The Tom Petty Project

You don’t really have to enter into a serious relationship with time because there’s so much of it still ahead. You can mess around on it and you know it will always be there when you get home. There’s an implicit transience to that title line that I absolutely love.

And I like that idea of not fully committing to time, just flirting with it. That’s definitely how life feels when you’re in your twenties and thirties.

“You’re flirting with time”, Tom sings.

New episode now. Available wherever you wind your watches.

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I guested on a podcast last week on which we discussed Spleen Merchant, from Blast Tyrant. Most of the panel had never heard any Clutch so it was great fun having them take in Neil's lyrics for the first time 😁

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Everyone; "So we're supposed to believe that Clark Kent takes his glasses off and suddenly he's completely unrecognizable?"
Roy Orbison: "Yep..."

It’s important that being present in a moment and recognizing that every day and every minute is a chance for rebirth and reinvention is unconstrained by a prescribed destination. It’s the ultimate expression of freedom.

Critical to retaining the song’s pathos though, Tom doesn’t project a future down this new path. It’s important that Square One is here and now.

Square One is the work of a middle-aged man who fully knows himself and knows how to articulate the past and the present in three very vivid dimensions.

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Ah thanks man!!!! Jon is such a cool guy and he has a MILLION stories from his promo days! He's told me a couple of Keith Moon stories that are not for public consumption! 😆 And yeh - Dog on the Run is such a cool track. It's really, really weird that they never recorded that one!

It has that same stutter step slickness to it that both guys inherited from the late, great John Lee Hooker. On the second beat of the second bar, you get that fantastic rattlesnake percussion that gives the song so much character right at the start!

Saving Grace opens with that iconic finger-picked guitar riff. If you speed it up by twenty beats per minute and pitch it up from E to A, you end up roughly at La Grange by ZZ Top.

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There’s a depth and colour to the album overall that ties the whole together sonically rather than thematically.

You can feel the evening sun warming your skin as you drive, with the top down, listening to this album before arriving at a house in the woods, where you the songs become much more a cellar aged cognac in front of the fire than they are a light beer on the patio.

There’s a languidity that floats through a lot of this record; Square One, Night Driver, Turn this Car Around, This Old Down, and The Golden Rose... These are songs to cruise to. They’re songs to be chewed on and savoured rather than hastily gulped down.

Season fourteen has begun and I wanted to chat a little about Highway Companion before we start digging into the songs.

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PoolRoomRepping 8NINETY8 at the pool hall.

Get your gear over at store.tompettyproject.com

#HappyHourPoolRoom

I approve this message.The Bears have won 100% of the Superbowls in years which they've released a hit record.

As always, this was an incredibly enjoyable chat and I hope you dig it as much as I did!

We dive into the potential reasons why we've never had any previously unreleased tracks surface from this album (including the mysterious Maggie song!), and why half a concept album might not have landed with a wider listening audience.

The wonderful @4for4-john.bsky.social is back to talk all things Last DJ! John actually saw one of the two dates at the Olympic, so I get to ask him about that!

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I think you need to find a better slogan to be honest. Being born in the UK, we have kings - they just don't have any actual power and we don't really give a toss what they say.... 😂

Can’t Stop the Sun brings in all the conflict and anger that Tom has projected through parts of this album and turns it against itself by becoming a final statement of resolve and indestructible self-reliance.

The bridge is one of my very favourites that we have in the entire catalogue with that swinging half funk groove and that outro is just absolutely fire.

Everything about this song appeals to me. The soft-loud dynamic of the verse and chorus, coupled with the 4/4 3/4 switch from verse to chorus, along with the minor to major switch. It’s just perfectly internally oppositional.

Can't Stop the Sun. The last track from The Last DJ. It’s a perfect end to a perfect album.

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And you may think you control things
But there'll be more just like me

#CantStopTheSun

Hi all! There won't be an episode this week unfortunately. My body is fighting something (a couple of the other people in the house have been sick this weekend/week) and I'm just wiped! No other symptoms apart from the fatigue, but I'll see you next week!

#TheWaitingIsTheHardestPart

Oh man, there are so many songs I'll drive around the block to finish! Running Down a Dream would CERTAINLY be one of them! What, you're gonna cut off one of the greatest outro solos ever recorded?

I've become kinda addicted to @stvincent.music-social.com lately btw folks. Top three albums right now are (in no set order)
All Born Screaming
Masseduction
St. Vincent

You still love me, right.....? ☺️