231. Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, "Damn the Torpedoes"

 

It is some kind of measure of Tom Petty's deep and lasting impact on the American music scene that I knew, and in fact knew very well, the majority of the songs on this album, an album I've never owned and never listened to all the way through.  But damn if I didn't know every note, every nasally inflection, every drum fill, in five of the first six songs:

Refugee
Here Comes My Girl
Even the Losers
Century City
Don't Do Me Like That

I don't know how people who live in LA don't drive around with "Century City" constantly playing in their head every time they pass a sign for Century City.  "Refugee" was pretty much played full-time on the radio for the first few years after it came out.  You know the others.  What is it about these songs that makes them so indelible?  

I honestly don't know.  They don't have brilliant lyrics or incredible hooks or any one thing that stands out.  But you know what?  They're all pretty catchy, and they're relatable.  Tom seems like a guy who could live across the hall from you and sometimes you guys just sit down with a couple of Miller High Lifes and talk about how your girl is fine ("Here comes my girl/Yeah, and she looks so right/She is all I need tonight"). Or you're a girl and Tom remembers a very specific night from your relationship, like when you sat on the roof and smoked cigarettes and stared at the moon.  You know, relatable.  Tom would never sing about poppin bottles in Miami, unless the bottles were Bud Lights and it was a dive bar in a nondescript neighborhood.

There were a few songs on here that I had never heard, which surprised me, like "Shadow of a Doubt (A Complex Kid)," which is very much of a piece with the rest of the album and which I enjoyed quite a bit, and "Louisiana Rain," a bluesier number that even nicks a bit of CCR's "Who'll Stop the Rain."  But wow, if there's another album that we've come across that is more just pure rock 'n roll, in the most American, Mustang, bandana worn somewhere, Winstons, fixing cars, scrunchie on the wrist, making out in a parked car sense, I don't know what it is.

Does this album deserve to be in the Top 500? Absolutely.