(Credits: Far Out / The Traveling Wilburys)
Tue 16 December 2025 17:03, UK
From the minute that he released his debut, Tom Petty had known about the art of crafting a great song. Even though some tracks may come in the moment, Petty knew that the right amount of execution could typically make or break a song, occasionally changing the slightest word to bring everything together. While Petty got the opportunity to work with many of his heroes throughout his career, he still thought that one songwriter could whip any decent song into classic shape.
Before Petty had even inked a deal as part of The Heartbreakers, he was already being sought after for his songs. When his first band, Mudcrutch, were dropped from their label after a handful of failed singles, Petty stayed on because of how much the suits liked his songs, leading to him putting together a band around him based on the musicians he had worked with in his old outfit.
By the time he had started work on his debut album, Petty was already workshopping different songs that would become future hits, writing the song ‘Don’t Do Me Like That’ while he was barely out of his teens. Though he may not have been looking to impress anyone, some of the biggest names in the industry were starting to take note of the classic songwriter Petty was fast becoming.
Turning in one classic after the next on albums like Damn the Torpedoes, Petty would even get the nod from John Lennon when working on the album Hard Promises, with the former Beatle set to sit in on the sessions before his tragic death in 1980. While the Beatle magic alluded Petty once, he would eventually get to work with a who’s who of rock legends when putting together the Travelling Wilburys.
Although Petty had been friendly with artists like Bob Dylan and George Harrison leading up to the group’s formation, he relished the opportunity to write songs with him. Throughout the record, every songwriter got their chance to shine, from Roy Orbison having a vocal showcase on ‘Not Alone Anymore’ to Harrison turning in a pop-rock classic on ‘Heading for the Light’.
The Traveling Wilburys. (Credit: Wikimedia)
Out of all the band members, Petty had the utmost respect for what Dylan brought to the table. Outside of using his studio for some of the tracking sessions, Petty thought that it was valuable time watching Dylan work, mulling over the lyric sheet meticulously until he found the proper collection of words that would work.
Years after working with him, Petty would still have fond memories of working with Dylan on the songs, recalling, “There’s nobody I’ve ever met who knows more about the craft of how to put a song together than he does. I learned so much from just watching him work. He has an artist’s mind and can find in a line the key word and think how to embellish it to bring the line out”.
“We hadn’t heard Dylan [growing up in Florida] until ‘Like A Rolling Stone’ came out as a single. And we loved that right away. We learned that, did it in the show. We learned all his singles,” Petty once explained. “We didn’t have Dylan albums until Blonde on Blonde [1966]. I had heard Highway 61 Revisited [1965]. A friend of mine had that. But I actually bought Blonde on Blonde. That’s where I really got into Bob. And I started to really dig his thing,” he once told American Songwriter.
Petty added, “He influenced my songwriting, of course. He influenced everybody’s songwriting. There’s no way around it. No one had ever really left the love song before, lyrically. So in that respect, I think he influenced everybody, because you suddenly realised you could write about other things.”
While Petty would continue having his signature style, he did take a few cues from Dylan’s playbook, including stretching his songs out for more verses on more bluesy affairs like Mojo. Even though Petty may have songs that have become enduring anthems in rock history, Dylan was one of the few composers whose songs have become like modern hymns.
Dylan had a special place in his heart for Petty, too. After his death, Dylan said, “It’s shocking, crushing news. I thought the world of Tom. He was great performer, full of the light, a friend, and I’ll never forget him.”
It was an emotional occasion for Dylan when he took to the stage for the first time after Petty’s death in 2017, just a matter of weeks later. During the show, he paid a fitting, heartbreaking tribute to the late singer with a beautiful cover of his former bandmate’s anthem, ‘Learning To Fly’.
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