On the Fourth of July in 1976, the whole country was celebrating its two-hundredth birthday.
Fireworks were blooming over Los Angeles in red, white and blue.
Inside a Hollywood recording studio, five young men were working through the holiday.
They had no hits, no money and no reason to expect either.
They had driven clear across the country for this chance.
Their singer was twenty-five years old, a kid from Gainesville, Florida, with one failed band already behind him.
That night, the band was cutting a fast, ringing song about a girl who wanted more than her small life offered.
It was the last song they would finish for their first album.
In fact, they placed it at the very end of the record.
They saved it for last.
Within two years, the album around it would be a slow-burning success on two continents.
Within four decades, that closing track would be hailed as one of the greatest rock songs ever written.
And on a September night in 2017, it would be the final song Tom Petty ever played on a stage.
But on the Bicentennial, none of that future was visible from the studio floor.
There was just a band, a borrowed holiday and a song nobody was waiting for.
From the Ashes of Mudcrutch
The Heartbreakers were born from a collapse that should have ended the story early.
Petty’s first serious band, Mudcrutch, had been the pride of Gainesville’s music scene.
It featured guitarist Mike Campbell and keyboardist Benmont Tench, two players who would matter for decades.
In 1974, the band packed its hopes into cars and drove west to chase a record deal.
Shelter Records signed them, and in 1975 they released a single called “Depot Street.”
The single went nowhere, and Mudcrutch quietly fell apart.
Petty reluctantly accepted a solo deal with Shelter, unsure he wanted to be a solo artist at all.
Then he heard the new band Tench had assembled, and he loved its loose, soulful sound.
The answer was simple: Petty and Campbell would join Tench’s group instead.
With bassist Ron Blair and drummer Stan Lynch completing the lineup, the Heartbreakers were ready.
A Small Label With Big Ears
Shelter Records was not a corporate giant, and that suited the band fine.
The label had been founded in 1969 by producer Denny Cordell and singer-songwriter Leon Russell.
Cordell, an Englishman, had produced Procol Harum’s “A Whiter Shade of Pale” and worked with Joe Cocker.
He took the producer’s chair himself for the Heartbreakers’ debut sessions.
The album was recorded and mixed at Shelter’s own studio in Hollywood during 1976.
Cordell surrounded the young band with a few seasoned guests.
Donald “Duck” Dunn, the great Booker T. and the M.G.’s bassist, played on “Hometown Blues.”
Mudcrutch drummer Randall Marsh played on that track too, with Charlie Souza adding saxophone.
Session drummer Jim Gordon, of Derek and the Dominos fame, sat in on “Strangered in the Night.”
Tulsa singer Phil Seymour added backing vocals to two tracks, including the closing one.
At the time, Shelter’s records were distributed by the much larger ABC Records.
It was a small operation, but the ears in the room were very good.
Ten Songs, Thirty Minutes, No Filler
The finished album runs just over thirty minutes, barely longer than a television episode.
Its ten songs waste nothing, each one trimmed down to muscle and melody.
“Rockin’ Around (With You),” co-written with Campbell, kicks the door open.
“Breakdown” follows, slow and sultry, showing the band could smolder as well as sprint.
Side one closes with the swaggering “Anything That’s Rock ‘n’ Roll.”
On “The Wild One, Forever,” bassist Ron Blair even adds a mournful cello.
On the dreamy “Luna,” Petty himself plays the Hammond organ.
Petty wrote every other song on the record by himself.
The sound fused the jangle of the sixties with the lean energy of the new wave.
Critics would later describe it as Bo Diddley meeting the Byrds, updated for a new era.
Tench’s piano and Hammond organ gave the guitars a churchy warmth underneath.
Lynch’s drumming kept everything urgent, pushing each song a half-step forward.
And at the end of side two sat the track that would outlive them all.
But first, the album had to survive being ignored.
The Night “Breakdown” Was Rebuilt at 2 A.M.
“Breakdown” nearly reached the album in a much weaker form.
Mike Campbell had written a stinging guitar lick that appeared only near the song’s end.
One night, the band played the track back in the studio for singer Dwight Twilley.
Twilley loved the lick and told Petty it belonged all through the song.
