I spent last night hanging with a
few fellow music lovers playing tunes and my head is now spinning with all the
great songs I’ve heard.
It is also spinning (less
pleasantly) with all the chores I need to accomplish today before the work week
begins again. Before I tackle those, I’ll
make some time for a something a lot more enjoyable - sharing this next music review
with y’all.
Disc 542 is…. Long After Dark
Artist: Tom Petty
and the Heartbreakers
Year of Release: 1982
What’s up with the Cover? A boy and his guitar with a red filter. I don’t mind the cover, but that logo looks
very dated now. I didn’t like that “corporate
triangles” look in 1982, and it hasn’t aged well since.
How I Came To Know It: I love Tom Petty and for many years I worked at
getting all of his albums (mission accomplished!). “Long After Dark” was just one of those I
bought when I saw it.
How It Stacks Up: I have fourteen Tom Petty albums. “Long After Dark” is up near the top. I’ll put it 4th or 5th,
in a statistical tie with 2006’s “Highway Companion.”
Rating: 4 stars
I bought “Long After Dark” at the same time as a couple
other early Tom Petty albums (“Hard Promises” and “You’re Gonna Get It”) and as
a result all of the records didn’t get the focused attention they deserve. Coming back to it with a critical eye years
later, I was surprised just how much I liked it, and from here on in, it is
definitely getting played a lot more frequently.
The album was released in 1982, but it is a lot more
than an eighties record. In listening to
it, I was impressed how well the best elements of seventies and eighties rock
are combined. Three years later, Petty
would release “Southern Accents” which fully falls into the fuzzy synth sound
that claimed so many rockers at the time, but on “Long After Dark” these
elements are still in their nascence, and employed with the proper amount of
discretion.
The album’s only notable hit, “You Got Lucky” probably strays as close to the edge of that
discretion, with a dominant organ sound that threatens to drown out the
Heartbreakers rock sound. Fortunately, tasteful
Mike Campbell guitar licks through the song give it just the right amount of
edge to keep it in the shallow end of the Moog pool.
Most of the other tracks have just a hint of synth
and organ providing colour around the edges of the song, which are hard driving
rock anthems. “One Story Town” opens the record with a visceral energy, making me
think of fast muscle cars and the desperation in the guy driving it hard, even
though he’s got nowhere to go.
This feeling of desperation pervades the record, but
it does so gloriously. Rock and roll has
always been in large part about rebellion, as we raise our voices against the
things we can’t change because that’s the only outlet we’ve got.
“Deliver Me”
combines the theme of romantic relationships with the irresistible urge to play
rock and roll, whatever the price. Both are
depicted as something not entirely good for you, but that can’t be turned away
from. It isn’t original but it is well…er…delivered.
The album is mostly up tempo, Petty’s greasy croon
floating over top of the Heartbreakers tight playing and creating a perfect
tension to the music. These are songs
that wouldn’t look like much on the page, but come to life in the hands of the
band.
The songs range all over, from accusatory (“The Same Old You”), to regretful (“Straight Into Darkness”) but mostly they
stand for holding fast against life’s many pressures. You can’t always decide how things will go;
all you can do is decide how you’re going to react to those things when they
come. The tension of gritty seventies
guitar pulling you down, tinged at the edges with upbeat piano and organ are a
perfect delivery system for the songs’ subject matter.
For the last track, “A Wasted Life,” the album’s energy dissipates, and leaves us with a
slow, piano driven lullaby that lightens your load. Petty sings:
“They give it to you from the
time you’re born
Someone’s always got to put the
pressure on
Wrong or right, you’ve got to
stand and fight
“So when you’re lonely and you
feel let down
You can call me I’ll come around
And treat you nice
“Don’t have a wasted life
I love you too much.”
It is like he’s singing directly to you, letting you
know that life can be hard, but there is no need to despair. Listening to this song is like having Tom
Petty on speed dial to cheer you up.
After all the hard truths earlier in the album this song arrives
thematically long after the dark, but it comes at just the right time, like a
sorbet at the end of a heavy meal, cleansing the palate.
Like most albums from the golden age of vinyl, space
considerations have helped lead us to a tightly scripted record, at only ten
songs and under forty minutes playing time.
A word to modern artists – less is more!
A minor quibble is that my CD booklet is
misprinted. The booklet has two
duplicate pages, and so I only ended up with the lyrics to half the songs. I like having a lyrics booklet, so this was a
bit of a bummer, but taken alone the lyrics on “Long After Dark” wouldn’t
resonate anyway. They need the music to
make them soar, simple ideas that are elevated by the talent of the musicians
and good decisions in the arrangements and post-production. At no point does the band forget that their
mission is to make a kick ass rock record, and the eighties are held at bay, at
least for a couple more years.
I am learning acoustic guitar, but this record
definitely tempts me to plug in. The chords
are simple and filled with power that you just can’t get without
electricity. Despite the themes of
heartache, these songs are triumphant in their construction. They fill you with a hope that even though it
can sometimes seem like your spinning your wheels, you can always burn some
rubber and leave your mark regardless.
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