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7 overlooked videos that prove the genius of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers

They’re in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, played the halftime show at the most memorable Super Bowl of our lifetimes, and are deeply beloved by millions of fans the world over, yet it still feels like Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers are somehow underappreciated. Even though there are few among us that can resist the quintessential rock 'n' roll charm of songs like “Free Fallin’” and “Last Dance with Mary Jane,” far too many people remain unaware of the fact that Tom Petty is among the 25 coolest rockstars currently walking the planet Earth.

Yes, fact. He’s collaborated or performed with everyone from classic rock icons Bob Dylan and George Harrison (in The Traveling Wilburys, one of the few bands to actually deserve the overused term “supergroup”) to alternative icons Dave Grohl and Eddie Vedder to American icon Johnny Cash. His albums have been produced by music industry taste-makers like Jimmy Iovine and Rick Rubin. Johnny Depp personally recruited Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers to perform on opening night of The Viper Room, now an L.A. institution.

But cool isn’t just about the people you associate with; it’s about your character as well. Tom Petty has stood up to record labels for trying to rip off their artists through sketchy contracts (and won), and for trying to rip off fans through overpriced albums (he won that one, too). He lost nearly all of his worldly possessions after his home was burned down by an arsonist (who remains at large) and responded by releasing his most uplifting and successful album to date (1989’s timeless Full Moon Fever). The Heartbreakers' original bassist Ron Blair left the group in 1982 then returned to the band 20 years later, which never happens.

Then there are his incalculable contributions to the art of the music video. As Tom Petty himself says in the excellent Peter Bogdanovich-directed documentary Runnin’ Down a Dream, he was among the first artists to realize that MTV was overtaking radio as the preeminent music distribution model and was an early adopter of the format (his video for “You Got Lucky” was the first to have a non-musical intro establishing the video’s narrative).

“All of a sudden, the biggest radio station there was, was the TV,” Petty says in the film. His glory years dovetailed with the rise of MTV and Petty learned to master the format without leaning on his matinee idol looks. “Don’t Come Around Here No More” is on the shortlist for the greatest music video ever made, as is “Mary Jane’s Last Dance.” With it’s indelible image of a beautiful woman soaring up and down a halfpipe, “Free Fallin’” helped introduce much of America to the new-fangled fad of skateboarding. “Into the Great Wide Open” was one of the first videos to cast a celebrity in a major role.

And so forth. Petty’s legacy in the realm of music videos was solidified two decades ago with his Video Vanguard Award at the 1994 VMAs. It’s no coincidence that his daughter Adria Petty is now a respected music video director, who has been VMA-nominated for videos she did with Beyonceand Coldplay and Rihanna.

Still, to bring it back to the original thesis, we don’t appreciate Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers as fully as we should. As they gear up for a tour in support of their excellent new album Hypnotic Eye, here’s a list of seven music video “deep cuts” that prove why Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers are one of the greatest rock bands ever.

“Walls (Circus)”

If we’re going to argue that Tom Petty is one of the most underrated icons in music history, we’ve got to start with his most overlooked album, the soundtrack to the Ed Burns movie She’s the One. The fact that most people don’t even know who Ed Burns is -- much less that he made a film with original music by Tom Petty -- could help explain why this is his most slept-on album, but regardless, the soundtrack contains one of his best songs, “Walls (Circus)”

Featuring backup vocals by Fleetwood Mac’s Lindsey Buckingham, the video for “Walls (Circus)” is set at (you guessed it) a circus, but one with a distinctly Indian flavor, with Hindu imagery and a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameo from a Bindi-rocking Jennifer Aniston. Befitting its setting in a Hindi carnival, the clip has a ton of surrealistic imagery, which is something of a theme in Tom Petty’s videos.

“It’s Good to be King”

The Rick Rubin-produced album Wildflowers is arguably Tom Petty’s best and while many of us remember the extremely clever video for “You Don’t Know How It Feels,” the album actually had three singles. “You Wreck Me” is pretty much a straight-forward performance video -- more on those later -- but the clip for “It’s Good to be King” is filled with curiosities.

Directed by music video veteran Peter Care, the video dresses up couples in elaborate traditional and unconventional costumes, including the man above, who predated the nightmarish villain of True Detective by about two decades. The song is about self-delusion and power dynamics, so it makes sense to set the video in a trailer park and lean heavy on the surrealism.

