Tom Petty’s Resilience Dominated His Music: Here’s How He Did It

We love Tom Petty’s music for countless reasons. Petty’s immense talent obviously played a big role. But he also possessed a knack for touching on topics and themes relevant to the lives of his fans.

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Petty wrote many songs that tackled the theme of resilience. Again and again, he suggested that life is going to keep trying to knock you down. But it’s the getting up that counts.

Right from the Start

From the very beginning, Tom Petty sided with the underdog, the downtrodden, the forsaken. This tendency comes to the fore in his first major work, a song that would eventually come to be a signature for him. Of course, we’re talking about “American Girl”, the centerpiece of his 1976 debut album with The Heartbreakers.

Because the music comes off so energetic and cathartic, and the chorus sounds celebratory, it’s easy to listen to the song and come away with nothing but upbeat vibes. But a deep dive into the lyrics reveals that the “American Girl” in question has to pick herself off the mat and rise above difficult circumstances.

We find out that she feels stymied where she is, the “promises” made her when she was young failing to materialize. And we find out that she’s heartbroken: “And for one desperate moment there/He crept back in a memory/God it’s so painful.” When Petty implores her to “take it easy, baby,” it feels like the advice she needs to survive.

Preemptive Defiance

Petty delivered one of his most iconic songs in 1987. “I Won’t Back Down” never names any specific oppressor in its lyrics. Ultimately, their identity doesn’t matter. In this case, the narrator is foreshadowing his resilience even before he needs it.

“You can stand me up at the gates of hell,” he sneers, explaining the lengths to which this guy can be pushed without crumbling. Note how Petty sings the song, because that plays into the effect. He doesn’t shout or scream. It’s more a shrug, as if it’s an unalterable fact. You come at me, and I’m coming right back at you.

Even on Echo, an album tinged by the shadows of his first marriage’s dissolution, Petty offers resilience in the song “Swingin’”. The main character has come through some serious issues in her life, and her decision-making isn’t the best. But Petty celebrates that she never gave in to fate, even while suggesting an unhappy ending: “And she went down swingin’.”

Completing the Resilient Circle

Over and over in his career, Tom Petty returned to this theme. You could tell that it was something that he greatly admired in people. And the less chance that these characters seemed to have of getting out of their dire straits, the more respect they earned from Petty for trying anyway.

On Hypnotic Eye, Petty’s final album with The Heartbreakers before his death, he delivered the song “American Dream Plan B”. In many ways, it closes a loop that he started all those years ago with “American Girl”. The narrator finds himself trapped in a debilitating environment that he might never escape.

And yet, in the chorus, he finds hope. “I got a dream I’m gonna fight till I get it,” he defiantly yelps. Even as the settings and the circumstances of the characters changed, the indomitable spirit of that line rings throughout Tom Petty’s entire body of work.

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