Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers - Mary's New Car

[srblue5]

Before her last dance, Mary had a brand new car.



For some reason, I've been revisiting this song lately. Southern Accents is not one of my favourite Tom Petty albums but it sure is a fascinating mess of good songs and "what were they thinking" moments. It reminds me a little of The Birds, The Bees & The Monkees in its hodgepodge/what-could-have-been vibe.

This song for me falls closer into the "what were they thinking" camp but I kind of like it all the same. Strangely mellow yet simultaneously a bit unsettling. It's kind of a nice comedown toward the end from the '80s R&B, psychedelia, and heartland rock of the majority of the songs on that album.

 

[Harmonic]

Wow this song is different. Is that a sax solo at 1:50?

 

[srblue5]

Wow this song is different. Is that a sax solo at 1:50?

It is. There are a lot of horns all over Southern Accents but the quasi-smooth jazz sax on “Mary’s New Car” is unusual indeed.

 

[Timflyte]

Mary worked for them or management.
The song was written about her getting a new car.
Its in the book Conversation w Tom Petty.

 

[klasher]

Before her last dance, Mary had a brand new car.



For some reason, I've been revisiting this song lately. Southern Accents is not one of my favourite Tom Petty albums but it sure is a fascinating mess of good songs and "what were they thinking" moments. It reminds me a little of The Birds, The Bees & The Monkees in its hodgepodge/what-could-have-been vibe.

This song for me falls closer into the "what were they thinking" camp but I kind of like it all the same. Strangely mellow yet simultaneously a bit unsettling. It's kind of a nice comedown toward the end from the '80s R&B, psychedelia, and heartland rock of the majority of the songs on that album.

That album has some decent moments but it never really comes together. Even on the level of individual songs, some of those tunes have good moments but don't really go anywhere. Ain't nothing to me is like that. Cool at first but it goes to that same refrain a few too many times and it just doesn't really amount to much, though there's some great jamming in the live version.
The album was a great concept but he just couldn't pull it off with his writing. It really should have been a career record for him and it just wasn't.

 

[srblue5]

That album has some decent moments but it never really comes together. Even on the level of individual songs, some of those tunes have good moments but don't really go anywhere. Ain't nothing to me is like that. Cool at first but it goes to that same refrain a few too many times and it just doesn't really amount to much, though there's some great jamming in the live version.
The album was a great concept but he just couldn't pull it off with his writing. It really should have been a career record for him and it just wasn't.

I agree, it's definitely not a favourite Petty album for me.

Some of the songs just seem eclectic and quirky for the sake of it. "It Ain't Nothin' To Me" is like that -- it's kind of a fun jam (especially live, like you said) but it's something I would expect to hear on a box set of outtakes, like, "Here's Tom and the guys messing around in the studio, trying something that doesn't really sound like them." On an album that was supposed to be a blockbuster concept hit, coming after the opening of "Rebels" (which is a great song), it's like, "Wut?"

"Mary's New Car" is a bit like that too. The ending reminds me of something Paul Simon would do... I happen to be a huge Simon fan so it still sounds good to me, but it's not something I would play for someone who is unfamiliar with Tom Petty as being characteristic of his style.

The album has grown on me a little over time. Part of that is due to the sound quality -- I first heard the album on CD and it sounds very thin (like a lot of early CD pressings, in my opinion). Shortly after Petty died, I found a cassette copy of Southern Accents for 99 cents and when I listened to it on tape, I thought it sounded fuller, which prompted me to listen to it again more closely.

I would love to see an expanded remastered edition of Southern Accents, fleshed out with outtakes and songs that were left off the album that were consistent with the original concept. They did a great job of that with Long After Dark last year.