Purchase Listen to Her Heart
I'm still grieving over the death of Tom Petty, so, though I've written about him many times, there's got to be a place in our blog for a mention of the Heartbreaker's "Listen to Her Heart."
From 1978's You're Gonna Get It!, "Listen to Her Heart", more so than any other early Heartbreaker's track, helped contribute to the new wave label that clung to the band for so long. And for good reason: the chiming, chorus-drenched guitar, working in a groove over tub drums and the tranced out vocal lines all do sound...modern. It's a great tune, driving and unique, an FM radio rocker from the AM era, a stadium-style anthem that bounced as hard as it grooved. I've always loved the fade out on the song, where Campbell's guitar lead and the Tench's piano line compete in a crescendoing melody, winding up, then fading out entirely, in that sad way that a great song is one that you wish wasn't so short, though it's compact brevity is part of what makes it so great to begin with. A staple gun shot of a track.
Apparently, Petty wrote the song in response to Ike Turner hitting on Petty's wife. I'd never heard that, but between Wikipedia and re-runs of VH1's Behind the Music, you can learn a hell of a lot...