This is essentially an R&B song that would have benefited so much from a full, real horn section. While I’ve said previously that I don’t love horns and Tom Petty, for some reason, I think the synth in this track really pulls it down and makes it sound terribly dated. I also think this could really have worked as a song given to another artist and I could absolutely hear someone like Cyndi Lauper doing this one.
Check out the song here: https://youtu.be/4m7-pt7bcDY
(* 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 fifth episode of season seven 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.
Before we start today’s episode, a couple of shout outs again to the folks on social media. Over on Facebook, Mark Lindsey says “I think the Let Me Up I’ve Had Enough” album, experience, the Dylan process of songwriting made Mike and Tom better writers overall in subsequent albums. It was a new spontaneous process that was more experimental, relaxed and not studio driven. I love when they just cut into a groove and the song starts. And as I commented back to Mark, this is something that Michael Washburn brings up in his Southern Accents book; Southern Accents and Let Me Up are objectively not “strong” records, but were very important in giving Tom a different set of tools to work with at a time when he was feeling creatively unfulfilled. I also agree with Mark that these tools would later become fully-developed. If you look at the similarly conceived Mojo, but listen to the difference in both song quality and in production quality, it’s night and day from this album.
Donna Anderson says “I don’t care what TP and the Heartbreakers play. I love everything they do! Love me some Tom Petty!” And hey Donna, that’s why we’re all here! Even the songs I’ve rated lower in the catalogue I don’t skip when I spinning an album and can always find something positive to say about.
My pal Paul Roberts also recognizes that the idea for the production model for this album was born of their time on the road with Dylan. He says” From reading Zanes biog, out on the album tour, Tom realized he needed to shake things up due to band politics, personal issues, and the album not being as well received as he hoped. So all those factors led to another hard right turn and the fortuitous meeting of minds with Jeff Lynne. Paul also mentions that he’s looking forward to me digging into the period between Let Me Up and Full Moon Fever… whatever could he mean!??!
Thanks as always for the social media chats folks, keep em coming! Today’s episode is the second song from side two of Let Me Up (I’ve Had Enough), All Mixed Up.
All Mixed Up, as far as records show, was never played live. This is a common theme on side two of this record, with Think about me and How Many More Days the only songs to see the light of day on stage, for a combined 38 times. I’ll have to run the stats, but my guess is that this is the least played side of any Heartbreakers record. Possibly Hypnotic Eye may be an exception to that just because it wasn’t in the live rotation very long. But I’ll run some numbers some time and see what they look like.
In Conversations with Tom Petty, author Paul Zollo comments that this one starts with hand claps and singing. Tom responds that it’s another lighthearted song that was written with Mike.
Once the handclaps and singing, which are heavily effected initially, are over, after about 18 seconds, we get a heavily 80s-sounding synth lead from Benmont Tench over top of a steady chugging guitar pattern. The song is in Ab so I assume that the guitars were drop-tuned a step rather than actually played in that key. For you non-guitar nerds. Drop tuning is when you tune down a half or a full step on each string to get a lower tone more naturally. If that’s the case, then the song would be played in B, but with the half step down, we get that Ab.
There’s nothing noteworthy about the arrangement at this point, with Stan Lynch is laying down a lazy backbeat with a single kick on the ones and a double kick on the threes. Howie Epstein is walking along a very steady road and not stepping up or down off the root notes through this initial progression. The only thing to really note is that the bass is actually panned over slightly right and the guitar slightly left, which is atypical for the Heartbreakers, who almost always leave the entire rhythm section mixed centrally.
This initial chord progression leads straight into the chorus, which follows its pattern. Like Think About Me last week, there’s not a ton to these lyrics. They’re very simple and very direct. I’m all mixed up about you. Another track that maybe suggests that Tom was in that rocky period in his marriage and some of those ideas were leaking through into his lyrics. But they’re not fully developed or explored as they would later be on albums like She’s the One or Echo. Almost as if they were a little scary to contemplate, so were left very vague to keep some separation from them.
The lines “It’s having an effect on me, pulling and directing me” actually remind me a lot of something George Harrison would have written, and Tom delivers those lines with a very Harrison-esque gentleness. Obviously the two men hadn’t yet become firm friends and collaborators, but with the obvious influence of Harrison as a musician on Tom and the band, it’s quite coincidental that Tom would write something that could have been a Harrison tune, on the album before the Wilburys would eventually happen.
This chorus progression is a very simple two chord, Ab, and Db and as we go into the verse, we switch to the minor 6th and then back down the root, to the fourth, to the fifth and repeat. So coming out of that first verse, it feels like a million songs. There’s no movement in this verse section, with the synth horn being more subdued but everything else being sonically very similar.
There’s a nice little hitchstep double kick followed by a two-beat on the snare to lead back into the chorus, but again, there’s no dynamics here to really get the song moving from one section to the next. As with the first chorus, we’re getting a nice high falsetto harmony from Howie in this B section and melodically, it’s a very peaceful, gentle groove. Tom’s vocals are restrained to the point of actually trailing off at the end of certain lines so that you can’t hear him end the word. Not something that you usually hear from the Heartbreakers.
The bridge shifts us to the minor 4th but the rhythm section and the guitars are just very much more of the same. This brings us back into the chorus with Benmont leading with the synth again but adding what sounds like some organ licks in underneath. I just wish they were more prominent so you could hear them - and I’ll comment on the production later in the episode. In the second verse, we do get a slight dynamic change, with the beat dropping to half time and the organ being a little prevalent and the guitars dropping out more. But this change feels almost like an afterthought or a case of “well, we really should do something sonically different somewhere at some point”.
