Harry Nilsson used to tell John Lennon all the time, “Everything is really what it isn’t, isn’t it? It is.”

So that’s how Tom Petty made a hit song that says, “Tired of this song again….” And people love it on repeat.

Genius writer.

Forget Mozart. Tom Petty made classics.

Three and four hundred years from now when we’re still listening to his music, it won’t matter that he died. That’s a heartbreaker; Tom Petty lives forever.

Growing up in Gainesville, and playing in a band called Mudcrutch, he and his cronies traveled south and were hanging around, recording demos, and playing alongside the whole Criteria Studios, and Tone Distributors crowds in Miami. Steve Alaimo says that Ron and Howie Albert recorded them. Henry Stone remembers him coming around the warehouse.

Henry Stone’s distributions probably landed at the little record stores Petty shopped at as a kid. And more than likely, the statewide airwaves he locked up with his lines of work probably hit his eardrums too.

We’re all connected.

Shout out to Tom Petty. May his everlasting soul keep on playing rock and roll.