In the original Strawberry Peppers, the story of Tom Petty and Mudcrutch was relatively minor compared to a lot of other storylines. The only major changes from OTL were that Tom Petty didn't have to deal with meddlesome executives, the band's first album was released earlier (a different one from OTL), and Southern Accents was finished without the Dave Stewart contributions. For The Second Coming, the only pre-1985 retcon I've made was by having him sign up with Apple Records. Outside of that, the storyline is unchanged. If you want to see the 1975-1984 albums, I'll leave you with the following links:
- Tom Petty and Mudcrutch (1975)
- American Girl (1976)
- Terminal Romance (1978)
- Damn the Torpedoes (1979)
- Hard Promises (1981)
- Long After Dark (1982)
- Southern Accents (1984)
Inevitably, the big question would be, "what happens after Southern Accents?" This was something that I had been resting on for a while, but now I can finally show you all what comes next for Tom Petty, all the way up to 1996!
Side A (9:30)
1. Make It Better (Forget About Me) - 4:23
2. Don't Come Around Here No More - 5:07
Side B (5:12)
3. It Ain't Nothin' to Me - 5:12
The Dave Stewart tracks on Southern Accents felt really out of place with the intended concept of life in the south, so the big question now is, what to do with them? Originally, I was going to utilize these songs along with some outtakes from 1986 and make an album out of them, but in the end, I decided to make the Petty/Stewart tracks a standalone extended play. Maybe it's not the most ideal choice, but it is what it is, and you've got to work with what's available.
Side A (21:16)
1. Ways to Be Wicked - 3:27 (Playback)
2. Runaway Trains - 5:13
3. The Damage You've Done - 3:16 (Playback)
4. It'll All Work Out - 3:11
5. Make That Connection - 5:04 (Playback)
6. Moon Pie - 1:05 (Playback)
Side B (22:02)
7. Think About Me - 3:45
8. Can't Get Her Out - 3:11 (Playback)
9. A Self-Made Man - 3:02
10. You Come Through - 5:15 (Playback)
11. How Many More Days - 3:18
12. Let Me Up (I've Had Enough) - 3:31
I'd given away two tracks - "Jammin' Me" and "All Mixed Up" - for the 1987 Traveling Wilburys project, which left plenty of room for replacement tracks. Another track that was cut, "My Life/Your World", contained some rewritten lyrics from the then-unreleased "Walkin' from the Fire". Assuming that the latter had been released back in 1984 as intended, it's likely that the former would not have happened. I also removed "Ain't Love Strange", though it would most likely come out as a B-side, and even included the country version of "The Damage You've Done" to give the album some variety.
With all of these changes being made, is this a much better album than Let Me Up (I've Had Enough)? That's up to you to decide, but I do like giving these rare songs some more attention.
Side A (19:33)
1. Free Fallin' - 4:14
2. Travelin' - 3:15 (Playback)
3. Love is a Long Road - 4:06
4. A Face in the Crowd - 3:58
5. King of the Hill - 4:00 (An American Treasure)
Side B (20:31)
6. I'll Feel a Whole Lot Better - 2:47
7. Yer So Bad - 3:05
8. Depending on You - 2:47
9. Waiting for Tonight - 3:30 (Playback)
10. Alright for Now - 2:00
11. A Mind with a Heart of Its Own - 3:29
12. Down the Line - 2:53 (Playback)
Once again, three tracks - "I Won't Back Down", "Runnin' Down a Dream" and "Zombie Zoo" - were donated to the 1989 and 1991 Traveling Wilburys albums, and "The Apartment Song" had already been included on Southern Accents. Fortunately, there were just enough songs leftover to fill the gaps, and we even have guest appearances made by Roger McGuinn ("King of the Hill") and the members of The Bangles ("Waiting for Tonight"), in lieu of George Harrison and Roy Orbison.
Side A (21:32)
1. Learning to Fly - 4:02
2. Kings Highway - 3:08
3. Into the Great Wide Open - 3:43
4. Two Gunslingers - 3:09
5. The Dark of the Sun - 3:23
6. All or Nothin' - 4:07
Side B (22:34)
7. All the Wrong Reasons - 3:46
8. Too Good to Be True - 3:59
9. Out in the Cold - 3:40
10. You and I Will Meet Again - 3:42
11. Makin' Some Noise - 3:27
12. Built to Last - 4:00
Besides changing up the album cover, adapted from a T-shirt design in promotion of the tour, nothing has really changed about Into the Great Wide Open. I guess there weren't that many outtakes (if at all) from that time period.
1. Mary Jane's Last Dance - 4:33 (Greatest Hits)
2. You Saw Me Comin' - 4:38 (Finding Wildflowers)
3. Honey Bee - 5:21 (Finding Wildflowers)
4. Something Could Happen - 4:35 (All the Rest)
5. Thirteen Days - 3:36 (Angel Dream)
6. Lonesome Dave - 3:40 (An American Treasure)
7. Something in the Air - 3:21 (Greatest Hits)
8. House in the Woods - 5:06 (Finding Wildflowers)
9. Crawling Back to You - 5:06 (Finding Wildflowers)
10. Cabin Down Below - 2:45 (Finding Wildflowers)
11. Wake Up Time - 5:31 (Finding Wildflowers)
12. Come on Down to My House - 3:05 (Playback)
Total length: 51:17
Just recently, I learned that soniclovenoize's double album reconstruction of Wildflowers had been removed for reasons I'm not sure of; most likely it relates to copyright restrictions regarding Tom Petty's music. The link you see above was archived by Wayback Machine. In that same post, he also included what a 1993 Heartbrakers album would've been like, which contains some overlap with the double album Wildflowers. I've left the track listing to Ghosts on the Highway untouched (although I did edit the cover art to change the band name), right down to the sources where each track originates from so you can recreate it for yourself.
