Something that my season seven guest Ivan Anderson said that stuck with me, was that “Listen to Her Heart” is a 'little' song. And by that, he wasn’t being dismissive. He was saying that it wasn’t covering a weighty topic and it was compact and accessible. I’d say exactly the same thing about this one. It’s neat and compact. It has a superb hook in the pre-chorus and the whole thing is imminently hummable. It’s a pretty perfect little pop song.
Today’s episode covers the third track from side two of Full Moon Fever, Depending On You.
You can listen to the song here: https://youtu.be/IjVGlKa2rL0
Check out the Skynyrd Reconsyrdyrd podcast here: https://twitter.com/skynyrdpodcast and the And Volume 4 All... podcast here: https://twitter.com/AV4APod
Official version
(* 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 eight of the eighth season 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 want to front load this episode by saying that I just recorded an episode of one of my other podcasts tonight and I was happily tucking into gin and tonics. So…. if I’m ever so slightly slurry on this one (and look, it’s not going to be a repeat of the Luna fiasco!) I haven’t had a stroke and you don’t need to worry about me, I’m just ever so slightly lubricated! OK, now that’s out of the way.
Some quick social media stuff before we dig into this week’s song. This past week’s poll asked you to rate Yer So Bad and the results on Twitter were as follows. 9.1% rated the track between a 1 and a 6 out of 10, 62.6% rated it between 7 and 9 and 27.3% rated it a top shelf ten out of ten. So again, my rating of an 8 was in the range of where the majority put this one. Over on Facebook, Bob Reidy commented “Timeless song. Catchy and funny and fun to sing along too. Great lyrics.” Couldn’t agree more Bob. The wonderful Nic Apostoleris says “He was such an elite songwriter, I rank it second tier for him.” and it’s so true that the bar for a Tom Petty song is a lot higher than it is for most other artists. Even a second tier Petty tune is in most bands’ Greatest Hits range! Dana Dana says “I love it! But I truly love all of his music and lyrics. I love this entire album as well as the video. Tom truly is a musical genius”. You’ll hear no dissent from my on that one Dana! My good pal Pete Nestor from the excellent Honest and Unmerciful Record Review Podcast commented “I’d go 8 as well. Breezy, effortless. But Sometimes the ones that seem most effortless are the ones that take extra work. I don’t think that’s true for this one though. Or do I? This post is getting confusing.” Love it Pete, it’s like a little Statler and Waldorf vignette! I also love ‘breezy and effortless’ as a description and I think that for the majority of this album that was true. From everything I’ve read, the songs came quickly and they didn’t overthink them. A great comment here from Emily Heape, who says “I LOVE IT!!! Yer So Bad is the first Tom Petty song I listen to at work every morning- it gets me going!” And as I replied on Facebook, that’s a great way to start your day! Robert Gerbing posted “Rate it at 8. Not at, but just below the Top Table.” So right in line with where I landed Robert! Kelly Ward says “I like it fine, but, I have so many faves above it” and I kind or agree with them in that it’s not usually the first one that springs to mind when I think about Tom, but it’s also one that rotates in and out of my favourites list. On the other hand, Adair Thomas calls it “One of my top 5!!!”, so it shows how diverse Tom’s catalogue is that pretty much every song will in someone’s top five along the way. Danny Hershberger had a short conversation that started with this comment; “That whole album is awesome! Yer so bad is a true Tom Petty song. I'm not sure anyone else could do it!” and I had mentioned that the only other artist I could see pulling something like this off is Bob Dylan, because it has that same sense of playfulness and whimsy about it. On reflection, I’d throw in a couple of other names too; John Prine and Tom Rush, both of whom have that warm sense of dark humour that they sometimes convey in their songs.
Thanks as always for your comments and feedback. Keep it coming!
Today’s episode covers the third track from side two of Full Moon Fever, Depending On You. If this is your first time listening to the podcast, I don’t play any of the music from the song in the episode itself in order to avoid any copyright issues and to be mindful of Tom’s estate. If you want to give the song a listen before we dig into it, there’s a link in the episode notes!
