A music video doesn’t always help a song turn into a hit single, but as Tom Petty learned in 1991, a little extra star power never hurts. At least, it didn’t when Petty was releasing and promoting the title track to his eighth studio album with the Heartbreakers, “Into The Great Wide Open”.
The release of Petty’s music video for the title track coincided with plenty of external factors, both positive and negative. Positively speaking, music videos were on their ascent of popularity. If there were ever a time when people would be paying attention to music videos, it would be then.
Videos by American Songwriter
But there were also misfortunes elsewhere that helped create other opportunities Petty and his team could seize. Most notably, film director Emir Kusturica suffered a nervous breakdown during the filming of Arizona Dream, which featured Johnny Depp and Faye Dunaway. Both actors had spare time while the shoot was taking a hiatus, which is how they ended up working with the rock ‘n’ roll band.
Tom Petty Gave Credit to the “Into the Great Wide Open” Video
The music video for “Into The Great Wide Open” by Tom Petty features Johnny Depp as Eddie Rebel and Faye Dunaway as Gabrielle Anwar. Eddie and Gabrielle are in a relationship, but Eddie’s life quickly deteriorates as fame starts affecting him in increasingly negative ways. It’s a narrative music video for a narrative kind of song, which Petty said wasn’t based on anything specifically autobiographical or otherwise.
“I just kind of fell into it,” Petty said in a conversation with Paul Zollo. “You don’t know where those things come from. I was just playing those chords, and this little story started to appear. I carried it around in my head for a while and refined it a little bit.”
He continued, “I think it has some truth to it. It’s lighthearted in a way. With a kind of black humor to it. The video was the great thing with that song. The video was as good as the song, I think. It’s a rare instance where they really complemented each other. And we actually had to extend the song for the video. The video is seven minutes long. Because we shot so much, and we didn’t want to lose it. So, we went back and did a re-edit and remix of the song to make it fit the video.”
Photo by Jim Steinfeldt/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images