As a final addition, I've also included "Peace in L.A." and "Christmas All Over Again" as bonus tracks, both sourced from Playback.
1. You Don't Know How It Feels - 4:49
2. You Wreck Me - 3:22
3. To Find a Friend - 3:23
4. California - 2:38 (All the Rest)
5. Don't Fade on Me - 3:32
6. Wildflowers - 3:11
7. Leave Virginia Alone - 4:16 (All the Rest)
8. Only a Broken Heart - 4:30
9. Hard on Me - 3:48
10. Hung Up and Overdue - 6:03 (All the Rest)
11. A Higher Place - 3:56
12. Time to Move On - 3:15
13. Somewhere Under Heaven - 4:37 (All the Rest)
14. Climb That Hill - 2:33 (All the Rest)
15. It's Good to be King - 5:10
16. Harry Green - 3:54 (All the Rest)
17. Confusion Wheel - 4:20 (All the Rest)
18. Hope You Never - 3:03 (All the Rest)
19. Girl on LSD - 3:45 (Finding Wildflowers)
Total length: 74:05
Once again, playing homage to Albums That Never Were, I took SLN's track listing from his double album reconstruction, removed the tracks that had already been featured on Ghosts on the Highway, and made it a single disc. Three tracks ("Honey Bee", "Thirteen Days" and "Cabin Down Below") were originally on disc one, and five ("House in the Woods", "Crawling Back to You", "Something Could Happen", "Lonesome Dave" and "Wake Up Time") on disc two. To fill in some of the gaps, I included "Harry Green" and "Somewhere Under Heaven", extending the runtime to 74 minutes, just within the limits of CDs.
1. Angel Dream (No. 2) - 2:27
2. Grew Up Fast - 5:09
3. Change the Locks - 4:56
4. Zero from Outer Space - 3:08
5. Baby, Let's Play House - 2:33 (Playback)
6. Drivin' Down to Georgia - 4:58 (Finding Wildflowers)
7. One of Life's Little Mysteries - 3:10
8. Walls (No. 3) - 3:01
9. Wooden Heart - 2:09 (Playback)
10. 105 Degrees - 3:11
11. You Get Me High - 2:48 (Playback)
12. Supernatural Radio - 6:03
13. God's Gift to Man - 4:18 (Playback)
Total length: 47:51
Using the track listing from the 2021 reconstruction of She's the One as a basis, once again, I removed songs that were already utilized for both Ghosts on the Highway ("Thirteen Days") and Wildflowers ("Climb That Hill"), and found replacements off of Playback. I even replaced a few songs outright ("Asshole", "French Disconnection") in favor of more outtakes which I felt improved the quality of the album a bit. I'm really pleased with how the 1993-1996 albums turned out without double-dipping, even though a few songs have gone unused.
What happens after 1996?
Now this is where things get interesting since there aren't too many outtakes from between the Echo sessions (1998-1999) and Tom Petty's death in 2017 that have been officially released. Of the available material, "I Don't Belong", "Gainesville" and "Sweet William" all trace to the Echo period, "For Real" is an outtake from The Last DJ, "Special Place" is an iTunes bonus track for Mudcrutch's first album from 2008, as is "Little Girl Blues" for Mojo, and "Bus to Tampa Bay" and "Playing Dumb" were part of the Hypnotic Eye era.
In addition to the above, there's also the Blue Stingrays' cover of "Goldfinger" (a side project by Mike Campbell), Tom Petty's covers of "Blue Moon of Kentucky" and "You're Gonna Change (Or I'm Gonna Leave)", Mike Campbell and the Dirty Knobs' "Feelin' High" from 2010, as well as Benmont Tench's You Should Be So Lucky album from 2014. The only track in which I can't find a link for is the Mudcrutch outtake "How Much Do You Need", which I imagine would've replaced "Trailer" on their second album from 2016. If anyone can find a link that hasn't been taken down yet, that would be great.
I feel like as the band got older, Tom would be more willing to let Mike and Benmont step up to the microphone every now and again. After all, Tom Leadon did sing for a couple of tracks on Mudcrutch's 2008 album, as did Benmont. The same thing even happened with Mudcrutch 2. As far as I'm concerned, it's all Tom Petty to me, regardless as to who contributed what.
Possibly save for the additions of the above songs I listed, I wouldn't see the 1999-2016 albums changing all that much - Highway Companion from 2006 least of all, since there don't seem to be any outtakes from that era. However, if I were to give the two Mudcrutch albums new names, they would respectively be House of Stone (2008) and Dreams of Flying (2016). All the same, one has to wonder what could have been if Tom Petty hadn't left the world so suddenly...
