Confessions of a Fanboy

OK, so it is Garbage week here this week, but I woke up with a different tune in my head and I’ve decided to run with it…

One of the more interesting facts I learned from the Conversations With Tom Petty book was that my favorite Petty album, Wildflowers, was originally intended as a double album. He doesn’t specify in the book what made him pull back from doing the double, but even in its single-disc format it clocks in at 15 songs and over 60 minutes. We also learn from the book many of the songs that didn’t make Wildflowers wound up on the She’s The One soundtrack.

“Hung Up and Overdue” was one of the leftovers, but it deserved to be on Wildflowers. I don’t know where I’d sequence it on the album, or what I’d be willing to remove to include it. Technically, I wouldn’t have to remove anything; a single disc could have absorbed this one more song. I love Wildflowers the way it is, but “Hung Up and Overdue” would have only made this classic album stronger.

The She’s the One soundtrack has some great, great songs on it but it doesn’t feel like a real record because it wasn’t conceived as a real record. The great songs on the soundtrack are still great songs, but they are slightly diminished by the lack of an album for them to belong to.

There’s a classic feel to “Hung Up and Overdue” reminiscent of Abbey Road-era Beatles. The Beatles comparison becomes all the more appropriate because as the song winds down, Mike Campbell lays down some very George Harrison-like slide guitar work. Petty and Harrison became very good friends in the ’80s, and Harrison held Campbell in high regard. I don’t know if Campbell had Harrison in mind when he recorded this, but it shines through brightly. Some very Lennon-esque effects on Petty’s vocals during the bridge and some classic harmonies precede the great Campbell lead, harmonies which were assisted by Beach Boy Carl Wilson.

Filed under: Tags: Listening Room, Tom Petty