The Meaning Behind Tom Petty’s Underrated Classic “The Wild One, Forever”

Tom Petty’s iconic songs are many and it’s easy to overlook the hidden gems in his extraordinary catalog.

“The Wild One, Forever” is one casual fans may have missed but it’s an underrated classic from Petty’s debut album.

That first album runs only about 30 minutes in length. “Rockin’ Around (With You)” starts things with what Elvis might have sounded like had he booked a gig at Max’s Kansas City. Track two is “Breakdown,” and with it, an abrupt scene change. “Breakdown” is a timeless cut, but quite a change for music fans spinning the record for the first time. “Hometown Blues” quickly reverts to the old-timey feel of the opening number. Then comes “The Wild One, Forever”—featuring the now-familiar guitar jangle of the Heartbreakers.

It didn’t top the charts but it did something far more important. “The Wild One, Forever” established a blueprint for Petty’s cinematic heartland songs.

“The Wild One, Forever” is about a one-night stand, one Petty wishes would become something more. His friends warned him to stay away from this girl, but he couldn’t. The hookup ballad is full of nostalgia for what might have been.

Well, the moon sank as the wind blew

And the street lights slowly died

Yeah they called you the wild one

Said stay away from her

Said she couldn’t love no one if she tried

The song straddles the past and future. It’s the sound of Petty moving 1960s pop into an edgier yet radio-friendly future. Petty said the Heartbreakers tried to make the chorus sound like The Rascals, the blue-eyed soul group from New Jersey with a string of hits during the late-’60s. Meanwhile, Mike Campbell’s sparkling guitars drive “The Wild One, Forever” while Benmont Tench plays a suspenseful piano riff, holding Petty’s hope for romance in limbo.

But then something I saw in your eyes

Told me right away

That you were gonna have to be mine

And the strangest feeling came over me down inside

No matter what it takes

I’ll never get over how good it felt

When you finally held me

I will never regret, baby

Those few hours linger on in my head forever

Bassist Ron Blair recorded a cello part during the song’s chorus. Petty told Rolling Stone, “He [Blair] doesn’t play the cello. He just fashioned out enough that he could play the chorus.”

“The Wild One, Forever” displays Petty’s instinct for finding the profound in small moments, and his writing occasionally echoed Bruce Springsteen at the time. Petty’s self-titled debut arrived in 1976, one year after Springsteen’s masterpiece Born to Run. It’s obvious Petty absorbed and adapted the music happening around him. How could he not?

Still, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers didn’t fit neatly with the era’s popular trends.

Sometimes greatness is obscured by trending fashions. Petty and his group lacked the gritty chic of New York’s punk bands. And they weren’t Southern rock either. It wasn’t the first and wouldn’t be the last time the musicians felt like a band without a home.

Two years earlier, Petty and his band Mudcrutch left Gainesville, Florida, for Los Angeles. However, Shelter Records gave up on Mudcrutch before they released an album. The singer stayed with the record label as a solo artist and recruited his former Mudcrutch bandmates Campbell and Tench. Blair and drummer Stan Lynch—fellow Gainesville scenesters—completed Petty’s backing band.

But things wouldn’t get any easier and Petty’s desperation increased with a young family to support. The pressure to become successful quickly intensified.

Denny Cordell produced the Heartbreakers’ first try, which is an album of impeccably constructed power-pop songs. Petty might have echoed Springsteen on “The Wild One, Forever,” but soon he’d be an equal.

Yet, radio programmers ignored the album for almost a year.

They couldn’t ignore Petty any longer. It took a year for “Breakdown” to achieve modest chart success, and by then, Petty was already looking ahead to his second album.

According to Billboard, Tom Petty never topped the Hot 100 chart. Shockingly, only three of his songs reached the Top 10. But Petty always seemed bigger than the pop charts. A well-known proponent of artistic freedom, Petty broke through as an underdog.

His songwriting mastery is evident even within the deepest album cuts. “The Wild One, Forever” foreshadowed what eventually made Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers an American institution.

Baby, even the losers get lucky sometimes.

Photo by MediaPunch/Shutterstock

Source: Rolling Stone, Billboard