It’s hard to blame a bunch of cats from Florida for not being super receptive to an Englishman who wanted to throw a sitar on a song, but in the end, it all came together, so credit where credit is due. The sitar was Stewart’s idea and it wasn’t initially well-received, as he recalled them reacting by saying,”‘What is this?’ The record was called Southern Accents, and it sounded like we’re in India.” Dave Stewart of the Eurythmics had a hand in its creation, and at first, the band was wary of working with an outsider (especially one who wanted to tinker with their sound as much as he did). It doesn’t make much sense, but in the end, it somehow manages to work. I don’t totally dig it, but at the same time, you have to appreciate the risks Petty and the Heartbreakers took by making it the first place. However, it kept tugging at my shirt and nipping at my heels and I eventually came to the realization that it was not only ludicrous to omit it but that it deserved to be ranked where it is. By the time it came to my attention, I was basically done putting this together and didn’t really feel the need to throw it on. This was another song that didn’t make the list at first, as I somehow sort of forgot about it. The moral of the story is that kids are sponges, which is something you should always keep in mind if you want to avoid being the parent of a young child who can’t stop singing about drugs. The song features the fairly iconic lyrics “So let’s get to the point/Let’s roll another joint,” which he didn’t really think too much of until he dropped off his daughter at preschool and was informed she kept singing that particular line over the course of the day when he picked her up. I have a buddy who did exactly that while on a bike ride with his daughter, and at some point, this came on. “You Don’t Know How It Feels” is also at the center of a cautionary tale for parents who want to introduce their kids to Petty. Petty wrote and arranged the song himself, initially putting down that workingman’s beat on a drum machine before bringing it to Wildflowers‘ producer Rick Rubin. The backbeat is doing some legit blue-collared work hammering along through the entire song and rarely straying from the beat. There are very many Petty tunes out there with a stomp to them but “You Don’t Know How It Feels” is one of them. What I do care about is the guilt I’ve dealt with since stealing this CD from my buddy Bryan a couple of decades ago. I don’t know why I did it I but I’ve felt terrible about ever since and am glad to finally get that off of my chest. This song would go on to become a hit of its own, and while some people may object to it being ranked so low, I don’t really care. However, the compilation did feature two new tracks, one of which was “Mary Jane’s Last Dance” (the other was a cover of Thunderclap Newman’s “Something in the Air,” which was replaced by”Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around,” a duet with Stevie Nicks that was released when Greatest Hits was reissued in 2008. Given how many hits they had racked up at that point, there was no shortage of candidates to pick from so it’s no wonder the record would go platinum 12 times on its way to becoming Petty’s best-selling album, going platinum 12 times. In 1993, Petty and company released their first greatest hits album (creatively titled Greatest Hits).
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