Petty agreed so completely that he woke the band up at two in the morning.
They re-recorded “Breakdown” on the spot, stretching it into a seven-minute jam.
The final album version was edited down to under two minutes and forty seconds.
On stage in later years, Petty liked to stretch it into Ray Charles’s “Hit the Road Jack.”
Guitarist Jeff Jourard, an early collaborator, added another layer to the track.
Record World praised the result as a “slow, sultry rocker.”
It was the first sound most Americans would ever hear from the band.
Released as the lead single in November 1976, it seemed destined to vanish quietly.
Fourth of July: Cutting “American Girl”
“American Girl” was written around the time the band signed its first contract.
Petty composed it while living in an apartment in Encino, beside a roaring freeway.
He later recalled that the traffic rushing past sounded to him like the ocean.
For a Florida kid far from home, that freeway noise became his Malibu.
The song channels a young woman’s restlessness, her sense that life must hold something bigger.
On July 4, 1976, the band recorded it at Shelter Studio in Hollywood.
The arrangement rides a Bo Diddley beat at a breathless, urgent tempo.
Petty and Campbell played their guitars in unison, building one huge ringing sound.
Tench’s keys sparkle underneath while Blair and Lynch drive it forward.
Phil Seymour sang backing vocals, thickening the choruses.
The finished single ran three minutes and thirty-five seconds.
In three and a half minutes, the band had bottled its entire philosophy.
The Byrds in Their Blood
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Listeners in 1976 heard an unmistakable echo in those ringing guitars.
Petty and Campbell’s twin-guitar attack consciously mirrored Roger McGuinn’s twelve-string work with the Byrds.
Rolling Stone later called the riff an homage that set the template for decades of Petty hits.
The compliment came back in the most remarkable way possible.
In 1977, McGuinn recorded his own version of “American Girl” for his album Thunderbyrd.
When his manager first played him Petty’s recording, McGuinn reportedly asked a question.
“When did I write that song?”
Petty, a lifelong Byrds admirer, could hardly have received a greater honor.
The student had written a song the master mistook for his own.
It would not be the last time another artist borrowed from it.
Released to an American Shrug
The album arrived on November 9, 1976, with Petty’s name above the title.
America, distracted and unimpressed, mostly looked the other way.
The album received little attention at home and failed to reach the US charts.
“Breakdown,” the lead single, stalled without cracking the Top 40 the first time around.
In February 1977, Shelter released “American Girl” as a single in the United States.
Its B-side was “Fooled Again (I Don’t Like It),” another album track.
It did not chart at all.
The future anthem, astonishingly, never spent one week on the Hot 100.
For most new bands, that silence would have been the end.
Labels moved on quickly in the seventies, and Shelter was a small label.
Salvation, when it came, arrived from an unexpected direction.
It came from across the Atlantic Ocean.
Britain Believed First
In 1977, the Heartbreakers toured Britain, opening shows for guitarist Nils Lofgren.
British audiences heard what American radio had missed.
The album climbed to No. 24 on the UK albums chart.
“Anything That’s Rock ‘n’ Roll” became a genuine hit single in Britain.
“American Girl” reached No. 40 on the British singles chart that August.
British music papers treated the band like the future of American rock.
For the first time, the band members were treated like stars.
The British success gave Shelter proof that the record had real commercial life.
Armed with clippings and chart numbers, the label pushed again at home.
The long American breakthrough was finally beginning.
The Long Way Home
Nearly a year after release, glowing reviews began pulling the album onto the US charts.
It finally peaked at No. 55 on the Billboard 200 in 1978.
“Breakdown,” re-released as a single, climbed to No. 40 on the Hot 100.
It also reached the Top 40 in Canada, giving the band a second foothold.
In New Zealand, the album reached No. 18, its highest chart placing anywhere.
It also made the album charts in Australia and Canada, a quiet global murmur.
The album eventually earned a Gold certification in the United States.
Every reward this record earned arrived late, after the waiting.
They saved it for last.
By then, the band was already proving the debut was no accident.
A second album was on its way, and a masterpiece stood behind it.
The slow starters were about to become unavoidable.
The Song That Outgrew the Album
Over the following decades, “American Girl” simply refused to fade.
