Skip to main content

Tom Petty - "Walls (Circus)"

"Some days are diamonds / some days are rocks."

I can't tell you how many mornings and evenings that line has gone through my head. In the morning, it reminds me that every day has its possibilities, even though I don't want to even be out of bed. In the evening, if I had a bad day, it's easy enough to chalk off.

Walls can be found is on the only-Petty soundtrack to the Jennifer Aniston movie She's The One, which I've never seen. The soundtrack is very good and unjustifiably ignored, probably because I'm not the only one who didn't see the movie. So it might be Petty's great lost single.

It's got all of his laid-back, California-rock, pseudo-Dylan hallmarks: harmonica, piano, acoustic guitar, harmonies. And after that great first line, plenty more Zen wisdom follows, such as "some doors are open / some roads are blocked," and "half of me is ocean/half of me is sky."

I'm not one who looks for life advice in my music, but I do look for truth. Nothing in this song is profound or original, but when the song is nearly over and Petty tells us that "some things are over / some things go on," you can't help but think, 'true dat, Tom, true dat.'

Album: She's The One (1996)
Fave Moment: When Tom calls out "Yes they do!" right before the guitar solo.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Honoring the Legacy of REO Speedwagon

I suppose I should have known the saga of REO Speedwagon couldn't end with a whimper. Before I get into the latest developments, here's a brief review of what's happened so far: In September 2024 came the announcement that the band was effectively breaking up at the end of the year. Apparently, frontman Kevin Cronin ruled that bassist Bruce Hall was no longer fit to continue touring following back surgery in summer 2024. Hall felt otherwise. Here we learned that REO had essentially become a three-way partnership between Cronin, Hall, and Doughty (who retired from touring in January 2023) following the departure of original members Alan Gratzer and Gary Richrath in 1988. Doughty sided with Hall, so Cronin was outvoted 2-1. No Bruce Hall, no REO Speedwagon. In December 2024 Cronin revealed he would continue performing REO Speedwagon songs with the two musicians who replaced Doughty and Hall, as well as Brian Hitt and Dave Amato (who replaced Gratzer and Richrath), with the on...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Unlikely Musical Life of Tom Kelly

You may not know the name Tom Kelly, but I guarantee that you've sung along to songs he wrote.  Born in West Lafayette, Indiana in 1952, Tom moved to Effingham, Illinois when he was 11 years old, just in time to witness the Beatles' debut on Ed Sullivan. Bit by the rock music bug, he joined a local band called the Trifaris, singing and playing bass. His family moved back to Indiana in '66. When Tom finished high school, he decided to go to college in Illinois, but his choice was made based on extracurricular factors, not academic ones. "I started at Eastern [Illinois University] because there was a band,” he told the Effingham Daily News in 2011, “Then I transferred to Southern [Illinois University] because there was another band.”  Champaign, Illinois  Continuing his college hopping, Tom headed closer to home to attend Purdue, and there he had a group called The Gaping Huggers, comprised of former fellow Trifari JC Marshall on drums, and University of Illino...
Post a Comment
Read more

12 More by Collective Soul

  Sometimes an artist just needs 12  more  songs to summarize their career. Case in point... Collective Soul released a pretty decent best of compilation - 7even Year Itch: 1994-2001 - nearly a quarter of a century ago, but there's been nothing to summarize their output since then. Considering that output consists of seven albums and a couple of EPs, we've got our work cut out for us. (Since the band stopped having "hits" in 2009, most of these are just my personal preference, though I did give the singles first consideration). 1. "Better Now" (from Youth , 2004) "Better Now" is buzzy burst of optimism that has stood the test of time/\. 2. "There's a Way" (from Youth , 2004) Great riff, great chorus, great bridge, great song. 3. "What Can I Give You" (from Afterwords , 2007) Fascinating structure on this one: It starts out somewhat pedestrian, then goes into a soaring chorus followed by an even more melodic post-chorus, the...
Post a Comment
Read more