RIP

last night in Portland:

What a rare and gifted songwriter. "The Waiting" probably my favorite. RIP.

I was around 22 when I was living in Florida, graduated college a few months earlier, and my fiancee had just broken up with me. My first broken heart. I was devastated. I just wanted to go home to New Jersey, to people I knew and loved.

My best friend Gregg flew down just so he could drive back with me and keep me from getting too morose.

All the way back driving up 95, we played Damn The Torpedoes and Long After Dark over and over again.

I came up with a plan to win my fiancee's heart back with Tom Petty lyrics that suddenly seemed so meaningful to me...Change of Heart, Deliver Me, I'm Finding Out...they slayed me. And I found in those songs, miraculously, me! Tom Petty was writing about me!

Well, I wrote down all these meaningful lyrics that I was going to send to my gal, Gregg urging me on to write it all out and find the perfect lyric that would make her come back to me.

Well, Tom Petty wasn't actually writing about me, and at the end of our road trip, I threw out all those feverishly written out lyrics as folly - and my best friend agreed that it was probably best to do so. And we laughed.

But Tom Petty was there for me when I needed to express what I was not yet capable of expressing. He spoke to me. He spoke for me. And to know someone else who I didn't know at all could know me so well...that was everything.

Thanks, Tom

I can't say I've ever felt that spoken to by a song. Mbn

I feel your pain, my wife & I had intended to go to the show at the a.c.c. but we were going to Europe on Sept. 1st, and the time got away from us.

Bowie & Tom Petty were probably my two greatest musical heroes, now they are both gone.

Take care Everlastrr, hope your Leafs finish 9th in the east. :]

Rip
Just went to count TP tracks in my library and it's >40. Definitely top 10 most. Sooo many good songs. Always a good drive and sing along artist.

Breakups are the time when all songs speak to you.

Seems a good time for a title update.

God it's so painful
Something that's so close
And still so far out of reach

thanks for the title change....i'm still trying to somehow process this.

it's alright if you love me
it's alright if you don't

you think you're gunna take her away
with your money and your cocaine

listen honey can you see
baby you would bury me
if you were in the public eye
giving someone else a try

and i showed you stars you never could see
babe it couldn't have been that easy to forget about me...
...yeah you could kiss like fire and you made me feel
like every word you said was meant to be
babe it couldn't have been that easy to forget about me

I haven't felt this bad since George died.

Three years ago, I got sick. Really sick. Prostate cancer and kidney disease. I was almost down for the count. Lots of bed time. Modern medicine and Tom got me thru. The Gainesville concert on YouTube was my go to.

I feel like I lost a best friend.

Might be time to rewatch the Tom Petty documentary. It is like 4 hours long but absolutely riveting.

100%. Didn't realize just how long it was until it ended. Highly recommended if you haven't seen it.

We're running out of Wilburys.

RIP, Tom Petty.

End of the line.

really hoping you didn't just curse Dylan or Lynne

Last Dance with Mary Jane is my favorite. Of my admittedly very little knowledge of his work.

My top 5 favorite Tom Petty songs:
1 Refugee
2 The Waiting
3 Breakdown
4 You Got Lucky
5 Don't Do Me Like That

Honey Bee criminally underrated ITT. So grimy and sexy....

American girl is my number one.

It's really hard to get past American Girl.

Other underrated ones:

Listen to her heart

Wildflowers

I should have known it (They really rock this live)

Jammin me

A woman in love

I chose both American Girl and Listen To Her Heart in our rock song draft.

Wild One (Forever) is a great song from the first album. Just beautiful.