Tom Petty Appreciation Thread

[Miles Archer]

15. The "touchstone" for me was always "Dog on the Run."

NOT "Dogs On the Run" from "Southern Accents." That's a completely different song.

At the time of his first album, Tom released the "Official Live 'leg" (bootleg) album to radio stations. And in those pre-Internet, pre-Torrent, pre-Usenet days, the "radio stations only" album still found its way into the hands of collectors everywhere.

It was a one-sided vinyl affair with artwork that matched the vibe of actual bootlegs.



The tracks were

Chuck Berry's "Jaguar and Thunderbird," "Fooled Again (I Don't Like It)," "Luna," and "Dog on the Run" – a glorious, punk-y, bombastic, sloppy 9 minute stomper that Tom never released "officially." Even when he released the career-spanning 4-disc live anthology, "Live 'leg" was included as a vinyl "bonus" in the deluxe edition, not a part of the 4 CDs themselves.

They get lost a little in the middle but it comes roaring out of the gates and he comes roaring back at the end.

The "Live 'leg" clip seems to have vanished from YouTube, but there IS another version on there:

He changed the lyrics a bit here...these are the ones from "Live 'leg"...

"Sittin' downtown waitin' for my number to be called
See you through the window, outside against the wall
Well I know what you're after, know what you want,
Somethin' 'bout you, baby, just don't wash
And I don't think you realize, baby, what one little kiss could do
I would really love to make you understand honey
But I can't get close to you
Baby you better stop it
Look at what you done
You try to keep me livin' like a dog on the run..."

I had no freakin' idea what ANY of that meant, but it just sounded like real, visceral rock and roll.

Even though "Breakdown" and "American Girl" later became "Greatest Hits" for Tom, the one radio stations were playing in "heavy rotation" was "Fooled Again"...most often the "Live 'leg" version.

But "Dog On The Run?" Those were the days when I worked in a warehouse, basically hating my job like most guys my age working in a warehouse for crap wages. My daily routine after work was to come home, get nicely toasted, and pull out the headphones. I have no idea how many times I listened to "Dog On The Run," but it impossibly seemed to get better every time I heard it.

I own all of Tom's music, but this has always been the ONE song that I go back to, the one that captured that restless, pissed-off, horny, often clueless guy I was when it first came out. Decades later, I have a better clue, but the other qualities come and go.

He was a guy who dropped out to be a rock and roll star, as someone observed on Twitter yesterday, and he aced it.

It was never about Tom, the teen idol. It was a guy from the South who had a dream, and followed it hard.

The word "legend" gets tossed around a lot, but he earned the label. He was, and always will be, a legend.

R.I.P., Tom.