It’s a beautiful sunny day and I plan to celebrate with a walk, and maybe a drive in my convertible with the top down. Yeehaw!
Disc 1474 is…. You’re Gonna Get It!
Artist: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
Year of Release: 1978
What’s up with the Cover? Tom and the boys are bathed in blue light and looking testy. Are they threatening me that “I’m gonna get it” if I don’t buy the album? Because I don’t respond well to threats, Tom. Maybe they’re just excited that “I’m gonna get it” meaning, buy their album. If that’s the case, a friendlier demeanour is in order.
How I Came To Know It: Many years ago I undertook rounding out my Tom Petty collection, and this was one of the albums I scooped up.
How It Stacks Up: I have 16 Tom Petty albums (I’m a fan). “You’re Gonna Get It!” is solid but competition is tough. I’m putting it in at #9, bumping “Southern Accents” down one spot in the process.
Ratings: 3 stars
Imagine if you were the second of three brothers. The older brother is an astronaut, and the younger brother is a movie star. That’s probably how Tom Petty’s sophomore album “You’re Gonna Get It!” feels. It is sandwiched between two classic records; his debut (featuring “American Girl”) and Damn the Torpedoes (featuring every other hit he wrote prior to 1980).
“You’re Gonna Get It!” has no hits. “I Need to Know” landed at #41 on the charts, but other than that, barely a whimper. This is a damned shame, because it is a solid collection of tunes. The album is similar in style to Petty’s debut, with a raw and rambunctious quality to the songs that he would start to smooth out by the time Damn the Torpedoes came out. The delivery is exuberant garage rock, but in places starting to demonstrate the pleasant jangle that would come later. Think the Who, crossed with the Byrds.
That Byrds-inspired jangle is notable on the record’s best tune, “Listen to Her Heart” which features the big reverberating guitar sound that is instantly recognizable as Mike Campbell. The song is a defiant note to a would-be suitor that Tom’s lady’s not for turning. I love the opening lines:
"You think you’re gonna take her away.
With your money and your cocaine”
I guess that what passed for courting in 1978, at least in this instance. I wonder if the rival would had better luck with, I don’t know, flowers and chocolate?
My other favourite is the opening tune, “When the Time Comes” which has a bit of that same Byrdsian jangle in the chorus, but meshed with a greasy, defiant guitar lick that would have fit right in on “Who’s Next”.
While Petty wears his influences on his sleeve, the record is not derivative. It takes the ideas of earlier bands in new directions, plugging them into brand new melodic structures that are so smooth they only feel like they’ve been around for decades. When it comes to writing a timeless melody, there is no one better than Tom Petty.
Elsewhere, tunes like “I Need to Know,” and “Too Much Ain’t Enough” are pure frenetic energy and “Restless” comes along late in the record to throw in a heavy blues influence. While I have a predilection for Petty’s high head voice, on these harder numbers he employs his signature warble to good effect. It sounds like someone who is out having an old-fashioned good time, with just a hint of skeevy excess on the side. You get the impression money and/or cocaine may be involved.
The band straddles that artful gap between visceral energy and precision, creating a live performance quality, if that live performance happened to be studio perfect.
Near the end of the record, Petty breaks out one more hidden gem, with “No Second Thoughts.” This song, about a woman casting aside her old life and running off into an uncertain future is the definition of yearning. Never spelling the full story out, Petty deploys a series of evocative images: a golden band crushed into the sand, a hand taken, a plea to strike an unspoken evil down. And ultimately, the admission that, “dreams fade, hope dies hard.” It is beautiful stuff.
Because of all the hype over other Tom Petty albums, few will listen to “No Second Thoughts” nor any of the other songs on “You’re Gonna Get It!” and that’s a damned shame. I encourage you to go back in time and discover the many hidden gems on this record. If you don’t recognize any of the song titles, don’t panic. They’re good.
Best tracks: When The Time Comes, Listen to Her Heart, No Second Thoughts, Baby’s a Rock N’ Roller
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