The Dark Urban Legend Around Tom Petty’s “American Girl” That Remains a Florida Legend Today

Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers’ 1976 track, “American Girl”, encapsulates what made this Heartrock outfit so incredible. It has everything that makes a Petty song a Petty song: iconic riffs, catchy hooks that beg you to sing along, simple but poignant lyricism, and an airtight arrangement. Petty and guitarist Mike Campbell were outspoken in their belief that it was one of the best songs in the band’s catalogue. But thanks to an urban legend out of Florida, it’s also one of their darkest. 

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The “American Girl” rumor started as rumors often do: a few sprinkles of truth. First, Petty was from Gainesville, Florida, which naturally became the epicenter of this rock ‘n’ roll legend. Second, there was a woman who jumped off the Beaty Towers dormitory building to her death on the University of Florida campus, located in Gainesville. And finally, the same highway Tom Petty mentions as his titular character listens to “the cars roll by out on the 441” does actually run next to campus.

Put all of those details together, and a story was eventually born about how Petty wrote “American Girl” for the University of Florida student. After that, his lyrics did the rest of the work to fill in the details. “She couldn’t help thinkin’ that there was a little more to life somewhere else / After all it was a great big world with lots of places to run to / Yeah, and if she had to die tryin’, she had one little promise she was gonna keep.”

Tom Petty Debunked the Floridian Rumor About “American Girl”

Considering “American Girl” is such an upbeat, feel-good rock song, the possibility that it actually had such a devastatingly dark backstory made the rumor all the more appealing. The myth spread by word of mouth across the University of Florida campus. Magazines published the story as if it were true. Yet, as Tom Petty put it in a conversation with Paul Zollo, if anyone had just called him up to ask him, he could have saved them a lot of trouble. Petty didn’t write “American Girl” about the woman who committed suicide, and not just because Beaty Towers doesn’t have any balconies like the one his “American Girl” stands alone on in the second verse.

“It’s become a huge urban myth down in Florida,” Petty said of the fake backstory. “That’s just not at all true. The song has nothing to do with that. But that story really gets around. That’s happened with a lot of songs. But really extremely in that song. They’ve really got the whole story. I’ve even seen magazine articles about that story. Is it true or isn’t it true? They could have just called me and found out it wasn’t true. But that song has really been around for a long time now. And I’m very proud of it.”

No One Parties in His Old House Every Halloween, Either

Tom Petty cleared up other Floridian tales while speaking to Paul Zollo, including the annual tradition to party at Petty’s old house every Halloween. The rock ‘n’ roller said he’s met students from University of Florida who tell him they’ve partied where he used to live. The only problem, of course, is Petty “never lived in a house in Gainesville. I lived in apartments. I lived in my mom’s house, where I know they’re not throwing a party. So, that’s also a myth. Someone got a house and said, ‘This is where he lived.’ The tradition has gone on and on. Every time I tell them it’s not true, they go, ‘Ahh!’ I almost am tempted to go, ‘Oh, great,’ because I don’t want to pop their balloon.” 

Despite Petty’s Floridian roots, “American Girl” has nothing to do with the Sunshine State. As he recalled to Zollo, “I was living in an apartment where I was right by the freeway. And the cars would go by. In Encino, near Leon’s house. And I remember that that sounded like the ocean to me. That was my ocean. My Malibu. Where I heard the waves crash, but it was just cars going by. I think that must have inspired the lyric. I know it was the bicentennial year. When there were a lot of American things going on. Super red, white, and blue things going on. And we actually made the record on the Fourth of July, 1976.”

Photo by Richard E. Aaron/Redferns