It would be three more years before Tom Petty released a follow-up to the She’s the One soundtrack. 1999’s Echo was inspired by Petty’s divorce from his wife of more than two decades.
I bought this album at the time and gave it only a listen or two before dismissing it as a lesser effort. I eventually sold it back in one of those CD purges I do from time to time and sometimes later regret. At least these days I burn the music to my computer before getting rid of a physical CD, but in the “old days” it just disappeared.
Reading up on Echo now, I’ve seen it referred to as emotional, melancholy, direct and tinged with sadness and regret… qualities that probably make it difficult to get into but perhaps ultimately quite satisfying. I suspect I didn’t give it enough of a chance.
I often have those thoughts while working on this blog, especially during theme weeks like this one. Diving into an artist’s work, exploring the highs and lows of a career, it starts to feel like a betrayal that I don’t own everything he or she has produced. You call yourself a Tom Petty fan and you don’t own his dense, emotional divorce album! Come on!
Silly, I know.
I can see everything tonight
I got a room where everyone
Can have a drink and forget those things
That went wrong in their life
I got a room at the top of the world tonight
I got a room at the top of the world tonight
I got a room at the top of the world tonight
And I ain’t comin’ down, I ain’t comin’ down
I got someone who loves me tonight
I got over a thousand dollars in the bank
And I’m all right
Look deep in the eyes of love
Look deep in the eyes of love
And find out what you were looking for
I got a room at the top of the world tonight
I got a room at the top of the world tonight
I got a room at the top of the world tonight
And I ain’t comin’ down, no I ain’t comin’ down
I wish I could feel you tonight, little one
You’re so far away
I wanna reach out and touch your heart
Yeah like they do in those things on TV, I love you
Please love me, I’m not so bad
And I love you so
I got a room at the top of the world tonight
I got a room at the top of the world tonight
I got a room at the top of the world tonight
And I ain’t comin’ down, no I ain’t comin’ down
I ain’t comin’ down
Meet Me In Montauk 
This album is completely off my radar, but it does seem like the kind of record that would grow on you with repeat listening. I like today’s song, particularly the bookends where the instrumentation is pulled back. The middle feels a bit cluttered and the guitar solo unnecessary.
It might be time for a trip to Specs to pick this one up for $2.00.:)
As a faithful reader of this blog, I have exactly the opposite experience. I’m more often than not overwhelmed by just how much music is out there, and how much of it I don’t listen to, to the point that I feel silly that I ever listen to an album multiple times when there is so much music I’ve ignored.
Of course, I deal with that anxiety by embracing my narrow sliver of the musical landscape and decide that it’s better to know every nook and cranny of that landscape than to have only a passing familiarity with a bunch more land.
That said, I’m liking today’s SOTD and do think that any album by Petty that has been touted as you say this one has been, deserves to be on my radar.