Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers — Damn the Torpedoes

Author: Mary Earle-Sigler | Posted: April 4th, 2007 | | Tags: , , , , | No Comments »

Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers -- Damn the Torpedoes

  • Artist: Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers
  • Title: Damn the Torpedoes
  • Year: 1979
  • Format: Vinyl 12 in.
  • Rating (1-10): 10
  • Owner: Mary
  • Acquired: 1979 – Fort Bragg Post Exchange
  • Keeper: Yes

I’m not sure about writing this review. I don’t know much about Tom Petty or the Heartbreakers. I can’t compare it to their other work because I only own one other LP by them and it’s a CD. However, Tracy insists I’m the one for this job because: 1) it’s my album, 2) it is the first album I ever bought, and 3) I play it a lot.

It is my album, and when Tracy and I united our vinyl together in holy matrimony, there was no duplicate for Damn the Torpedoes. In fact it was our only Tom Petty record.

It is the first album I bought. I had been living in Germany where ABBA ruled. They were all I heard except for my sister’s cassettes in the car. She is six years older than me, and she forced Ted Nugent, Kiss and Queen on my younger sister and me at high decibles.

When we moved back to the USA my sister moved out to CA, leaving me in a musical void. The radio played disco (it was 1979) and the rock station (there was only one) played a lot of Jimmy Buffet.

One day my friend and I walked to the base PX (post exchange) where she wanted to buy the latest record by The Babys. Maybe I felt pressure to buy a record too – or maybe I was desperate for something better than the radio, or the Firefall and Toto cassettes my sister left behind. I specifically remember picking up an REO Speedwagon album at the store, something with Tuna in the title, but I bought Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers’ Damn the Torpedoes instead (Thank you, Jesus).

Looking back, I think I went with TPHB because of the album cover. It looked fresh. It didn’t look like anything my older sister had, and after years of being called a “copycat” by her, the last thing I wanted was more of her music. I mean, I was about to go into high school, I had to be me (Thank you, Marlo Thomas).

I do play this record a lot. I’ve liked it since the first listen. To me, it has a lot of energy, and in 1979, it sounded new and we all needed something other than Supertramp and Pink Floyd (we still do). The Babys were new too, and I liked my friend’s purchase, but I was always glad the Tom Petty record came home with me. I began to wonder if I was a musical geinus to select such a record with out knowing anything about the band.

There are nine songs on this record. I love eight of them. The ninth, “Louisiana Rain”, is a little too ballad-like for me, yet it is the chorus to “Louisiana Rain” that I am always singing when the album is over. Songs like “Refuge” still sound fresh, but my favorite song has to be “Even the Losers.”