Tom Petty followed Southern Accents two years later with 1987’s Let Me Up (I’ve Had Enough), an album that has been eclipsed by the records that preceded and followed it.
It’s funny how Tom Petty has recorded four or five records I count among my very favorites but four or five others that I don’t know at all. Let Me Up (I’ve Had Enough) is a complete mystery to me. That’s not surprising, considering it’s the one album in Petty’s early catalog that isn’t represented on his greatest hits record. I guess Petty doesn’t find it very memorable himself.
The album did feature a hit, however, even if it isn’t one Petty wanted to highlight. Opening track ‘Jammin’ Me,’ co-written with Bob Dylan, reached Billboard’s Top 20.
This is an odd track, instantly dated by the numerous topical references. Joe Piscopo and Eddie Murphy? And what on earth is Vanessa Redgrave doing in there? But it is interesting in light of recent events to see a reference to “the apple in young Steve’s eye.”
You got me against the wall
I got nowhere to go
I got nowhere to fall
Take back your insurance
Baby nothings guaranteed
Take back your acid rain
Let your T.V. bleed
You’re jammin’ me, you’re jammin’ me
Quit jammin’ me
Baby you can keep me painted in a corner
You can walk away, but it’s not over
Take back your angry slander
Take back your pension plan
Take back your ups and downs of your life
In raisin-land
Take back Vanessa Redgrave
Take back Joe Piscopo
Take back Eddie Murphy
Give ’em all some place to go
Take back your Iranian torture
And the apple in young Steve’s eye
Yeah take back your losing streak
Check your front wheel drive
Take back Pasadena
Take back El Salvador
Take back that country club
They’re tryin’ to build outside my door
Meet Me In Montauk 
I feel like I may have owned this album at some point, although I can only recall today’s song and “Runaway Trains.” I always liked the chorus of the latter song.
This album isn’t on my radar at all. I guess I’m quite predictable, as I always seem to know and adore only a handful of an artist’s albums, while I remain blissfully ignorant of the rest of their catalogue. I like today’s SOTD, so maybe I should check out the rest of the album. Still, it’s hard to imagine I’d ever find an album I’d rather pick up and listen to than Southern Accents, Full Moon Fever, or Wildflowers.
I have almost all of them (TP & the Heartbreakers’ albums) — and I listen to them all on and off — there’s NOTHING like a TP & THE HEARTBREAKERS concert! NOTHING! LOOOVE!