Tom Petty / YMMV - TV Tropes

Awesome Music: Full Moon Fever, especially "Free Fallin'", Wildflowers and Damn the Torpedoes qualify.
- Then, what about hits such as "Learning to Fly" and "Into the Great Wide Open"? Or album tracks such as "Southern Accents" and "The Best of Everything"? "American Girl", anyone? The list is long...
Creator Worship: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers are frequently seen as one of the greatest and most consistent bands with many classic songs and albums that appeal to all audiences. Therefore, it's often hard to find people who outright dislike their music.
Epic Riff: Many, such as "Mary Jane's Last Dance" and "American Girl".
Friendly Fandoms:
- With Bruce Springsteen fans, as both artists are two of the most prominent of the Heartland Rock genre.
- With The Traveling Wilburys fans, both the supergroup itself and the individual members: (excluding Tom himself) Jeff Lynne, George Harrison, Bob Dylan, and Roy Orbison. It helps that they were all friends, major influences, and collaborators with each other.
- With Fleetwood Mac and Stevie Nicks fans. Nicks was very close friends with Petty, collaborating with each other and performing multiple songs together including "Stop Draggin' My Heart Around".
Germans Love David Hasselhoff: When the Heartbreakers first started out. His first album with the Heartbreakers wasn't well received in the U.S., but it was a huge hit in Britain. And then, after that album, his career took a complete 180: He was now a star in America...but he would only have two more Top 40 hits in the UK. Even then, his highest peaking song there, "I Won't Back Down", only made it to #28.
Harsher in Hindsight:
- Having a band named the Heartbreakers, since Petty would die from a heart attack.
- The lyric in "Mary Jane's Last Dance", "One more time to kill the pain", considering Tom Petty died of an overdose of fentanyl, and earlier than that when the bassist on the song, Howie Epstein, died from years of heroin abuse.
- After the 40th anniversary tour ended, a video was posted thanking the fans for their support, ending with "Now, it's time for a nap." Shockingly prophetic words, as he passed away less than three days later.
Heartwarming Moment: "Here Comes My Girl." He's frustrated with his life, frustrated and hedging on despair over life and the world in general.... "But when she puts her arms around me... I can somehow rise above it!" And he goes from a tired drawl to being deliriously happy.
Hilarious in Hindsight:
- In 1991, Petty recorded a song with the Byrds' Roger McGuinn called "King of the Hill". In 2004, Petty began voicing the character Lucky on the show of the same name.
- The color scheme on Full Moon Fever looks a lot like the pansexual pride flag, some 30 years before it was officially introduced.
Misattributed Song: Petty sounded so much like Roger McGuinn on "American Girl" that when McGuinn first heard it he briefly thought it was a song he recorded but somehow forgot about. McGuinn eventually did a Cover Version, and the two later recorded a duet single, "King of the Hill".
Moment of Awesome: Making sure everyone got their money back out of his own pocket after a 2013 show was cut short by an overzealous fire marshal.
- Pretty much the entirety of the "Runnin' Down a Dream" music video. Beautifully animated in the style of Little Nemo, and a kickass song to boot.
More Popular Spin-Off: Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers formed when three members of Mudcrutch (Petty, Mike Campbell, Benmont Tench) regrouped shortly after they broke up in 1975. Petty instigated a Mudcrutch reunion three decades later.
Periphery Demographic: One of the things that distinguished Tom Petty from many of his peers was how he appealed to a wide variety of audiences whether they be classic rock fans, country music fans, college rockers, and even punk rockers. Even some of the cynical Grunge crowd saw him as an inspiration, with Dave Grohl almost becoming the drummer for the Heartbreakers. In The '90s, he continued to receive rotation on MTV when many of his Classic Rock peers were fading away.
Refrain from Assuming: It's "Mary Jane's Last Dance", not "Last Dance with Mary Jane".
Signature Song: For Tom Petty's solo work "Free Fallin'", with "Runnin' Down a Dream", "I Won't Back Down" and "You Don't Know How It Feels" as runner-up hits. For his work with the Heartbreakers, it is likely "American Girl", (although "Don't Do Me Like That" was the band's first big hit, technically), with "Mary Jane's Last Dance" and "Learning to Fly" very close in popularity.
- Nowadays, a song that never was released as a single but is a firm fan favourite is "Wildflowers", the title track from Petty's second solo album. It's popular to the point it even surpassed the huge hit "You Don't Know How It Feels" on streaming services, and it still did chart though not released as a single.
- Going by album, we have:
  - Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers: "American Girl", although "Breakdown" is also very well-remembered.
  - You're Gonna Get It!: "Listen to Her Heart", with "I Need to Know" as a contender.
  - Damn the Torpedoes: "Refugee" and "Don't Do Me Like That", with "Here Comes My Girl" and "Even the Losers" as runner-up songs.
  - Hard Promises: "The Waiting".
  - Long After Dark: "You Got Lucky".
  - Southern Accents: "Don't Come Around Here No More". The Title Track is also a fairly iconic track for its autobiographical themes and was absolutely one of the artist's personal favorites.
  - Let Me Up (I've Had Enough): "Jammin' Me", with "It'll All Work out" as a runner-up.
  - Full Moon Fever: "Free Fallin''', "I Won't Back Down" and "Runnin' Down a Dream". "Yer So Bad" and "A Face in the Crowd" are also fairly popular, and "Love Is a Long Road" has had a ridiculous increase in popularity thanks to its inclusion in the GTA 6 trailer.
  - Into the Great Wide Open: "Learning to Fly", although the Title Track is also very well-remembered.
  - Greatest Hits: "Mary Jane's Last Dance".
  - Wildflowers: "You Don't Know How It Feels" and the Title Track especially, but also "You Wreck Me" is very well-remembered, especially through live performances. Quite popular are also "Time to Move on" and "It's Good to Be King".
  - Songs and Music from "She's the One": "Walls", with "Angel Dream" as a contender.
  - Echo: "Room at the Top", probably, although no song is particularly outstanding in popularity. Though, lately, "Swingin'" has seen a growth in popularity as a fan favorite, and "Free Girl Now" is notable for being the second single to be made available by a major artist for free internet download in MP3 format.
  - The Last DJ: The Trope Namer Title Track.
  - Highway Companion: "Saving Grace". Fairly notable is also "Square One".
  - Mojo: "I Should Have Known It". While, again, no song on the album is particularly popular, that kinda stands out being, among Petty's recent material, the song that most frequently made live appearances, and it's often appreciated for its Led Zeppelin sound-alike guitar solos by Mike Campbell.
  - Hypnotic Eye: "American Dream Plan B", very probably; while this album, again, doesn't have particularly popular hits, that song was the only one included in Petty's 2019 compilation album The Best of Everything and is remembered for its social themes. Otherwise, somewhat popular is also "U Get Me High".
  - An American Treasure: "Keep a Little Soul", his 1982 outtake, is the best-remembered song on it.
  - The Best of Everything: "For Real" and the alternate take of the Title Track.
  - Wildflowers & All the Rest: "Leave Virginia Alone" or "Somewhere Under Heaven" (the latter was previously released in 2015, though, while both are outtakes from the same album).
  - For his side projects we have "End of the Line" and "Handle With Care" with Traveling Wilburys (although the latter barely contains any lyrics sung by Petty) and "Stop Draggin' My Heart Around" among his duets with Stevie Nicks. While Mudcrutch was definitely a niche side project, the best-known song by the band is "Scare Easy".

YMMV / Tom Petty

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