The Massive Tom Petty Hit He Avoided Playing Live In His Later Years

It’s not uncommon for an artist to end up disliking their biggest hits, and such was the case for the first single off Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers’ eponymous debut from 1976. The song was understandably a staple in the Heartbreakers’ live sets for years.

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But in a 2004 interview with Paul Zollo, Tom Petty admitted to avoiding the song in his later years.

Why Tom Petty Avoided Playing This Massive Hit

Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers burst onto the rock ‘n’ roll scene with their eponymous debut in 1976, featuring singles “Breakdown” and “American Girl.” The former track might not have topped the charts, but it quickly became a fan favorite. “Breakdown” was a staple of the Heartbreakers’ live set for decades.

But by 2004, Petty’s opinion had cooled slightly. “I don’t want to play [that song] very often,” he told interviewer Paul Zollo. “I think because early in our career we played it so much, I think I relate it to being 25. It doesn’t feel like a song I would sing now. But never say never. That’s one we don’t play much. Hardly ever.”

Petty admitted that although the band didn’t play it live as much as they used to, he still enjoyed the track. “It’s a great little record,” he said. “When I hear it on the radio, I really like it.”

The rock ‘n’ roller wrote “Breakdown” while on break at the studio. “These were just strange days,” Petty recalled. “I wrote the whole song, words, and music. It’s something I wouldn’t really think I could do now. But I guess I could. But when you’re young and just so innocent, it was just something that happened. You know, we weren’t going to sit around for two hours and let them fix the mics or whatever without doing something, so we did that.”

How The Fab Four Inspired Tom Petty’s Signature Hit

Years before Tom Petty became the rock star we know him as today, he was a kid growing up in Gainesville, Florida, watching the Beatles play on the Ed Sullivan Show. “It sort of hit me like a lightning bolt to the brain that, oh, I see, you know?” Petty recalled in a 2006 Fresh Air interview. “You have your friends, and you all learn an instrument, and you’re a self-contained unit. This is brilliant, you know? This looks like a great, great job to me. And apparently, it did to lots of people because very quickly after that, there were bands forming in garages all over town.”

When Petty sat down at the piano to write “Breakdown,” he still had the Beatles on the brain. In a Performing Songwriter interview, Petty recalled, “We got the drumbeat [for “Breakdown”] from a Beatles record, “All I Got To Do.” We just varied it. That was the idea to have that kind of broken rhythm on the hi-hat.” 

Petty might have had a hard time relating to a song he wrote in his mid-20s, but that didn’t stop the rest of his fans from adoring the song for decades after its release. “Breakdown” is among Petty’s most memorable tracks, cementing its slinky, sultry groove and iconic riff in rock ‘n’ roll history.

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