- Approval of God: When Grace Jones recorded a new wave/reggae cover of Petty's "Breakdown" in 1980, her version boasted a new third verse that Petty had written especially for her to record.
- Breakthrough Hit: Similar to Bruce Springsteen's Born to Run, it was the third album Damn The Torpedoes which was their make-it-or-break-it, first true success and breakthrough. The singles "Don't Do Me Like That" and "Refugee" were his first singles to reach a high chart position.
- Chart Displacement: The most notable example is probably "Jammin' Me", which hit #18 and #1 in the US charts when it was released in 1987. If you think that "American Girl", likely the band's Signature Song, didn't even chart in US when it was released, and "Jammin' Me" has almost been forgotten in comparison...
- Creator Backlash: Following the Confederate flag controversies of the 2010s, he apologized for
and repudiated his use of Confederate symbols during the Southern Accents tour in the 1980s. Even before the 2010s, he showed some regret over using the symbols - the packaging for the live album Pack Up the Plantation originally included a photo depicting the band in front of a confederate flag backdrop, taken from a performance during the aforementioned tour - he had the photo removed from reissues. - Creator-Driven Successor: Full Moon Fever could be seen as this to Traveling Wilburys Vol 1 since the other Wilburys (minus Bob Dylan) contributed (Lynne: Bass, electric guitar, keyboards, background vocals and Record Producer, Harrison: Acoustic guitar and background vocals on "I Won't Back Down," Keltner: Drums, maracas and tambourine on "Love Is a Long Road," and Orbison: Background vocals on "Zombie Zoo").
- Creator's Favorite Episode: Of all the albums he recorded, Petty considered Wildflowers to be the best and his favorite. He had plans to do a solo tour of the album in full before his untimely passing.
- The Title Track from the album itself was often cited as Petty's favorite song, and is indeed deeply representative of Petty's philosophy and songwriting. Not surprisingly, it became one of Petty's most popular and famous songs although it wasn't released as a single, and opened the second disc of the compilation The Best of Everything.
- Another track which is very autobiographical and that Tom cited as one of his absolute favorites was "Southern Accents", from the album of the same name. It was included on the aforementioned compilation as well.
- To see what was overall Petty's favorite material, just see the tracklist of The Best of Everything. Though it lacks one important song that Petty cited as a favorite, namely "It's Good to Be King", the anthology represents what Petty, his bandmates and his loved ones considered to be his most representative material overall.
- Executive Meddling: In his 1994 song "You Don't Know How It Feels", the line "Let's roll another joint" either had "joint" reversed, making it sound like 'toinj' or edited to have "roll another joint" replaced with "hit another joint," which actually does nothing to hide the drug innuendo and actually makes it a Double Entendre, as "hit another joint" can also mean "go somewhere else."
- He famously fought MCA Records (successfully) and their decision to raise the price of Hard Promises for $8.98 to $9.98 as part of a "superstar pricing" policy (Steely Dan's Gaucho and the Xanadu soundtrack were also selected; Steely Dan fought the pricing increase just like Tom did). He even threatened to name the album "The $8.98 Album".
- The 1993 Greatest Hits album contained two new recordings because Petty still owed MCA's publishing two more songs. He complied, but groused about the idea of a Greatest Hits Album containing new songs that weren't hits yet - ironically, one of those songs was "Mary Jane's Last Dance", which ended up being one of his most well-known songs, and the practice of including previously unreleased songs on greatest hits albums to entice fans became increasingly common after that.
- Hitless Hit Album: Hypnotic Eye, which lacks great hits, but the album itself became Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers' only #1 album on the Billboard chart.
- The Pete Best: The other guys from Mudcrutch that didn't go on to be part of the Heartbreakers (Tom Leadon and Randall Marsh) were this until that band reformed in 2007 and put out two acclaimed albums. Instead, the person that best fits this trope is Jim Lenahan, who was Mudcrutch's original lead singer, whose departure allowed Petty (the band's bassist) to take over as front-man. A few years later, as Mudcrutch was transitioning into the Heartbreakers, Petty asked Lenahan if he wanted to be the band's stage and lighting director. He accepted, and he remained in that role until the band ended in 2017.
