Tom Petty’s Creative Wisdom
Tom Petty viewed songwriting as ugly, lonely, hard work. Image: Tom Petty archives.
Here’s a fun fact about Tom Petty. While growing up in the sticks of Gainesville, Florida (literally, in the woods) with a father who had no interest in his artistic path, Petty only attended one prom and it wasn’t even his own.
“I couldn’t go to my prom because I was playing another prom,” he said in Conversations with Tom Petty by Paul Zollo. “It cost me a girlfriend.” While his peers attended classes, Petty started playing professionally at age 16, at afternoon socials, bars, fraternities, anywhere he could land a local gig. “We were working guys,” he said. “We were either practicing or playing all the time.” Don’t let the stoner vibe and long hair fool you — Petty maintained that tireless work ethic throughout his career, well after he became a household name.
Every year, he pushed himself to write an album’s worth of songs. That commitment — plus a natural talent, sure — led to more hits than just about any musician in history. Besides a single-minded dedication, here are 10 more insights from Petty’s view on music, art, and dedication. Work into your pursuits as you see fit.
“Music is probably the only real magic I have encountered in my life. There’s not some trick involved with it. It’s pure and it’s real. It moves, it heals, it communicates.”
“There have been times when I could feel something [a song] coming, and I was so tired I didn’t even want to do it. Because I knew I was going to be up another four hours if I did. But I always did it. Because that would just be rude to ignore the muse.”
“Artists at times aren’t really the best judges of how they’re performing. I’ve had nights where I thought I wasn’t very good and then people who had seen the show would come to me raving about it.”
“One night we played four hours. Which really isn’t like The Heartbreakers. But we just got into a groove, and it went fine. The encore was an hour and a half.”
“Look, if you’re going out in front of twenty thousand people, and you’re not nervous, there’s something wrong with you. You’re not plugged in somewhere, if you’re not nervous.”
“I find if I’m at a [recording] session, say, and the session is going really well, I’ve got a lot of adrenaline going. Especially if I’m going to sing. You’ve got to work up a lot of adrenaline, just like you would in a show. And when I come home from the sessions even to this day, I’m really wired. I’m gonna be up for a while.”
“If I’m gonna tell a story, I have three and a half minutes to get it across. So sometimes a single word is Act II.”
“Writing songs is lonely work. That’s what I said to Scott Thurston recently. He asked me what I was doing, and I told him I was doing that ugly, hard, loney work. Writing songs…It usually took me a year to come up with 10 songs that were any good.”
“I’m sure every writer has had writer’s block. But it’s just a lack of confidence. You have to remind yourself that it’s a lack of confidence. If you did it once, you can certainly do it again.”
“I love this music, this rock and roll. It changed my life. It sustained my life.”
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