It started the day he died. When Tom Petty passed away last month, it felt like too much sadness. I grew up with Tom Petty and had come to love his music even more as an adult, but I just kind of took it for granted that Tom Petty would always be there for us.
It was too much a shock when he wasn’t.
From that day on (and it’s been a month as a write this), I haven’t been able to listen to any other music. It’s like I can’t stand to hear other musicians, and I’ve been surprised by my reaction to Tom Petty’s death.
I’ve been wondering if something was wrong with me. I’ve also been wondering when it’s going to stop. I did take a trip to the symphony with my husband and son and found that I really enjoyed that. But, as soon as we got home, it was back to Petty, and that’s been it.
My husband is experiencing a similar reaction, and he’s the completely logical type. We work at home and always listen to music while we work. We’ve been doing that for years, and Tom Petty has always been a part of our mix. Now, however, it’s all Petty—all the time.
In the mornings, my husband will start to put music on and ask, “Are we ready to move on from Tom Petty?”
“Not yet,” I say.
He agrees, and puts on Petty. And Tom Petty is with us all day.
The strangest thing about this behavior is that we’re not alone. It turns out there are thousands and thousands of Americans mourning Tom Petty’s death in similar ways. There are some reporting they can’t listen to his music at all—it’s just too sad. But many are reporting the exact same behaviors that my husband and I are experiencing.
It made me wonder about why this is happening to so many people.
I’ve read psychologists who write about how it is that we start to feel like we know famous people. We get to see so much of them through their art or through the media that we feel like we know them, even when we don’t. But there was something about Tom Petty that seemed to make us feel connected to him even more so than other famous artists.
I’m sure it doesn’t help that I grew up with Tom Petty. I was the generation raised by MTV because our moms went to work with our dads, so I hung out with Tom Petty much more than my parents.
I remember being a teen and sitting way too close to the television watching his “Don’t Come Around Here No More” video and being mesmerized. When they ate the cake that was also Alice’s body, I was both creeped out and completely in love with Tom Petty. He was different, just like I felt like I was different, and I liked that. Tom Petty’s “Free Girl Now” was there for me during my divorce and “Room at the Top” was there when I fell in love again. And these are the same kinds of stories so many people have. Tom Petty really did write the soundtrack to our American lives.
Tom Petty’s writing was so general that it could appeal to all of us and yet so specific that you could feel connected to him in a deeply personal way.
While the scholarship on Tom Petty’s appeal to Americans is wanting right now, you can bet that the scholarship is coming. We’re all realizing the loss is significant and important, and studying Petty’s impact on our lives seems important.
Right now, our family is without as much access to Tom Petty we would like, as a terrible storm visited its wrath upon the trees of Maine this week, and we’ve been without power for days. But that didn’t stop our listening to Petty. We lost our fantastically deep YouTube Tom Petty playlist, but the first night we lost power, my husband was in his office putting his Tom Petty CDs into a playlist, so we could listen to Tom Petty over the sound of the generator. Tom Petty remains our comfort, even with the power out.
I’m not exactly sure why so many of us have had such a powerful response to Tom Petty’s death, but I feel the answer is complex and personal and probably varies from person to person. What I do know is that Tom Petty’s death hit me and many of us harder than we thought it would, and I’m still in an unusual kind of mourning.
I love music and have always had such eclectic taste. I feel a little worried that I can’t listen to anything other than Tom Petty, but, as I write these words, I realize that I just need to give myself time and know that it’s probably okay for me to feel this way. Thanks to online forums, I at least know I’m not alone in my response.
I do know that I’m thankful for Tom Petty’s music, more thankful than I realized. And as Tom Petty’s music fills our home each day, I’m thankful that our son will know the beauty of Tom Petty’s work.
Yesterday, I was taking my eight-year-old little boy to his cello lessons in town. As we walked down the sidewalk in town, we were holding hands, and he was singing the words to “Running Down a Dream.”
I hope he is.