- Promoted Fanboy: During his career, Petty got to work with many of the musicians he grew up idolizing. He befriended his boyhood hero George Harrison and played with him in The Traveling Wilburys, and he produced solo records for Roger McGuinn and Chris Hillman of The Byrds (the latter of which was the last project that Petty was involved with to be released before his death).
- Troubled Production: Several:
- Damn the Torpedoes, with Tom being sued by multiple parties for "breach of contract" and filing for bankruptcy, while paying for the sessions out of his own pocket.
- Very much Southern Accents, for many reasons (it didn't help that the record company wanted the album Christmas Rushed). One particularly famous incident came while was recording the song "Rebels"; Petty became frustrated that the band had yet to nail down an arrangement for the song that he liked. He then put on the original demo that he recorded that only featured his voice and guitar, and grew angry because for all their work, they had not improved on that version of the song. The result was that Petty went upstairs and put his fist through the wall — in the process he, in his words, "pulverized" his hand and had to wear a cast for the rest of the production. After Petty took some time to cool his head, the band eventually taped a version of "Rebels" they liked.
- He recalled the nightmare of the production for the "Don't Come Around Here No More" video. Actress Wish Foley stood in freezing cold water for over 24 hours and didn't say anything throughout the shoot. When they pulled her out, she had hypothermia and had to be given an emergency shower. The complex set with the various large objects presented a challenge for both set designers and actors, making a mess out of staging the video. A pig got loose and escaped the set. The long shoots exhausted Petty and his band members. The final shot in which Alice, played by Wish, turns into a cake was incredibly tricky to pull off. They only had the one cake and had to get the first take perfectly. Foley stood underneath the table for 3 to 4 hours with her head bent at an uncomfortable angle. Upon release, the video was broadcast via satellite and sent MTV into a moral panic as it allegedly promoted violence against women. It continues to be a technically brilliant music video that pulled off a lot with its limited budget and time constraints.
- What Could Have Been: After Kurt Cobain's death, Dave Grohl did a stint as a drummer for the Heartbreakers in November 1994 (which included an SNL appearance), eventually getting offered a permanent place in the band. He declined, recording what eventually became the Foo Fighters' debut album.
- During the Southern Accents sessions, Heartbreakers guitarist Mike Campbell would give demo tapes of instrumentals for Tom to flesh out and add lyrics and vocal melodies to. Around the same time, Don Henley was looking for collaborators for his next album and got in contact with Campbell; one of the demos Tom Petty rejected turned into "Boys of Summer", arguably Henley's Signature Song as a solo act.
- "Don't Come Around Here No More" was initially written with Stevie Nicks in mind - she felt she couldn't improve on the demo version that was played for her and suggested Tom keep it for himself.
- By contrast, "Stop Draggin' My Heart Around" was originally a Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers song, intended for the Hard Promises album, before it eventually went to Stevie Nicks (albeit recorded as a duet with Tom, with the rest of the Heartbreakers backing them up). An early demo of the song, recorded without her, appeared on the box set Playback.
- Wildflowers was supposed to be a double album, but Warner Bros. president Lenny Waronker felt the release would be too long and asked Petty to condense it to a single record. Some of the cut songs wound up on the She's the One soundtrack, while Petty gave "Leave Virginia Alone" to Rod Stewart, who had a hit with it in 1995. The original double album version of Wildflowers was eventually released in 2020.
- Petty always had several different projects going on at the same time. Although it is unclear if was in the middle of working on anything right before he died, he did have plans for 2018 and beyond, including:
- A 2018 solo tour in which he performed his 1994 Wildflowers album in its entirety. The aforementioned expanded reissue of Wildflowers that was released in 2020 was initially supposed to released in 2018 to accompany the tour.
- A follow-up to the Heartbreakers' Hypnotic Eye, as well as a third Mudcrutch record, were intended to eventually be recorded.
- Right after his 40th anniversary tour wrapped, he planned to head into the studio to produce the second album by Los Angeles garage rock band The Shelters, who he raved about in his final interview.
- "Don't Do Me Like That" could have been performed by The J. Geils Band instead of the Heartbreakers: Petty had written it with Mudcrutch, but didn't think much of the song, so he let his manager pitch it to The J Geils Band. They turned it down, and the song was left by the wayside until Record Producer Jimmy Iovine convinced Petty to record it for Damn The Torpedoes in 1979.
- Working Title: Full Moon Fever was initially titled Songs from the Garage.
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