Even the Losers
Rock & Roll Devotional I
Today’s reading is from the Book of Petty.
Sometimes songs go into heavy rotation on my brain radio, and it takes a while to figure out why. Sometimes I never figure out why.
A few months ago, rather than saying, “even a broken clock is right twice a day,” or “even a blind squirrel finds a nut sometimes,” I found myself saying “even the losers get lucky sometimes.” Not as metaphorical, but still resonant, especially as it invokes this fantastic rock & roll song.
I can’t recall exactly what I was talking about, but the switch was flipped. “Even the Losers” keeps circling back in my mind like a mantra. I welcome it.
Although not one of their bigger hits, I daresay “Even the Losers” is Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers at their best. It’s song three on Side 1 of their third album, 1979 breakthrough juggernaut Damn the Torpedoes. That collection is most remembered for “Refugee,” “Here Comes My Girl,” and “Don’t Do Me Like That.” I love those songs, too, but “Even the Losers” – technically a deep cut – has become my favorite.
While “Even the Losers” didn’t blast through my youth with the same frequency as those other Petty works, over the decades it has accrued more weight, ever more meaning. It walks a line between acceptance of loss, and hope. That is a line I now know well.
As I move through (what I hope is) middle age, I am discovering songs, like all art forms, can offer up different things at different times. The good stuff from the past not only takes you back, it meets you wherever you are, and clarifies some aspect of your present life. A truly great work evokes more than mere nostalgia.
“Even the Losers” is based on a night youngster Tom spent with a popular girl named Cindy. She ignored him in school, but for one night, she paid him attention, and they enjoyed a memorable hang. Come sunrise, she ignored him again. Beyond kisses and some cigarettes, Tom doesn’t exactly define the quality of her one-night-only attention, but like all great lyricists, he allows the listener’s imagination some latitude.
I’ve experienced a few such memory-enshrined nights, when a companion and I felt free from whatever personas we’d painstakingly presented to the world, cut loose from expectations, from time itself. I bet you have too, dear reader. This is a song about that.
Let us talk about the band.
“Even the Losers” would be a great tune without the Heartbreakers, but with these particular guys from Gainesville, Florida (like Tom), it achieves a greater-than-the-sum-of-its-parts power.
Here is a rock quintet at its peak, yet still somehow hungry: guitarist Mike Campbell, bassist Ron Blair, drummer Stan Lynch, and keyboardist Benmont Tench. When this “classic Heartbreakers” lineup minted “Even the Losers,” they’d been together three years, and they’d played hundreds of dates in wildly different circumstances – from crappy clubs to Top of the Pops. All of their combined experience is audible. I’ve played music most of my life, but I’ve rarely experienced that intuitive mind-meld, an unquantifiable soul synthesis all great touring bands possess. It cannot be rehearsed or artificially engineered. You only get it through significant time and collective adventure (and misadventure).
As with some other combos, it seems miraculous that these five individuals found each other, like star-crossed lovers (except that’s usually only two, not FIVE) to deliver this particular sacrament – these specific words enmeshed with these specific chords and this specific melody, all executed with a specific set of performance skills honed in deprivation.
Talk about picking the exact sequence of numbers to win the lottery.
Such cosmic luck can only last so long, though. Human frailty would ultimately chip and then shatter the crystal ship that was classic TP & the Heartbreakers, beginning with bassist Ron leaving due to road fatigue in ‘82, and drummer Stan following in ‘94. In my humble opinion, it was never as good without that rhythm section. But for a few precious years, the original Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers delivered, big time, and against very long odds. How can one not entertain notions of anointing, of destiny?
So. Great song. Great band. All seemingly guided to the stage by unseen hands. With everything in place, lo and behold, we have the art form into which my considerable devotional energy flows: Rock and roll.
In dark times, when a song amplifies the light within, you may not even recognize what’s happening. You may not even possess words to express why you are compelled to let the song wash over you, through you. While you sit in the driveway, idling. And indeed, the power – the light – may only last for the duration of the tune. Nevertheless, the delivery from darkness, the transcendence, is real.
I am likely entering the last third of my time here. Looking back, I’ve experienced quite a few things I cannot explain, moments I define as transcendent. My beloved cynical friends will expend much energy diminishing any kind of “unprovable” mystical experience, and that’s fine. I don’t care.
But I have transcended, mostly through art. These Gainesville rockers have delivered me multiple times. Thankfully, they continue to do so, even after Tom has shuffled off his mortal coil. Transcendence, even through substandard tech on a cold winter morning full of bad world news, grief, fears of loss, and regrets for mistakes made. This song comes into my head once again, and despite it all, I feel… lucky.
For that, my gratitude is boundless.
Go in peace.
Even the Losers
words and music by Tom Petty
Well it was nearly summer, we sat on your roof
Yeah we smoked cigarettes and we stared at the moon
And I showed you stars you never could see
Baby, it couldn't have been that easy to forget about me
Baby, time meant nothing, anything seemed real
Yeah you could kiss like fire and you made me feel
Like every word you said was meant to be
No, it couldn't have been that easy to forget about me
Baby, even the losers get lucky sometimes
Even the losers keep a little bit of pride
They get lucky sometimes
Two cars parked on the overpass
Rocks hit the water like broken glass
I should have known right then it was too good to last
God, it's such a drag when you're livin' in the past
Baby, even the losers get lucky sometimes
Even the losers keep a little bit of pride
They get lucky sometimes
it's just the normal noises in here.
Tom has so many a metaphorical songs to live by.