(Credits: Songwriters Hall of Fame)
Mon 16 March 2026 21:00, UK
The music business was never the easiest business to navigate for Tom Petty.
All he wanted to do was make the best music that he could with his friends, but even when he was creating masterpieces, there was always a thick layer of bullshit that he had to work through to get his records made, whether it was making sure that he had his publishing rights or keeping his records within the price range of his fans. But while there were always pieces of his career that were annoying, there was bound to be a time when all of that negativity started to get to him once he began working on his records.
But by the time that Damn the Torpedoes had come out, it felt like a lot of the dark days were behind him. The Heartbreakers had hit their stride and created one of the best albums of their career, but the next few years would be a series of ups and downs that no one could have predicted. Their attempt at a concept album fell apart on Southern Accents, but even when the band were at their weakest point, all Petty needed to do was have a break from his bandmates before rearing back to life.
His work with the Traveling Wilburys and his first solo album Full Moon Fever revitalised his songwriting style, and it felt like he finally started having fun again after years in the dark. And while it took a little while longer for the band to appreciate what Jeff Lynne was doing behind the scenes, no one could have predicted how great Wildflowers would turn out. Petty and Rubin were a match made in heaven, and even the bearded musical guru had to admit that Petty was scared of how good the songs were.
Then again, that might have had to do with the fact that he was going through one of the biggest shakeups of his career. He had always had his wife by his side throughout every step of his career, but after reading between the lines of the lyrics on Wildflowers, Petty realised that it was time for him to leave his other half after decades together. And if this was the preeminent warning, Echo was the aftermath of him emotionally crashing.
Not only was the band dealing with Howie Epstein succumbing to heroin use, but Petty was going through the emotions more often than not whenever he started making the record. Some of the greatest songs on the album are nearly ad-libbed, and even if they did result in some of the most introspective tunes of his career, Petty had to admit that he was going through one of the most heartbreaking moments that he had ever dealt with on record.
While he admitted that there was a lot of good material on the record, he felt that it was coming from a much darker place than usual, saying, “I didn’t listen to Echo. That was one of the worst periods of my life. When I made that record. I was going through a divorce, and really life had just gone to hell. I was having a really hard time. Living alone. Rick Rubin swears I wasn’t there on that record. Yeah. So that’s the best Tom Petty record that Tom Petty wasn’t at.”
Even if Petty was barely there, though, his presence is like a ghost haunting most of the songs. Since he’s the one that was writing most of the tracks, some of them are a little too revealing almost by accident, especially when he talks about pleading with his wife not to leave him on ‘Room at the Top’ or the shakiness of his voice as he talks about dealing with the fallout of everything on ‘Lonesome Sundown’.
It was going to be a hard storm for him to weather his way through, but the fact that he came out on the other side makes Echo a fascinating story of survival. This kind of heartache would have been enough for anyone else not want to make music anymore, but Petty figured that the best way was for him to work his way through every single song and try to sew up pieces of his broken heart.