Tom Petty
Tom Petty ran into Jeff Lynne at a Beverly Hills traffic light on Thanksgiving 1987. He was on his way to buy baseball mitts. They ended up writing "Free Fallin'" together, finishing it in under 24 hours. MCA Records heard the completed album and declared there were no singles on it. It took new label executives taking over before the record got greenlit. The song then spent 33 weeks at number 1 on Billboard's Album Rock chart, breaking the previous record by three weeks.
In our deep dive into Free Fallin', we trace the song from a chance encounter at a traffic light to the album that MCA couldn't hear coming, and what it reveals about a songwriter who knew exactly what he was making even when no one else did.
Deep Dives