Although Full Moon Fever is the first solo album that Tom released, ironically, it’s the album with the fewest solely Tom penned songs on it. Most of the album’s tracks are cowrites with Jeff Lynne, with Mike Campbell also having songwriting credit on two songs; Runnin Down a Dream and Love is a Long Road. The album has three songs credited to Tom alone of which, Depending on You is the first. In Conversations With Tom Petty, when author Paul Zollo asks Tom about the song, Tom simply says “That was really fun to do. We should play that song. We’ve never played it.” Alas, Tom never did revisit the song in a live setting so it’s one of those few Tom Petty cuts that exists only on record.
In Warren Zanes’ essential book, Petty: The Biography, Zanes mentions that Tom and Jeff Lynne had a shared passion for Del Shannon’s voice and that Jeff especially was a huge fan of Roy Orbison. Zanes writes “In Petty’s voice and in his writing, Lynne discovered something of what he found in Del Shannon and Roy Orbison. Not technically, but in another way, in that tinge of sadness, that suggestion of some story in there, which not every voice has, but Petty’s always had. This was something that my guest, Ivan Anderson commented on last season. When I asked him what three words he would use to describe Tom Petty, his response was “verge of tears” and I think it’s this emotional vulnerability that underscored Tom’s natural delivery and voice that he was talking about. But, there is also the tonal similarity between several of Tom’s songs to the work of Del Shannon and The Byrds. Depending on You really reminds me of that type of sound, with the big jangly chords and the beautifully layered harmony vocals. While Tom’s tinge of sadness comes through in the brilliantly mixed lead vocal, the rest of the song embraces the rock n roll scene of the 1960s. You can see why Yer So Bad was positioned between this track and Feel a Whole Lot Better. Otherwise, it might start to sound like a tribute to Shannon and Gene Clark! In Petty, Warren Zanes writes “The world was about to get to know Petty in new ways. Lynne productions favoured the voice. In the mix, Lynne would put the singer in the front pointedly avoiding what could sometimes be the gauze of echo and delay.” and of all the songs on the album, I think this track, Free Fallin’ and The Apartment Song really are great examples of where Tom’s lead vocal feels like you’re hearing him sitting across a table from you and delivering the lines.
The song starts with a very similar vibe to Handle With Care. It really feels like a Wilburys song. It’s also another really short song that doesn’t waste any time getting to the point. The intro is a mere two bars of that D major chord. As with the rest of this album, the guitars are layered up in big stacks. There are at least three guitar parts that I can hear. The main strumming pattern, which I think is on the 12 string electric, then an acoustic, with a third distorted guitar hitting stabs that are mixed down low, but fill out the sound. When we get to the lines “some clown” on the B minor chord, we also hear some really cool surf rock flanged out delayed guitar. So once more, we’re getting incredible layering of the guitar parts without them ever being fussy or busy. The rhythm section is doing it what it does on most of the album, just providing a rock solid back beat that keeps the song motoring forward energetically. I thought at first that the hi hat on this was programmed, but the more I’ve listened to it, you can hear really slight variances in the volume of those hats, so I’m leaning more towards thinking that these are real drums all the way down. The snare has a nice fat sound, with kick being a little less prominent and less boomy than how it would have sounded under, say, Jimmy Iovine.
We have eight bars of this bouncy major key chord progression, with that solitary B minor thrown in before we rip straight into the first pre-chorus, which is what I consider to be the main hook of the song. Those beautifully harmonized “You give up so easily!” Tom sings the harmony part in the low register and the lead line is sung in the next octave up and I’m fairly certain that that vocal part is double tracked, again to fatten up the sound a little. This leads us into the chorus, “I i i ‘m depending on you” where the beat changes to a four on the floor snare with a couple of double kicks and some floor tom accents which are again mixed low so as not to take centre stage and overpower the melody. Through this section, we also get those harmony backing vocals and there’s an organ part thrown in for good measure! Not quite the kitchen sink, but most of the kitchen utensils are being thrown in here. The chord progression in the chorus is what I always think of as a playground swing, Root, step down, step down, step up, step up. The bass just follows this pattern playing those root notes as the progression does this swing back and forth until we get to the end of the verse and it lands on the 5th, an A Major.
