Springsteen's Letter To You thread (second try)

It caught a lot of people off guard. He allegedly was working on it off and on over the course of several years, and somehow it came together.

 

Interesting, maybe I should give him another chance. Obviously and sadly that won't be on stage. To me it seems that Americans rate Perry extremely highly and his untimely demise has accentuated that.

 

A lot I agree with here. The book Conversations with Tom Petty, which I read when it first came out years ago and which I recently revisited in audiobook form when it was reissued, is revelatory. It made me realise how seriously Petty took the art of songwriting, above everything else. And then listening to the home demos for Wildflowers. I know he told the story several times about how the title track just came to him as he began to play - lyrics, melody, chords. Or, rather, the other way round probably. Pressed play, strummed and sang, pressed stop, and it was there, entire and whole. I can believe it. But he also talked a lot about the CRAFT. And how often it is just really, really hard work.

I am not sure any of Petty's contemporaries could beat him for middle 8/bridges. I still think that is a reliable marker of a great songwriter.

Joe, you are absolutely right, Petty's willingness to collaborate is an important part of it. And he was blessed with Mike Campbell, whose abilities as a songwriter himself are consistently underrated (so many of those songs were delivered to Petty with chords, riffs and sometimes melodies intact).

As a band, I prefer the Heartbreakers to the E Streeters, and I am a huge fan of both. As live band/frontmen, I would have to agree that Petty did not have the aura and energy of Springsteen at his 78 peak. But I also think Petty was a true believer and for him it was always the music that mattered. I sometimes look at Bruce posing around the stage in say 85 or 88 in his cut off Ts, and think, somewhere along the line, he lost sight of what really mattered.

 

Petty dimmed on stage in his later years, I think. He did not keep himself fit like Bruce did, but few ever did or could. Petty's voice also lost some of its power but not all that much of its range. Probably why they brought the backup singers in for the last tour. I think he occasionally seemed a little frail and relied more on Scott Thurston to keep the rhythm guitar going. But we all know that he was dealing with a lot of pain on that final tour as well.

This is unexpected, gorgeous, late period TP

 

It's a shame they shared the stage just a couple of times. Somewhere film of this is sitting in the vault, still unreleased.

 

After, "Magic", I said Good-bye.

 

True, but the difference in the count tells the tale.

Petty wrote around 119 songs (an astonishing number).

Bruce has written around 340 songs, a truly unbelievable number, and almost triple to Petty's count. Of course with that number, there is going to be scores of mediocre and substandard content.

How many songs can any performer write before they exhaust themselves and the limited form that is Rock? Most do their best work in their first 5 years, and then start coasting, they might have a slight resurgence later, but it rarely equals what they did in their prime.

The Beatles, perhaps the greatest pop/rock self contained writers group, wrote 188, but that was 3 guys working together, and all done within their first 6 1/2 years. Dylan has more than 500, but that's a whole different story.

All 340 Bruce Springsteen Songs, Ranked From Worst to Best .

 

Is 340 the number of released songs?

 

Not sure, but NYmag has the list and their rankings here

All 340 Bruce Springsteen Songs, Ranked From Worst to Best .

 

We know how many songs Petty released. We do not know how many he wrote. I have a strong suspicion his quality control was stricter than Springsteen’s.

 

I'd lost my temper with that list before I'd got as high as 310!!

 

Plus factor in Bruce had his first 3 albums in the can (and some of his greatest work) before Petty came along, and has released 2 albums since Petty's Death.

I usually rate the artists/bands I like on their first 5 albums of original content. Bruce beats Petty there, but Elvis Costello probably beats anyone in my book on his first 5 (of original songs, throw out the Country covers album), and whose over all output and quality might be unmatched at around 566 songs.

 

I can almost guarantee you would feel differently if you witnessed a 78 or even a 75 show. The shows I saw still rate among the best I've been to. The Seattle 78 Christmas show will always be my top concert experience.

 

i agree with you to an extent, but would also say given the choice of only listening to Petty’s first five or only listening to Bruce’s for the rest of my life, I would always choose Petty. But then we are also in the realm of personal canons here, inevitably.

 

I like Petty's hits. I tried listening to some of his albums. The early ones were good, but nothing that grabbed me like Bruce's albums. I remember when Wildflowers came out. I was in college, and my roommates would play it. It never did anything for me. I tried recently to listen to it and couldn't get through it. My roommate also had his solo albums. Again, nothing that hooked me in.

 

On another note, as great as Petty was, he was never as influential as Bruce was.

If the Beatles set the template for what a band could achieve in the 60's and after, Bruce with BTR, and the live shows that followed it, did the same in the 70's for every performer/artist that came after.

The writing on BTR, massively influenced Seger (Night Moves comes from that), Petty, Peter Gabriel, Elvis Costello, U2, and all that came in its wake. As for live work. its hard to think of any other performer before or after that connected so personally in a live setting with his audience.

 

The comparisons and similarities are really interesting to me..

