Recommendations of the Editorial team
“It’s strange to say this out loud, but I always felt like I was meant to do this,” Tom Petty told Rolling Stone’s David Fricke in 2009. “From a young age I had the feeling that this would happen to me.”
From his beginnings as a hard-nosed realist in the fluffy ’70s, Tom Petty has always been one of rock’s most enduring heroes and one of the preeminent songwriters of his generation.
A Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers show could last up to two hours without playing all of his hits and memorable album tracks or exploring every facet of his career. And he wrote classic songs until the end. Here is our definitive list of his 50 greatest hits.
50. “It’ll All Work Out”
Let Me Up (I’ve Had Enough), 1987
Inspired by Petty’s brief separation from his wife Jane during the production of Let Me Up (I’ve Had Enough), “It’ll All Work Out” is a sweetly effective breakup song. “This is one of my favorite songs of all time,” he said. “It’s a timeless song. I don’t think it’s necessarily about [die Trennung] went, but that inspired him.” Thanks to Mike Campbell’s haunting folk melody played on mandolin and Howie Epstein’s rich harmony in the chorus, the song is a thoughtful gem.
49. “I Should Have Known It”
Mojo, 2010
“We recorded in one or two takes,” Petty said of the 2010 album “Mojo.” “We couldn’t have made this album in the ’80s.” Mojo, recorded at the band’s Los Angeles rehearsal studio, found the Heartbreakers returning to the raw, passionate power of their early work, without any unnecessary studio refinement.
“I Should Have Known It” has the garage blues drive of classic Yardbirds or Led Zeppelin, with a crunching riff and Petty’s plaintive vocals. It was music, as Petty put it, not for the radio or big arenas, but “for the band to play.”
48. “The Best of Everything”
Southern Accents, 1985
“Southern Accents” ends with a powerful ballad that Petty calls “one of the best songs I’ve ever written.” He had intended “The Best of Everything” for the 1981 album Hard Promises, but held it back and ended up giving it to Robbie Robertson, who added horns and brought in his bandmates Garth Hudson on keyboards and Richard Manuel on backing vocals.
The Heartbreakers rarely perform the song live. But they played it at a concert in 2012 and dedicated it to the band’s drummer Levon Helm, who had died the morning of the show.
47. “A Higher Place”
Wildflowers, 1994
“It’s a beautiful, hopeful lyric,” says Mike Campbell about the happiest song on Wildflowers. Petty sang all the harmonies. Campbell accompanied the melody with swirling psychedelic guitar sounds reminiscent of the Byrds and the Beatles. Petty’s text is a mix of realism and optimism, like a seasoned man’s version of a youthful Sixties sermon. “It took us two years to [Wildflowers] “To produce it,” said producer Rick Rubin. “But it sounds like it was made on a weekend. The real weekend.”
46. “Crystal River”
Mudcrutch, 2008
This nine-minute-long, organ-filled Grateful Dead-style guitar jam gives a taste of what might have been if Tom Petty and Mike Campbell had stuck with Mudcrutch. A highlight of the band’s 2008 reunion album, the song is named after a Florida nature reserve and features Tom Leadon’s sparkling guitar.
“We learned to interact with each other again,” explains Campbell. “This record is literally the first time we played this song, the first day.”