Through the second verse, when that surf rock guitar part comes in again on the minor chord, we also get some additional harmonies. The following chorus is a repeat of the first with the organ being a little more noticeable in the mix and from here we head into the solo.
I’d already commented that this song shares similar DNA with Feel a Whole Lot Better which opens Side 2 of the record. The solo really leans into that DNA with Mike favouring a gentle arpeggiated progression that again has that big Byrds jangle to it. The guitars through this section sound so lush and full and I think that we’re now only listening to two guitars, or more accurately, two guitar parts played on the same guitar. My guess is that this a Rickenbacker 12 string that Mike is playing the rhythm and lead on on two separate tracks. Because he’s also playing the solo in the same octave as the rhythm, the effect is this sense that he’s playing more notes than anyone with only two hands should be able to! It’s a great little trick and works perfectly for this section of this song.
Alright folks, It’s time for some Petty Trivia!
Your question from last week was this: Which is the most covered song in Tom’s catalogue? Is it a) Runnin’ Down a Dream, b) Breakdown, c) I Won’t Back Down, or d) Learning to Fly?
My eagle-eyed pal Paul Roberts asked whether I meant released cover versions and pointed out that thousands and thousands of bar bands the world over covers Free Fallin. I did confirm that I was only talking about recordings that had been released. I use a website called secondhandsongs.com to dig into this info and I’ll leave a link in the episode notes in case you’re interested in going to take a look. The answer to the question though is ……. c) I Won’t Back Down. Along with the famous covers by Johnny Cash and Sam Elliott (who is basically mimicking Cash’s delivery), there’s a ska/two-tone version by Reel Big Fish, a hard rock cover by rock band by Everclear, and the more faithful version from Lucinda William’s tribute to Tom, 2020’s Runnin’ Down a Dream.
This week’s question is this: When Tom recorded Mary Jane’s Last Dance for 1993’s Greatest Hits, according to most sources, the band recorded a large number of covers, from which Something In The Air was chosen to be fully mixed and released. But which Elvis Presley song was also recorded and eventually released on 1995’s Playback boxset? Is it a) Viva Las Vegas, b) Wooden Heart, c) Jailhouse Rock, or d) Return to Sender
OK, back to the song. Coming out of the solo, we go straight back into the pre-chorus and that lovely harmonized “You give up so easily…” which leads us into the chorus. In this section, as well as the organ - there’s also a synth pad of some sort being used here and you can hear it far more clearly than the first two times through. The chorus then repeats, with the addition of an additional bar hanging on that 5th chord at the end, and some very Wilbury’s-esque snare fills added into proceedings.
I commented at the beginning that this song has a real flavour of Handle With Care to it and as the song plays the eight bar chorus progression with no vocal over top here, you can really, really hear it. It’s actually exactly the same riff for the first two bars before it changes in the third. So that’s a nice little through line. I’d love to know which track was written first and whether one borrowed from the other or whether it was just, as I suspect, a happy accident. Call it convergent evolution! In Warren Zanes biography, Tom does remark that George basically had all the chords for Handle WIth Care written by the time the rest of the Wilburys got involved and the song was recorded on April 3, 1988 and the sessions for Full Moon Fever were interrupted in order to finish up the Wilburys record, so my guess would be that Tom would have said to George, “Hey I’m gonna use that first phrase in Handle With Care, what do you think?” With George replying “Yeh, sure. Sounds great!” And not to go off on a complete detour away from the song here but this to me is what I always think made the Wilburys the ultimate and best supergroup there’s ever been. All five world class talents really dig check their egos and reputations at the door and just created music together. So I could see Tom borrowing that passage and building it out differently and George Harrison just being delighted that his friend had worked another song from it.
After this instrumental interlude, Tom sings another “I’m depending on you” and leads us into the last repeat of the chorus over which the song fades out. Right before the song fades completely, we do hear one last change to the drum pattern, with the kick coming in more often - I’d love to hear the entirety of what was recorded here as I wonder what else is in there. But at this point, the song is over and it’s the right time to wrap things up.