-Both were hugely influenced by seeing Elvis and The Beatles on Ed Sullivan
-Both had troubled fathers and doting mothers
-both were weirdo outcasts as kids
-both had legendary backing bands that became a huge part of their identity
-3rd album broke things wide open for both
-both ditched their backing bands to make solo records mid-career to the dismay of their fans. Then they went back & forth after that.
-both had key lieutenants (Campbell/van Zandt)
-Both had early career lawsuits that almost derailed their careers
-Jimmy Iovine engineered each of their career defining albums
-both made classic covers the cornerstones of their live shows
-both had painful mid-life divorces
-both struggled with depression.
-both revived the careers of their 60s heroes (Gary US bonds/del shannon).

At the end of the day, I think Springsteen hit higher highs than Petty. He also had the better live show, by a bit. I think in most people’s minds, Springsteen will come out ahead in a head to head comparison.

But as an artist and songwriter, I think Petty had a more consistent and better overall career. Incredible songwriter. I always thought tom petty could have been a 5th Beatle. I can’t say that about Springsteen.

 

Key diff: Petty's career launched into the stratosphere when he "went solo," as it were. He could have dropped the Heartbreakers and show attendance would have taken no hit whatsoever.

 

I think you are reaching a bit with that assessment. While a number of artists liked Born To Run (as a song and album), I am not convinced the album and its writing had the far-reaching impact and influence like The Beatles' music had as a template for 1960's era rock bands. For example, Bob Seger's writing style and skill was established prior to 1975, and Peter Gabriel was clearly established as an artist by 1975 having fronted Genesis and having played a notable role in its creative process (as well as being an innovative frontman on stage); it isn't like he issued work reminiscent of Born To Run when he embarked on his solo career. The Edge was more influenced by Rory Gallagher than Springsteen, and it isn't as if Rory's influence is particularly noticeable in U2's early sound. Born To Run is a fantastic album, in my opinion, one the top ten greatest rock albums ever recorded, but I don't think it influenced a generation of rock artists the way The Beatles' work did because let's face it, but 1975, there were a lot of great rock albums being released.

 

That is true in the sense that Petty's first solo album was as big or bigger than his Heartbreaker's output. To be fair to Bruce, while his first solo band albums were commercial flops, he was still touring arenas and probably could have continued to do so. But your point is well-taken, in terms of artistic credibility, Petty didn't miss a beat.

 

Great points. I think Petty was probably more influenced by the Beatles, songwriting wise (3 & 1/2 minute single wise), and followed more in that vein than Bruce.
I think Bruce was more of a Rolling Stones guys (although they both loved them).

Springsteen talks about back then, in the mid 60's, how the cut of your hair, determined who you liked better (Beatles/Stones) and how important that seemed at the time.

There is a classic story of Petty and Bruce driving around LA in the late 70's and "Congratulations" by the Stones comes on, and how Bruce says to Tom "it doesn't get any better than this".

I find that interesting, because the movement in that song (Root to minor 6th chords during the verse), is the songwriting foundation (other than the classic I, IV, V) on most of Bruce's Songs, from Backstreets, to Streets of fire, to Dancing in the Dark, to Hitch Hikin'.

 

I agree. The 1978 tour is one of the greatest rock and roll tours ever produced. Even so, I have seen a lot of great shows over the years, and even though a 1978 show would be near the top of the list, I still don't buy into the notion that no one comes close to Springsteen as a live act. Tell that to people who saw Elvis' return to live work in 1969. Tell that to people who saw The Stones and Zeppelin in '72. Tell that to people who saw Pink Floyd's Wall show in 1980 and 1981. Tell that to people who saw The Who in 1969 and 1970. Or the Grateful Dead in Europe in 1972. Or the Allman Brothers Band at the Fillmore East in 1971. Or Cream in 1968. Or Hendrix playing Machine Gun at the Fillmore East on January 1, 1970. Or CSNY at the Fillmore East in 1970. Or Bob Dylan and The Band in 1974. Or even Tom Petty in 1980. Etc. Etc. Etc. The point is, Springsteen is one of the greats, but not everyone puts him on an exclusive pedestal because there have been a lot of great live artists.

 

Tom, with The Heartbreakers, continued to successfully channel their early influences, in my opinion, more than Bruce did, or even tried to do.

And Tom, with Johnny Cash, McGuinn, Dylan, Harrison, etc., seemed to stay more involved after achieving peer status. Bruce, after a ton of activity early on, seemed to stay within his own circle.

If my daydreams offer any clue, I would have gone with the Petty model.

 

I find it really odd that they were supposedly friends, but shared a stage a grand total of 2 times (79 & 90) their entire careers.
I have heard well-sourced talk that there was a rivalry between the two bands that goes way back to the No Nukes shows. Who knows.

 

I hear you, but while he had been writing great songs before it, Seger has said that Night Moves (his greatest song?) directly comes out of him trying to do what Bruce did on BTR. And the rumer has always been that Gabriel decided to leave Genesis after seeing Bruce at the 75 London shows.

Costello as well talks about how influential that show was, and how it influenced him. Jungleland was extremely influential at that time, and a lot of artists had to suddenly try their hand at a 8-9 minute epic. Joel with Italian Restaurant, Reed with Street Hassle.

Bono has talked about how they would try to mimic the operatic poetry of that song, and how it inspired them.