10 Interesting Facts About ‘Into The Great Wide Open’ By Tom Petty

via Walter Tychnowicz/Edmonton Journal

Tom Petty neither did complicate things nor did he let life go by. A singer-songwriter is a strange being, a genius who, however, manages to change your life with four chords (or make it more interesting, for that matter). Below are the 10 Interesting Facts About ‘Into The Great Wide Open’ By Tom Petty:

Petty and Lynne Worked Together Again

The album was another collab between Petty and Jeff Lynne. Following the success of his solo debut, Tom Petty once again trusted the Heartbreakers and producer Jeff Lynne and lit up one of their great works, Into The Great Wide Open.

Lynne’s Helped Petty To Be More Musically Creative

Lynne’s production gave Tom’s voice more weight than ever, and the result was almost magical. Most of the album was recorded in Mike Campbell’s garage. Its protagonists say that there is nothing like having nothing to lose to create good music. Not knowing exactly where they were going and the absence of pressure gave that job added value. There is something special and unexpected in those songs.

It Was Supposed To Be A Solo Album

Into The Great Wide Open seemed destined to be another solo album by Tom. In the end, the entry into the scene of his usual band gives the work flashes of rock claw that relate it to other historical Petty works.

Tom Petty’s Most Pop Album

We can affirm, without complexes, that this is Tom’s most pop album. Here apparently simple, effective songs abound: “Into The Great Wide Open” with its corresponding song full of stellar appearances, “Two Gunslingers” and its anti-war plea or “You And I Will Meet Again” are good examples of this. Tracks in which the producer’s hand is very visible and that follow a line and sound very similar to that of previous collaborations with Petty.

The Songs “Dark Of The Sun,” “All Or Nothing,” and with the Byrds Roger McGuinn on “All The Wrong Reasons” 

“Dark of the sun” is a catchy song, with an enormously effective chorus, while “All or nothing” is pure classicism, a piece in which Tom’s voice stands out and one of the highlights of an LP that, As we’re talking classics, it features the star collaboration of the Byrds’ Roger McGuinn on “All the Wrong Reasons.”

The Number One “Learning To Fly”

The opening with “Learning to fly” is perfect and the song, which spent several weeks at number one on the charts in the United States, has become a classic in their catalog.

The Heartbreakers Were Incredible

The first half of Into The Great Wide Open, perhaps because of the initial intentions, could be a solo performance by Petty, or by Petty and Lynne, if you like, but the band’s participation becomes more important as it passes. of the timing. That band intensity leads us to more accelerated outbursts like “Out In The Cold”, which also climbed to the top of the singles charts and in which Campbell’s guitar stands out. Rock also dominates in “Makin ‘Some Noise”, the other composition in which the guitarist shines with his own light.

Tom Petty Admits That Without The Heartbreakers The Album Wouldn’t Be That Successful

After a 15-year career, the Heartbreakers, as a band, were fit and oiled, as if they wanted to make it clear to the “boss” that with them he could also reach the heights he reached with his first solo work. Petty, who was more accurate than ever in the texts, sang them overflowing with faith in them, calm, narrating how he knew how to do it. He recalled, a few years later, that Into the great wide open gave the Heartbreakers some of their most imperishable songs and was the most successful album.

Jeff Lynne Would Call It A “Take It Or Leave It” Kind Of Album

Later, Lynne was critical of the work done in Into the great wide open. In his opinion, it lost the simplicity that Full Moon Fever could boast, an album that, in its own words, had a certain sense of challenge to the listener, a kind of “take it or leave it” that was made big with a simple, concise sound, short and at the foot. Its continuation was not so simple; perhaps he lost some of that spontaneity and thought too much about each arrangement.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-hItu3kxydU

It Was An All Out Work!

The sensational authorized biography of Petty, written by Warren Zanes, reflects what happened very well. It was no longer about being free and having nothing to lose, it was about recording another bombshell. That is why, perhaps, as Lynne said, they turned everything around too much and the songs did not circulate so freely and proudly carefree.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL8a8cutYP7fqEJTtrJqPSdN1qq8Wziup0