I was trying to explain Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers to my sons. They’ve known the music all their lives. Petty’s stuff was playing when they came out. But they listen with no reference to history, like it’s all from one big album called Tom Petty. “Even the Losers,” “King’s Highway,” “Wildflowers,” “Nightwatchman,” “Walls,” “Forgotten Man,” “The Wild One, Forever.” These are some they love. They’re ten and twelve. I was eleven when I first heard “Breakdown.”
Imagine, I said, having someone make a record that goes straight into that place where the important records go, and then he keeps making them. Every few years, a new one, following you through your life. He’s there when you get your first girlfriend. He’s there when you form your first band. He’s there when you go back to school, when you get married, when you have kids, when you get divorced. My sons weren’t sure what I was getting at. It doesn’t matter anyway, because it won’t be an option for them. They don’t have a Tom Petty. They’re borrowing mine.
Petty’s life and career cover an era that is, in some ways, over. Whatever comes next is going to be so different that comparisons won’t make sense. The long careers, and the handful of artists who have had them, will be a story that gets told. Petty came out of the golden age of bands, I say to my sons. I remind them that there’s still something to carry forward, no matter how much the world has changed since 1976. If they want it. But at that point I’m just saying what parents say, without considering whether I actually believe it. But I hope some voice will come out of the American wilderness and take hold of them. And show them things.