem to last
And man, we never had the real thing
But sometimes we used to kiss
Back then we didn't understand
What we were caught up in

So, listen honey
Wherever you are tonight
I wish you the best of everything, in the world
And, honey, I hope you found
Whatever you were looking for

Yeah, baby
Wherever you are tonight
I wish you the best of everything, in the world
And, honey, I hope you found
Whatever you were looking for

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