Rick Moody, novelist, music writer, professor, musician in the Wingdale Community Singers, the Unspeakable Practices, etc. Patrick McCarthy, project manager, Light in the Attic Records Peter Holsapple, the dBs, the Continental Drifters, etc. Regan Good, poet, contributing editor at Interim Magazine I hope our conversation will lead you, too, back to the marvelous songs of Tom Petty.įlorence Dore, critic, professor, singer/songwriter

It was a real delight, however, to be able to bring enthusiasms and confusion about our hagiographies to this supremely wise and brilliant group of people. This gigantic thread (cut down significantly here), therefore, has the marks of grief and astonishment happening in real time, and sometimes opinions and impressions have changed, as you will see below, as the facts changed. We spoke by email most of the second half of 2017, even as news having to do with Petty’s death was being unveiled around us. I decided to convene some people whom I knew to be up to the task of reassessing Petty’s music, and who might be well equipped to articulate some of what is lasting and important about the range of his considerable accomplishments.

The more I thought about this, the more I wanted to write about it.

Since Tom Petty’s death, one year ago today, I have been haunted by the nuances and complexities of his songs, the sense of how they improve with attention, and have improved markedly in the period of reckoning that has come to pass since his untimely death.īecause Petty was so prolific and so popular, the intense craftsmanship of his body of work has been hiding in plain sight.

Tom petty shadow of a doubt chords