(Credits: Far Out / Ирина Лепнёва)
Fri 17 October 2025 16:50, UK
A truly gifted songwriter knows how to tap itno all kinds of emotions. Sometimes they might only be briefly felt by that songwriter, whispering the notion of a song in a passing comment. But others landed with a heavy punch to the gut. All of the best songs, though, come straight from the heart. Tom Petty was never known to dwell on pain in his songs.
Even though many of his enduring hits centred on people who were on the wrong side of the tracks, Petty’s romantic way of painting his characters made it feel like everything was going to be just fine by the end of the song, from the girl running away from her nowhere town on ‘American Girl’ to the straight-ahead protagonist of ‘I Won’t Back Down’. Although Petty could delve into dark territory when he wanted to, he admitted one song might have hit too close to the bone.
As Petty made his way into the 1990s, though, he couldn’t have been at a happier time in his life. After struggling through years of bad luck, broken hands, and someone destroying his house, Petty would find a second wind with producer Jeff Lynne, helping him create magic on his solo album Full Moon Fever and with The Traveling Wilburys.
Although Petty may have had a few spats with the Heartbreakers about making a solo album, his following few albums would see him going into even more adventurous. With the help of producer Rick Rubin, Wildflowers would become one of the most collaborative solo albums he ever made, bringing in every member of the Heartbreakers while letting go of longtime drummer Stan Lynch.
While Petty had reached a level of fame that no artist his age could usually touch, he had to face some hard truths when he got off the road. After contributing to the soundtrack to the movie She’s the One, Petty would soon file for divorce from his first wife, Jane, leading to him channelling his grief into the album Echo.
Tom Petty. (Credits: Far Out / YouTube Still)
Adding pain to expression is a tricky thing to do in more ways than one. Aside from the difficulty in negotiating the practicalities of laying your soul bare for the world to see and hear, there is also the real fear that it could be considered a contrived plan to harness hardship for financial reward.
Although the record boasts many of Petty’s most open-hearted songs, it’s easy to see that he isn’t taking the separation well, as evidenced by songs like ‘Lonesome Sundown’ and ‘This One’s For Me’. Out of all the songs he wrote for the album, though, Petty would later single out ‘Room At the Top’ as one of the most melancholy songs in his repertoire.
When looking back on that time, Petty would consider the track one of the saddest songs that he had ever made, telling Rolling Stone, “‘Room At the Top’ is the most depressing song I’ve ever written. I haven’t even wanted to hear it. Though the last time I heard Echo, I did think, ‘God, there’s a lot more on here than I remembered”.
It is wild to think that an artist would create something so deeply emotional, so entirely connected to their soul, their humanity, that they would find it intolerable to listen to. But Petty had created just that. He had delivered a song so rich with sadness that to try and consume it would be to push him toward an inescapable funk.
Not one to pull any of his punches, ‘Room at The Top’ acts as a tone-setter for the album, with Petty singing about his emotional status and hoping for reconciliation with his wife before his world crumbles in front of him. Unlike the character portraits that may have come from earlier Petty songs, it often feels like you’re in the room with him as he pleads with his wife to please say that she loves him.
While Petty would eventually pick himself back up and find love with his second wife, Dana, his marital status would only be the tip of the iceberg for the album, with bassist Howie Epstein succumbing to his heroin addiction, which would ultimately claim his life in 2002. Petty may have been able to cut to the chase every time he wrote a song, but Echo is the closest glimpse fans have gotten into the darkest moments of his life.
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