Critic Robert Christgau had awarded the album a B-plus in his Consumer Guide.
The record later earned a place in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die.
Classic rock radio adopted it as a permanent fixture of the format.
Billboard would rank it first on its list of Petty’s twenty greatest songs.
Rolling Stone placed it at No. 169 on its list of the 500 greatest songs of all time.
It turned up in films, most memorably in a carefree driving scene in Fast Times at Ridgemont High.
Other artists kept returning to it, from the Killers to Taylor Swift.
The Strokes openly admitted borrowing its riff for their 2001 hit “Last Nite.”
Petty laughed about it, answering simply, “OK, good for you.”
Even “Breakdown” traveled: Grace Jones cut a reggae version in 1980.
Petty wrote her an entirely new third verse for the recording.
In 2024, country star Dierks Bentley carried “American Girl” onto the country charts again.
The last track outlasted everything around it.
Tom Petty: The Gainesville Kid
A Duckpond Childhood
Thomas Earl Petty was born on October 20, 1950, in Gainesville, Florida.
He was the first of two sons, seven years older than his brother Bruce.
His mother, Kitty, worked in the local tax office.
His father, Earl, was a traveling salesman, often away on the road.
The family lived in Gainesville’s northeast neighborhood, known locally as the Duckpond.
It was an ordinary Southern childhood on the surface.
Underneath, home could be a hard place for a gentle, arts-minded boy.
Petty later spoke of a difficult relationship with his father.
Music and the radio became the boy’s escape route early.
He graduated from Gainesville High School in 1968.
He played Little League baseball and basketball, but his heart was elsewhere.
The Summer Elvis Glowed
In the summer of 1961, Hollywood came to central Florida.
Elvis Presley was filming Follow That Dream near Ocala, about an hour from Gainesville.
Petty’s uncle was working on the film set and invited the ten-year-old to visit.
The boy came face to face with Elvis himself.
Decades later, Petty summed up the encounter in two words: “Elvis glowed.”
He went home and traded his Wham-O slingshot for a friend’s stack of Elvis 45s.
It may be the most consequential trade in Florida music history.
Three years later, the Beatles appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show.
Petty later said that broadcast showed thousands of boys, himself included, a way out.
Four friends, their own band, their own songs: suddenly a future was imaginable.
First Chords and Question Marks
A fellow Gainesville teenager gave the young Petty some of his first lessons.
His name was Don Felder, and he would later join the Eagles.
Accounts differ on exactly what Felder taught him.
Felder recalled teaching guitar; Petty remembered the lessons as piano.
Either way, the student absorbed everything he could.
As a teenager, he worked briefly on the grounds crew at the University of Florida.
He even spent a short stretch digging graves.
His first band, the Epics, played the local teen circuit.
The skinny kid was clearly serious about one thing only.
Mudcrutch: The First Dream
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The Epics grew up into Mudcrutch, the band Gainesville believed in most.
Campbell’s guitar and Tench’s keyboards were already in place.
The band even recorded in Tulsa, Oklahoma, at Leon Russell’s Church Studio.
Their reputation at home could not have been higher.
In 1974, Mudcrutch drove west to Los Angeles to chase the industry.
Shelter Records signed them and released “Depot Street” in 1975.
The single failed to chart, and the band broke apart.
Petty was twenty-five, a continent away from home, with nothing.
It looked like the oldest story in rock and roll.
It turned out to be only the first chapter.
A Reluctant Solo Artist Finds His Band
Shelter still believed in Petty, even after Mudcrutch’s collapse.
The label offered him a solo career, and he reluctantly agreed.
Meanwhile, Tench had put together a new group of Gainesville friends.
Petty went to hear them and recognized the sound he had been chasing.
Rather than compete, he asked to join forces with them.
Ron Blair brought a melodic, singing bass style to the group.
Stan Lynch played drums with a snap that lifted every chorus.
By 1976, the five of them were the Heartbreakers.
The debut album, as we have seen, took its time arriving.
Damn the Torpedoes
Their second album appeared in 1978 under the title You’re Gonna Get It!
It became the band’s first Top 40 album in America.
