“Free fall out into nothing, leave this world for a while”

My earliest memory of Tom Petty was seeing the video for “Free Falling” in the summer of 1989.  Guess that makes me 14, with long bangs in my eyes, dressed all in black and wearing vision street wear.  Skateboarding was our lives–my brother Dave and me.  When we saw that girl skating in the video it was a lightning bolt to the brain.  I’m pretty sure Dave bought the CD or the tape or the record or whatever that week.  All I can remember is that it was always on.  There was a period of our lives when we knew every word to every song pretty much backwards and forwards.  The future was wide open.    

Since then I’ve gone back and listened to his earlier work at the same time as following his later endeavors and as much as I’ve come to love the other albums nothing ever comes close to that feeling I get when I put on “Full Moon Fever.”  It’s not just the memories that come flooding back of that point in my life–it’s the music itself.  It’s electric and smart and real and raw and insightful.  There are these moments when Tom just howls at a point in a song or punctuates a chorus with a loud “hey”.  I always felt chills and still do… even now as I write this the hairs are standing up on the back of neck and it’s breaking my heart.  

He played here in Los Angeles last week.  I wish I had gone to see him.  So dumb to say “If I had only known” but that’s how I feel.  I wish I had known, because I would have gone but now he’s dead.    I thought all day about what I could possibly say to give thanks and tribute to a man I never knew and who never knew me but who all the same feels like he played such an important part of my life at such an important time.  Don’t think there are really words.  

Free fall out into nothing, leave this world for a while. Leica M7, Kodak Tri-X 400 +1