Overplayed Classic Rock Songs I'm Not Sick of (Yet): American Girl (#2)

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Back from a whirlwind trip to Nashville. My second show of the year and first Robbie Fulks show of the year. It was a blast, as usual, with a bonus: singer/songwriter Brennan Leigh (whom I came to know when she did an album of Lefty Frizzell covers) opened. But you have no clue who either of them are. On the other hand, you know this song because it's been played to death. And, despite that fact, I'm not tired of it. #2: American Girl - Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers Great bass line in the intro. Jangling guitars. And back then Petty didn't try to sing like Dylan (with a mouth full of cotton or something), so the words are articulated. I have probably heard this more than the rest of the country, because Petty got a lot of pre-success airplay in Florida, given that he was from Gainesville. So, before everyone was playing the daylights out of Damn the Torpedoes Petty already had an extensive presence on FM radio stations in Jacksonville and Orlando (where I'd been living at various times between 1977 and 1981). But it's a classic power pop song, one that I'm still not sick of after over 40 years. Oh, yeah. All right. American Girl Written by Tom Petty Recorded by Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers From Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, 1977 And for one desperate moment: