Goodbye Tom

     At first, it was just you and me. I didn’t usually get to watch SNL, but I was sleeping over at Buck’s house, and his mom let us stay in the vacant apartment over the garage. We had sneaked over a six pack and Buck was sleeping off a couple of Old Milwaukees, so it was just you and me when I first heard you sing “Refugee”. Buck was sawing logs and I was drinking bad beer and there you were and suddenly rock and roll meant something to me, personally. Because you were singing in that weird way you had, snarling and smirking and so rock and roll, but then they showed your album cover and you looked at me – you could have been all cool and sullen, but you were smiling. You smiled at me and all the other teenagers who were shrugging off 70s, waiting for our time, for our songs.

     It was just me and you, then, for a few days until maybe Tim or Todd asked me if I had seen you over the weekend. And then it was you me and a circle of friends that found each other through you. We dug into you Tom - God, it was like discovering music for the first time, learning every single song, all 29 of them, from “Rockin’ Around (With You)” to “Louisiana Rain”.  We tried on the growls, the screams, the shrieks, the swagger. Some of it fit, some of it we would try in the car, alone, and then never again. We drove the circuit down Main street, around the mall and then back up Front street, listening to “American Girl”, kind of remembering hearing it before, but now really listening – that jangling guitar like a punch of joy in the gut, the smack of the drum just on the right upbeat, that chorus – “uh huh, all right, take it easy baby, make it last all night”. We didn’t know there was a way to put together a perfect song but you showed us how to do it over and over - “Breakdown”, “Listen to Her Heart”, “I Need to Know”, “Even the Losers”. Tim picked out the story to “Strangered in the Night” and memorized the words to the fight scene, mainly because it had the best curse words. I had the vocals on “Refugee” depending on whether my voice was changing that day or not. Will was always reliable for air guitar, Todd could do that “waaaugh” scream on cue.

     You were our drug of choice, the anthem to so many nights of white knuckling our way down the mountains of Richlands, cruising the mall, gathering around the fires on Little River, playing pool, fighting over girls.  You were not just a rock and roll god, you were our god. In this little town, before cable, before MTV and a single country music radio station - everything we knew about you, we knew from each other, SNL and the Columbia Record and Tape Club. You were our hero. But then we left Richlands and found that the secret was out, saw you fill up stadiums in Williamsburg, Hampton, Merriweather Post, Nashville, Del Mar. People, not just us, were talking now, about your voice, your songwriting, your Rickenbacker. All the things we knew, the world found out. And we were proud of you Tom. Proud that our personal rock star became a rock star for everyone, for the ages.

     So when you died, someone in my inner circle died, that circle that formed around you in November 1979. Here in 2017, I reach out and find that circle again, because that’s what you do when a close friend goes. I’m standing in Target trying to find a Bluetooth speaker so I can listen to you out by the fire - no Old Milwaukee this time, promise. And I’m crying as I text Tim: “Hi Timmy, still at this number? TP’s gone”, and I message Todd: “TPs Dead!” I call Will, because he still lives off the grid. And all night and into the week we’re reminding each other of the concerts, the songs, the parties, the lines. My inner circle got smaller when you died Tom, but circles get tighter when they’re smaller, and there is some comfort in that.

     In your last interview, just a few days before you died, you said: “The thing about The Heartbreakers – it’s still holy for me. There’s a holiness there”. Us too, Tom, us too. Thanks for keeping it holy over these 40 years.

     And one last request from an amateur musician? If you have a chance, I wouldn’t mind writing some better songs. I mean, if I were to write a song as good as the worst Tom Petty song, I’d be happy. Actually, could it be better than “Jammin’ Me”? Anyway, Peace Tom. Love, Jim.