High Praise Hard To Come By For Tom Petty

Tom Petty is a true legend among songwriters. His band The Heartbreakers has been helping him keep the indescribably cool melodies going since the decade of disco. Lest I be considered a blasphemer for saying anything not even close to flattering about the man's work I want to inch carefully into this conversation. Tom's one of the few individuals who could make reading the ingredients off a cereal box sound like the highest of high art. However, "You Get Me High" as is closed to phoned in as I can remember him being. As usual The Heartbreakers excel at musicianship. What else do you expect from a band with such an illustrious history. Even still, the guys backing Tom are covering up that fact that he's merely setting an average sounding conversation to a rock steady bang. The song is from the Floridian tribe's "Playback" box set. It has never been part of the fabric of a Tom Petty album be it solo or with The Heartbreakers. I regret to say I can see why. Tom's back story assures me complacency is not part of his vocabulary. I suppose you could say after 38 years the chance to coast is well deserved. Tom's reliable way around a story gives me no reason to think he is sliding along right now, giving the paying customers what they want, expect, and/or demand, no more no less. A new Heartbreakers album "Hypnotic Eye" is due later in the year. Perhaps "You Get Me High" was only meant as a nibble to tide people's appetites for when the full banquet comes to the table. As it stands "You Get Me High" more closely resembles agreeable background filler that allows Tom to basically pop off some laid back dialogue that any beer juiced Southern boy could do as easily. For the duration of the band's career Benmont Tench has been nothing short of the Rock of Gibraltar for Tom. Again his inspiring mastery of the piano helps one forgive that sort of lackadaisical vocal style. Mike Campbell, the other steady presence since '76 ensures bass doesn't get relegated to the province of afterthought. Steve Ferrone, the drum delivery boy since 1995 (pre '95 Stan Lynch manned that battle station but his way of being the resident schmuck in the band got him tossed) packs punch behind the pads, once again a huge relief since the only communication going on at the mike involved packs of menthol, beer, and the drugged out haze of conversation which rolls on for hours. Not that there's nothing noble for that social scene but what makes that conversation the necessary part of something Tom Petty breathed life into? Specifically the third stanza, an infectious cigarette fog already permeating the atmosphere, revolves around Tom getting a female companion to expand her cigarette horizons a bit. It's time for her to explore the wild world of menthol. They went from a pack to an individual cut away menthol over the course of half a stanza. Whether with beer or Pall Malls Tom's an equal opportunity druggie. Tom's not satisfied with merely singing the title. In fact that's nowhere to be found. He virtually spells it out. True he also did that somewhat on his solo hit "Won't Back Down" but in that instance he was singing, not mouthing them as if they were tablets sent on high from Mt. Fill In The Blank Here. "You Get Me High" isn't an insufferable place to visit. Problem is once you arrive the conversation goes in a circle that only die hard partakers of smokes and foam based beverage would insist go on for the many hours Tom devotes to it. In short, "You Get Me High" is an artistically empty low. Let's cross our fingers that "Hypnotic Eye" will remind us of why Tom and buds have had this rock 'n' roll gig stoked for so long.