Then came Damn the Torpedoes in 1979, and everything changed.
The album climbed to No. 2 on the Billboard 200.
It went platinum, selling nearly two million copies in short order.
“Refugee” and “Here Comes My Girl” became permanent radio fixtures.
“Don’t Do Me Like That” gave Petty his first American Top 10 single.
The band that Britain had to discover was now a headline act at home.
Petty’s songs had grown darker, tougher and more personal.
The slow burn of 1976 had become a blaze.
The Man Who Would Not Back Down
Success did not soften Petty’s stubborn streak; it sharpened it.
In 1979, ABC Records was sold to MCA, and Petty’s contract moved with it.
He refused to be transferred to a new label without his consent.
In May 1979, he filed for bankruptcy to fight his way free.
He emerged signed to Backstreet Records, an MCA subsidiary, on his own terms.
Two years later, he took on his own label again.
MCA planned to charge $9.98 for Hard Promises under so-called superstar pricing.
Petty objected publicly, arguing fans should not pay the extra dollar.
He even considered titling the album Eight Ninety-Eight in protest.
MCA backed down, and Hard Promises became a Top 10 platinum album anyway.
Wilburys, Solo Summits and Old Friends
The eighties kept the band busy long before the supergroup arrived.
In 1985, they played the Live Aid concert in Philadelphia before nearly ninety thousand people.
In 1986, Bob Dylan invited them along as his backing band on tour.
In 1988, Petty joined the most joyful supergroup ever assembled.
The Traveling Wilburys united him with George Harrison, Bob Dylan, Roy Orbison and Jeff Lynne.
Their song “Handle with Care” was meant to be a B-side and proved far too good.
A full album followed, recorded fast and loose among friends.
In 1989, Petty released Full Moon Fever, nominally a solo album.
It carried “Free Fallin’,” “I Won’t Back Down” and “Runnin’ Down a Dream.”
In 1994, Wildflowers sold more than three million copies in America alone.
Its songs, including “You Don’t Know How It Feels,” showed a gentler, weathered Petty.
In 1996, the Heartbreakers backed Johnny Cash on his album Unchained.
Cash later returned the compliment by covering “I Won’t Back Down.”
The Elder Statesman
Honors accumulated as the decades rolled on.
In 1999, the band received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
In 2002, they entered the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
In 2007, he reunited Mudcrutch, which finally released its proper debut album the next year.
That same year, the career documentary Runnin’ Down a Dream premiered in New York.
On February 3, 2008, the band played the Super Bowl halftime show.
Their set included “American Girl,” performed before one of the largest audiences on Earth.
In 2014, Hypnotic Eye debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200.
It was the band’s first chart-topping album, thirty-eight years after the debut.
Petty won three Grammy Awards across his career.
He sold more than eighty million records worldwide.
His hometown of Gainesville gave him the key to the city twice.
In February 2017, he was named MusiCares Person of the Year.
Two months later, he took the Heartbreakers out for their fortieth anniversary tour.
Why That Girl Feels Like All of Us
The girl in that closing song was never really a stranger.
Almost everyone has been her: young, restless and certain that life is happening somewhere else.
Almost everyone has stared out a car window at a passing town and wondered what waited beyond it.
That is why the song keeps finding new listeners in every generation.
On September 25, 2017, the Heartbreakers played the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles.
It was the final night of the fortieth anniversary tour.
To close the encore, Petty chose the last track from the first album.
The band played “American Girl,” and the tour was over.
Tom Petty died the following week, in October 2017, at the age of sixty-six.
Gainesville renamed a neighborhood park for him the next year.
His hometown still plays his music at its stadium on autumn Saturdays.
America came around to him in the end.
Return now to that Hollywood studio on the Fourth of July, 1976.
Outside, the Bicentennial fireworks were fading over Los Angeles.
Inside, a band nobody knew was recording the last track of a short, lean album.
They could not hear the British crowds who would rescue it.
They could not hear the stadiums, the honors or the eighty million records ahead.
They could only hear two guitars ringing in unison and a drummer pushing them forward.
The song took three and a half minutes to record.
It has been playing, somewhere, ever since.
They saved it for last.
And last, it turned out, meant forever.
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