Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers Quotes
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I learned to play piano in a rock n' roll context or band context from country records - you know, Floyd Cramer - and from the Beatles and the Rolling Stones and Stax. And none of those are keyboard records.
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George Harrison was the kind of guy who wasn’t going to leave until he hugged you for five minutes and told you how much he loved you.
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I think we've always been better live.
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I can't crawl any further. You never crawled for me.
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If you call attention to yourself at the expense of the song, that's the cardinal sin.
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The waiting is the hardest part, every day you get one more yard. You take it on faith, you take it to the heart, the waiting is hardest part.
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Fortunately, as we all know, it's impossible for anybody but Jimmy Smith to really sound like Jimmy Smith.
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I love the music. I'm never, ever tired of playing it.
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We started with Denny Cordell, and he was a great record producer. He knew exactly how to take a band that knew absolutely nothing, and guide you without trying to tell you what to do.
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You can go crazy and play solos in the right place, and that's great because it can intensify and bring an emotional lift. But the thing is you don't want to get in the way of the song.
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Whoever hired me might've just heard 'Refugee.' Well, I'm not the secret to 'Refugee.' The secret to 'Refugee' is the song. But if somebody really good calls me up to play on something because they like the way I played on 'Refugee,' then I wind up playing on another really good song.
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We don't really make bad records, though some people might like some more than others. And we have never really done a bad show. So I think in a way maybe we've been taken for granted.
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Redemption comes to those who wait, forgiveness is the key.
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What a good session musician does is listen to the song, to the artist, and to the other players. That way you can help bring out the song and help the artist express what they want to express. It's never about you stepping out and showing you can play something fancy.
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Sometimes you work with somebody you've never heard of because you just feel like working.
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Besides, I'm fairly incompetent. I can't play that fast.
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You spend your life dreaming, running 'round in a trance, You hang out forever and still miss the dance, And if you get lucky, you might find someone, To help you get over the pain that will come.
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How about a cheer for all those bad girls! And all those boys that play that rock 'n' roll! They love it like you love Jesus.
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Somewhere, somehow, somebody must have kicked you around some. Tell me, why you want to lay there, revel in your abandon?
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In Mudcrutch we all wrote songs, and when it got to the focus on Tom and the Heartbreakers, I kept writing songs, but it wasn't anything that was up the Heartbreakers tree, I didn't think - and I don't think they did, either. So I kept writing songs for the hell of it, but I didn't want to make a record just for the sake of making a record.
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It's amazing what's been done already on a shoestring budget...
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I did enjoy Nashville a lot of the time, because I made really good friends who were really good songwriters, and they would be a joy to hang out with.
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I think watching the TV news is bad for you. It is bad for your physical health and your mental health.
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I didn't worry about my career ending, but there were days where I felt pretty beat up by it all and just pretty tired, because they didn't make it easy for me. And coming right off the last lawsuit, it was the last thing I wanted to get involved in. When it was over, we didn't really celebrate, we were just exhausted. I lost all interest in the record business and never wanted to do anything except hand in a record again.