"Jammin' Me"

Outside of weather forecasters, few people knew what green screen technology was back in 1987. So when TP&HB dropped their video for “Jammin’ Me” that year, its effects -- like when Petty rolls the television static around in his hand like goop -- probably looked like a technical marvel for many MTV viewers. The video not only uses that novel technology in innovative ways, the rapid fire editing techniques employed to sell the song's message were fairly radical at the time as well.

One of the band’s most defiant numbers(and you could argue the case that in some ways, they’ve been a surreptitious protest band), “Jammin’ Me” is also something of a precursor to hits like REM’s “It’s the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)” and Billy Joel’s “We Didn’t Start the Fire,” as it’s lyrics are a laundry list of things and people that are really pissing off Tom Petty (and presumably Bob Dylan, the song’s co-writer). All these years later, Vanessa Redgrave still makes a confusing target.

"So You Want to Be a Rock 'n' Roll Star"

The musical chemistry between Tom Petty and the rest of the Heartbreakers is remarkable. The band’s breakout album Damn the Torpedoes was recorded live as a full band, which means that classic songs like “Refugee” and “Here Comes My Girl” were put to tape exactly as the band played them. Or consider the video of their cover of The Byrds’ "So You Want to Be a Rock 'n' Roll Star."

The song sounds so crisp and precise, it appears that the video simply uses live footage to supplement the studio recording. Then you learn that there is no studio version of the song, that the video is taken from their 1985 live album Pack Up the Plantation: Live!

Two other things worth noting: the band looks like they’re having an absolute blast and Tom Petty's coat jacket is one of the greatest pieces of clothing in rock history.

“Free Girl Now (Live)”

Now watch their performance of “Free Girl Now” -- easily one of the 25 best songs of the band’s career -- that was taped at San Francisco’s famed Fillmore Auditoriumnearly 15 years after the "Rock 'n' Roll Star" performance. Yes, the drummer is different (the great Steve Ferrone replaced Stan Lynch shortly after the 1993 release of Greatest Hits) but the lockstep, almost supernatural connection the group shares hasn’t diminished one bit. And here’s betting that on their new tour, 15 years after the Fillmore show (which was recorded for the DVD High Grass Dogs: Live from the Fillmore), it’s still as strong as ever.

“Yer So Bad”

One of the defining traits of Tom Petty’s genius as a lyricist is the way he peppers his lyrics with suggestive details that hint at the larger world in which his songs are set. The video for “Yer So Bad” -- the overshadowed little brother of singles off of Full Moon Fever -- demonstrates this beautifully in the way it uses the lyrics of the song to portray a larger snapshot of life in early ‘90s Southern California.

Befitting a song that makes a now-dated yuppie reference, the imagery is loaded with era-appropriate signposts, like brick-shaped cell phones, Weekly World News tabloid headlines, and laser discs (to the kids reading this, laser discs were like a record-sized precursor to the DVD that never broke out beyond their target niche of yuppie scum).

The lyrics also contain something of a Tom Petty hallmark: bemused detachment. Because the song is not really about him or even his yuppie-marrying sister -- in a clever bit of misdirection, the chorus reveals that the titular subject is actually his “baby,” who can save him from all the BS in a “world gone mad” -- Petty is simply there provide the details as an outside observer, like the Troubadour of Christmas Past.

“Swingin’”

Everything that’s great about Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers can be distilled down to their gut-punching song “Swingin’” (including their disdain for the hard “G” in verbs). Melodically, the chords sound tuned to the key of nostalgia (see also: “Learning to Fly” “Wildflowers” and “Straight Into Darkness”). Lyrically, the balance between locational specificity (“Moonlight on the interstate/ She was ‘cross the Georgia line”) and evocative detail (“After that night Vegas/ and the hell that we went through”) is breathtaking. And the beatific hook is clever on multiple levels (R.I.P. to the late Heartbreaker Howie Epstein, whose high harmonies uplifted many of the group’s best choruses).

The video, too, is microcosmic. There’s surrealistic flourishes, the celebrity cameo (Luke Wilson!), the structured narrative, the moments of genuine surprise. I had probably listened to “Swingin’” half-a-hundred times before seeing the video, and I can’t think of a more fitting visual accompaniment to the emotional ambivalence of the song.

“Swingin’” is about a certain kind of dignity, the notion that although we may fail, our failures will be on our own terms. It’s a deeply nuanced emotion to grasp for in a rock song and it speaks to the deftness of Petty that he somehow finds a way evoke it. It’s also a neat summary of the philosophy driving the band: Even if we don’t get a hit, we’re not going out on a called strike. And as their high batting average has come to prove, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers rarely go down swingin’.

By: Mark Schiff

Jul 29, 2014

~ Rebel 💘