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(Credits: Far Out \/ YouTube Still)<\/p>\n
Sun 1 February 2026 0:30, UK <\/p>\n
The music Tom Petty<\/a> made was never about trying to make some of the most groundbreaking songs ever made. <\/p>\n Rock and roll came naturally to him whenever he strapped on his guitar, and no matter what kind of tune he was working on, he was going to make sure to fine-tune everything so that it sounded like the perfect pop tune by the time he walked out of the studio. He may have had the rest of the Heartbreakers helping him polish all of those tunes, but he knew that sometimes the best partnerships needed a little bit of space if they were going to survive for the long haul.<\/p>\n This probably explains why he had a wilderness period of working without the rest of the band. Ever since the days of Damn the Torpedoes, Petty was always butting heads with Stan Lynch when sorting out how the drums should sound, but after working with Bob Dylan for a few years on the road, Let Me Up (I\u2019ve Had Enough) was one of the first times where his songwriting sounded tired. All he needed was a break, and working alongside legends like the Traveling Wilburys certainly didn\u2019t hurt.<\/p>\n Because when you think about it, Petty\u2019s time working with George Harrison, Dylan and Roy Orbison may as well have been a rock and roll fantasy come to life. Not everyone gets the chance to see some of their favourite writers practice their craft in front of them, and even if those Wilburys tunes weren\u2019t the most thoughtful lyrics in the world, you can hear the fun that all of them were having when putting together tunes like \u2018End of the Line\u2019 and \u2018Handle With Care\u2019.<\/p>\n So it\u2019s no surprise that Petty didn\u2019t want the fun to stop once that first record was over. He and Jeff Lynne had hit it off when they started writing tunes together, and when \u2018Yer So Bad\u2019 and \u2018Free Fallin\u2019<\/a> started taking shape, they clearly weren\u2019t Heartbreakers songs. This was Petty\u2019s chance to go solo for the first time, and while Full Moon Fever was one of the finest works of his career, there were bound to be some hiccups along the way when they started working on Into the Great Wide Open. <\/p>\n The rest of the band weren\u2019t exactly thrilled with the way that Lynne worked, and while the album had some of the finest tunes of their career, like \u2018Learning to Fly\u2019 and the title track, it\u2019s not like Petty couldn\u2019t see problems ahead. Lynne was a great producer, but he wasn\u2019t going to find himself in a rut a few years down the line and being uninspired every time he went into the studio.<\/p>\n