The lyrics in this one are fairly unambiguous. The relationship that Tom is singing about is one-sided and one party isn’t holding up their end of the social contract. I’m depending on you but you’re too insecure, or self-centred to see that and help me. The line “You give up so easily”, which as I said before, is the main hook of the song for me, is such a great line. It belies a soft-centre to the other character. Maybe they really just lack self-confidence. Maybe it is more of a case of insecurity rather than egocentricity.
In a similar way to Love is a Long Road, this is what I always think of as Tom’s natural voice. At least through the verses, he’s singing without affectation or character and you hear what Tom sounds like when he’s strumming his guitar and making up silly songs for his kids or grandkids. When we get to the chorus, that’s when a little of that rasp creeps in and he chokes those words out; “I’m depending on you”. I like that juxtaposition in the delivery.
OK PettyHeads, that’s it for this week! Depending on You clocks in at a breathless 2 minutes and 47 seconds. In the first 1 minute and 47 seconds we have a verse, pre-chorus, chorus, verse, pre-chorus, chorus, guitar solo packed in. So this is again where it feels like that 1960s approach to writing that the Beatles and the Byrds, and the Beach Boys employed. Get to the point. Get in, hit em hard, and get out again. Something else that my season seven guest Ivan Anderson said that stuck with me, was that “Listen to Her Heart” is a little song. And by that, he wasn’t being dismissive. He was saying that it wasn’t covering a weighty topic and it was compact and accessible. I’d say exactly the same thing about this one. It’s neat and compact. It has a superb hook in the pre-chorus and the whole thing is imminently hummable. It’s a pretty perfect little pop song. Again, it doesn’t belong at the very top table and it’s simplicity and brevity does mean that I can’t rank it up at that level. So I’m going to give Depending On You a nice, tidy, 7 out of 10.
QUESTION: When Tom recorded Mary Jane’s Last Dance for 1993’s Greatest Hits, according to most sources, the band recorded a large number of covers, from which Something In The Air was chosen to be fully mixed and released. But which Elvis Presley song was also recorded and eventually released on 1995’s Playback boxset? Is it a) Viva Las Vegas, b) Wooden Heart, c) Jailhouse Rock, or d) Return to Sender
ANSWER: Well, written by Fred Wise, Ben Weisman, Kay Twomey, and the legendary Bert Kaempfert, and recorded in 1960 for the movie GI Blues, the answer is …… b) Wooden Heart. So let’s get straight to the point. I know this is an old German folk song with a splash of paint but man, it’s one that I’ve just never really dug. Hopefully my Mum never listens to this episode and I know a few of you will call me a fool for this, but Elvis has just never landed with me. I completely understand how revolutionary he was as a performer and he was a fine vocalist, but the songs themselves were all very much of a muchness and with only a few exceptions, I find them really dated. I also realize that they weren’t dated at the time, but just, for whatever reason, we didn’t listen to Elvis when I was growing up so I think I just missed the boat and haven’t been able to catch up with it. My mum on the other hand is now a huge Elvis fan and regularly goes to see Elvis tribute performers. I was chatting with someone the other day about what we can expect from the vault in the years ahead and a completely mixed and mastered release of all the covers the band did during that session, in whatever state of completeness they are in, would be amazing to hear.
I ain't ever gonna let you down
All you got to do is trust me
I would never make you some clown
Baby, why won't you trust me?
You give up so easily
I don't know why you can't see
I'm depending on you
Don't let me down
I'm depending on you
Baby, if you can't change the world
Maybe you should just change yourself
You used to be such a sweet young girl
Why you wanna be someone else?
You give up so easily
I don't know why you can't see
I'm depending on you
Is it too late now?
I'm depending on you
You give up so easily
I don't know why you can't see
I'm depending on you
Don't let me down
I'm depending on you
Yeah, I'm depending on you
Is it too late now?
I'm depending on you
I'm depending on you
I'm depending on you
Is it too late now?
I'm depending on you