We do get a little more organ from Benmont into this last chorus and then we get the oohs from Tom and Howie that lead us into a long chorus fade out.
Alright folks, It’s time for some Petty Trivia!
Your question from last week was this: Of the six Fillmore tracks that were included in the Live Anthology release, which is the only one not to have been included on last year’s Live at the Fillmore boxset? Is it a) Jammin’ Me, b) Goldfinger, c) Friend of the Devil, or d) Green Onions
The answer is … it was a trick question! All seven of the songs recorded at the Fillmore that were included on the Live Anthology made it onto the Fillmore boxset! The boxset contains 36 cover songs, of which 6 were on the Live Anthology record, with Jammin Me being the only original Petty song featured on the earlier compilation. The 1300 capacity Fillmore is well known for its psychedelic concert posters by artists who in the 1960s included Wes Wilson and Rick Griffin. Copies of the night's poster are given to fans free of charge as they exit selected, sold-out shows. Posters from the Heartbreakers’ FIllmore run regularly trade hands for upwards of $250 US and are some of the most sought after in the collection.
Your question for this week should be a fairly easy one: In 2002, who inducted Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers into the Rock n Roll Hall Of Fame? Was it a) Dhani Harrison, b) Eddie Vedder, c) Jakob Dylan, or d) Jeff Lynn?
OK, back to the song. I think this one falls into the production trap that I’ve covered on this album before too. When you listen to the guitars in the verse section, you can’t hear them very clearly and Howie’s bass is quite muddy, in stark contrast to how good it sounded on Think About Me. It all just sounds a bit undercooked and missing a Heartbreakers spark. I think the chorus melody is lovely, I think the guitars and the bass work. I don’t love Stan’s drum sound on this one, especially the snare, which doesn’t crack or pop at all, but kinda just sounds like he’s hitting a cardboard box. It’s all just a bit jumbled and tepid for a band that could rock so hard when they took the breaks off! I do like Tom’s delivery in places but again, I don’t think his vocal is captured brilliantly in others. It doesn’t surprise me a ton that this one was left off the live set lists, because you can’t see it really getting people moving.
The lyrics are also just a little underwhelming on this one. Though there’s a brief moment of humour in that last verse that would almost offer a little glimpse of where Tom would end up on the Last DJ as he sardonically sings “If time will answer all questions, then perhaps a film will be shown. Everyone could mail order tickets, yeah you could sell a lot of shirts for The Last Picture Show”. So there’s a blending of commercialism and critique of it that sits at slight odds with the tone of the rest of the song, but is nonetheless a little bit of light fun at the end of the song.
OK PettyHeads, that’s it for this week! This is essentially an R&B song that would have benefited so much from a full, real horn section. While I’ve said previously that I don’t love horns and Tom Petty, for some reason, I think the synth in this track really pulls it down and makes it sound terribly dated. I also think this could really have worked as a song given to another artist and I could absolutely hear someone like Cyndi Lauper doing this one. Or maybe if Benmont had played an organ and piano combo part of some type it might sit a little better in my ears. Is it a “bad” song? No. It’s not weak in the same way that Mary’s New Car is and it’s not unfinished in the same sense that I find Restless to be. But it falls roughly into the same sort of space that The Damage You’ve Done does for me; it could have been better, but as it is, it’s just OK. So I’m going to give All Mixed Up, an “OK” 5 out of 10.
QUESTION: In 2002, who inducted Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers into the Rock n Roll Hall Of Fame? Was it a) Dhani Harrison, b) Eddie Vedder, c) Jakob Dylan, or d) Jeff Lynn?
ANSWER: While Eddie Vedder is well-known as a huge fan of Tom’s work, Jeff Lynn was obviously a friend, fellow Wilbury, and frequent collaborator and Dhani Harrison was among Tom’s bandmates at 2004’s Rock n Roll hall of fame induction tribute to Dhani’s dad, George, it was the son of a different Wilbury who inducted Tom and the Heartbreakers in 2002. Jakob Dylan, in his induction speech, talks about first meeting the Heartbreakers in 1986 when they toured with his Dad and recalls that as he sat at the side of the stage with Adria and Annakim Petty, thinking “Wow, you’re Dad’s Tom Petty. That must be pretty cool”. So funny and so charming.
I'm all mixed up
I'm all mixed up about
All mixed up about you
Yeah it's having an effect on me
Pullin' and directin' me
I don't know what I'm gonna do
And no, I can't find
No, I can't find no reason
To explain the way that I feel
I remember things being clearer
At one time things were more real
I'm all mixed up
I'm all mixed up about
All mixed up about you
Yeah it's having an effect on me
Pullin' and directin' me
I don't know what I'm gonna do
I'm not lookin' for sympathy
I'm just frightened by this apathy
Like footsteps way in back of me
On a narow street of stone
I'm all mixed up
I'm all mixed up about
All mixed up about you
And if time will answer all questions
Then perhaps a film will be shown
Everyone could mail-order tickets
Yeah you could sell a lot of shirts
For the last picture show
Baby I'm all mixed up
I'm all mixed up about
All mixed up about you
It's like something is testing me
Pullin' and directin' me
I don't know what I'm gonna do
