"Seventeen curious, well-tuned writers (they're fans, too) turn
their philosophical attention to Tom Petty in this intellectually
rigorous and wildly fun 'little box set of big ideas'. In his hits,
deep cuts, and videos they find complexity, ideas, and plenty of
questions-plus some answers-about the human condition. I need to
know, Petty once sang. These writers are really listening." -JOE
BONOMO, author of Field Recordings from the Inside (2017) and
editor of Conversations with Greil Marcus (2012) "A great song has
worlds inside of it. And Tom Petty wrote a lot of them. But too
often we don't stop to explore, question, consider, knock on a few
of the doors that appear down a great song's corridors. In this
collection, some thoughtful writers have come together to show us
how they did it. It stands as a testament both to the strength of
Petty's songwriting and record-making and the possibilities that
remain as regards writing about music." -WARREN ZANES, author of
Petty: The Biography (2015) "Maybe because he simply made it all
look easy, Tom Petty never received the unanimous critical glory
bestowed upon more obvious geniuses. But now that his career is
complete, the world is gradually awakening to what his fans have
known all along: Tom was plugged directly into the original juice
of rock'n'roll, injecting that authenticity into everything he ever
touched. This collection of deeply thoughtful, dimensional chapters
goes a long way in setting the record straight. In each, the author
bears witness to the profound impact of Tom's music on our lives,
and also our thoughts." -PAUL ZOLLO, author of Conversations with
Tom Petty "Tom Petty would have hated this book. And that's why
it's necessary-to give new context to songs and an oeuvre that
defied his own explanation." -NEIL STRAUSS, contributing editor,
Rolling Stone "This is a fun appraisal of Tom Petty's masterful
musical works as viewed through the framework of both classical and
modern philosophical theory. Tom Petty and Philosophy is
recommended for both the fan and the student of rock." -NICK
THOMAS, author of Tom Petty: An American Rock and Roll Story (2014)
"Just as no single musical genre easily ensnares Petty's musical
catalogue, this book is-thankfully-not easily pigeonholed. It spans
a wide range of topics. From whether Tom Petty was a feminist to
whether the album Echo displays a situation of distress in
Nietzsche's sense, there's something here for all Petty fans to
ruminate and debate for years to come." -CLAY CALVERT, University
of Florida professor teaching "Tom Petty 101" For the first time,
serious thinkers explore the work of this towering genius of rock
music. For fans of Tom Petty, this volume is an eye-opener, with
fourteen music-savvy philosophers looking at different facets of
Petty's artistic contribution. They examine not only Tom Petty's
thoughts but also the thoughts we have while we listen. The
authors, all Petty fans, come from every philosophical viewpoint:
classical, analytic, postmodernist, phenomenological, and
Nietzschean. Tom Petty's body of work exists on a continuum between
Folk and Rock, between New Wave and Americana, between Southern
simplicity and West Coast chic. There is the legacy left to his
main backing band, the Heartbreakers, but also bookended by
Mudcrutch and his collaborations with his elders, such as Bob
Dylan, George Harrison, Roy Orbison, and Johnny Cash. Tom Petty's
songs hook and they captivate, but they are often profound in their
understatement, their stark minimalism. His insight into the human
condition conveys a powerful philosophical anthropology with a
metaphysics of tragedy, gravity, and levity. Tom Petty's ethics
focuses on dilemmas of the outcast, downtrodden, and heartbroken
with a view to the fallen and the sinful as our redeemable
antiheroes of the everyday. His political thinking is that of the
artist, enlivened by Southern hostilities and Californian
futilities, culminating in a personal ethic that puts duty to the
fans first. Petty's theory of knowledge is psychological and
interpersonal, both deeply meditative and delightfully skeptical.
The dialectic of love and hate, abuse and recovery, poverty and
power, triumph and loss provide the genuine objects of knowledge.
Above all, Petty's songs are the confessions of a poetic mind
interpreting a wounded soul. Petty lived his life the way he wrote
and the way he played. It was grit, drive, and just enough finesse,
to make things nice, where they need to be nice. On stage, he put
the schau in Anschauung. Petty stood up to corporate assholes in a
number of precedent-setting legal maneuvers and album concepts,
risking his career and fortune, but never backing down. He was the
center of a musical community that endured over four decades. His
ability to cultivate new generations of listeners while connecting
himself backward to the heroes of his own youth have made him
universally respected by the widest range of music fans.
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