Friday, October 06, 2017

From 1977, live as you want them, please enjoy Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers and "I Need to Know."




Basically, my second favorite of their early songs.

I should add that I saw them in a small club around the time this was recorded, opening for Roger McGuinn, whose cover of "American Girl," which he inadvisedly performed at the same show, was shall we say disappointing.

Petty and company were dressed all in black, played extremely loud, and were pretty much the coolest band I've ever seen, before or since.

BTW, did you know this Taylor Swift cover of "American Girl" was actually a thing?



I didn't, and Jeebus H. Christ on a piece of challah toast it's fucking awful.

Have a great weekend, everybody.

8 comments:

Frito Bandito said...

There oughta be a law!

Anonymous said...

at least she didn't affect a drawl for it. it's no worse than any other major artist's rote covers album, just kind of pointless. maybe better than McGuinn's.

Anonymous said...

Sounds as if Rachel Sweet was doing a cover version of the song. No better, no worse.

Captain Al

Anonymous said...

Yeah, I'd say McGuinn's version is more disappointing, because it could/should have been so much better...

Marc

John Werner said...

And suddenly I'm against free speech...that was criminal.

Anonymous said...

Jeez Steve, this 66 year old is in the minority re; T/S.
I'm of the generation of Joni, Laura, Janis...later Lucinda,Roseanne,Annie.

A couple thoughts on T/S -
1. I'll bet her studio band had one helluva lot of fun playing that song instead of the usual dreck.

2. Hopefully some young girl out there might like that cover enough to find out who Tom Petty is.You have to remember that our first intro to Laura Nyro was through the 5th Dimension / BS & Tears.

3 She did no more, no less then Todd did on Faithful.

4. Hey, she was standing next to Joe Elliot in that montage who we know covers quite a bit of his musical hero Ian Hunter / Mott.

5. She had the good taste not to present it in a Dave Matthews style ;-)

rob

Alzo said...

Covering a great song is fun, BUT... if you're going to release it, for God's sake bring something new to it (see Nilsson). What we have here is a warmed-over note-for-note copy of the original arrangement. Lame lame lame, though not as clueless as Madge's 'American Pie.'

buzzbabyjesus said...

It's a sturdy tune, and can handle Taylor Swift. She brings nothing to it except too much respect. Nothing to hate there, move along. It's better than Roger's.