Credit: Far Out / The Bigger Picture
Wed 12 August 2026 1:00, UK
Tom Petty didn’t see himself as someone who reinvented the wheel every single time he made a record.
He wanted the chance to take a few risks every single time he made one of his albums, but he didn’t see the point in straying too far away from the typical rock and roll formula when he could outdo himself on every single song. But even if he took inspiration from some of the best, like The Beatles and The Byrds, there were some bands that he always kept his ears close to the ground whenever they released a new record.
Because, really, Petty was looking for other ambassadors of his brand of rock and roll whenever he turned on the radio. He was the exception to the rule when he came out in the era of punk rock, and he wanted the chance to make something that no one had heard in a while when he made those jangly rock and roll songs cool all over again. But there were other people willing to switch things up.
Petty was easy to categorise as a heartland rocker back in the day, but there were more than a few people who caught his ear through the strength of their songs. Eurythmics don’t sound anything like what Petty would have been doing in the 1980s, but Dave Stewart was clearly working from a songwriter’s perspective, which explained why he took so well to working with Petty on Southern Accents.
But even if Petty had more than enough people to bounce off of in the Heartbreakers, Jeff Lynne was someone who was his perfect foil in many ways. ELO was already one of the biggest bands in the world when Petty first became aware of him, but Full Moon Fever was the first time that he got to appreciate the subtle nuances that made Lynne such a brilliant songwriter when working on tunes like ‘Free Fallin”.
Lynne was used to creating some of the perfect ear candy of his generation, and having him and Petty work back to back on tunes like ‘I Won’t Back Down’ and ‘Yer So Bad’ was a match made in heaven for Petty. He felt he finally had someone to play off of like John Lennon and Paul McCartney did, but as far back as the late 1970s, Petty had already attuned himself to everything that Lynne was working on.
The Move had already created a splash in England, and given Lynne’s knack for hooks, Petty felt that there was always room on his turntable for one of Lynne’s projects, saying, “We’re all familiar with the sound of ELO that you recognise instantly. And I think that comes a lot from his harmonies, the way he stacks three-part harmony.”
Further reading: From The Vault
Adding, “When you really listen to it, it’s just downright brilliant. I had been a fan since he was in The Move. Benmont (Tench) turned me on to [them]. We would listen to it a lot and go, ‘Who’s this guy Jeff Lynne?’ We were really impressed. I was always aware of what he was doing, at least from that point.”
Petty might not have been ready to record with Lynne at that point, but over time, they seemed to be cut from the same cloth. If Petty wanted his tune to sound like an old Del Shannon record or have the drama of a Roy Orbison tune, Lynne could put everything in place to make it sound great, whether it was bringing the vocal up in the mix or keeping things sparse to capture the raw energy of what Petty was doing whenever he sang.
Getting to that level of perfection wasn’t going to be easy, but sometimes perfection was a lot more simple when you had the right people next to you. Petty could have spent the rest of his life playing with the Heartbreakers, but Lynne was the kind of musical twin that he never knew he needed in his life.
