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My parents had recently divorced and every other weekend was spent with my father. The car rides driving back to his house were usually spent listening to The Stones, The Doors, Led Zeppelin, and other classic rock bands which we would blast at a high volumes. I would close my eyes and pretend I was the one playing guitar like Jimmy Page or Keith Richards in those songs.
As I grow older, the memories of my youth are becoming harder to recall but I will never forget the day I heard my first Tom Petty song.
It was a summer afternoon. My father owned a red Dodge Daytona (that would later become my first car). The windows were down, the sun roof open, I remember how warm the breeze felt as it hit my face on the way back to his place
My father handed me a cassette case and asked me to pop the tape into the player. I looked at the name of the band
'Who's Tom Petty?' I asked
'You'll see'
I looked at the cassette cover. I remember thinking to myself that the band on the cover looked like a bunch of jazz musicians, not rock n' rollers. I took the cassette out of the case and pushed it into the stereo.
The very first song was 'American Girl'
Well she was an american girl.
Raised on promises
she couldn't help thinkin that there
was a little more life
somewhere else
After all it was a great big world
with lots of places to run to
Yeah and if she had to die
Tryin she had one little promise she was gonna keep
Oh yeah, all right, take it easy baby, make it last all night
She was...an american girl
It was kind of cold that night
she stood alone on her balcony
she could hear the cars roll by
Out on 411
Like waves crashin on the beach
And for one desperate moment there
he crept back in her memory
God its so painful
Something that is so close
And still so far out of reach
Oh yeah, all right, take it easy baby, make last all night
she was...
An American Girl.
You can't hear that song and not be an instant Tom Petty fan.
Throughout my life, during the hardest trials, disappointments, heartbreaks, loss, I have been able to turn on Tom Petty and get lost in each song. It's a gateway to my soul, an instant healing. The worry, the pain...it all floats away.
I was 21 when my father was killed while riding his motorcycle on the Fourth of July. He was 42 years old.
My father's favorite Tom Petty songs were 'Free Fallin' and 'Learning to Fly'. A month after the accident I visited the crash site. I drove the winding road that was my father's last ride and pulled up next to the guard rail that he crashed into which ended his life.
It was still summer and that same warm breeze I remembered as a child blew in through the open windows. I popped in Tom Petty's Greatest hits and blasted 'Free Fallin' and 'Learning to Fly' at the volume's max.
As I sat there, I closed my eyes and I could actually picture myself sitting next to my father again, in his dodge daytona, listening to his favorite Tom Petty songs. I could hear his voice again, singing each word...
With my face covered in tears, I couldn't help but smile.
Because for the rest of my life, whenever, wherever, I hear a Tom Petty song, I will remember my father...
I miss him so much.
