Tom Petty Album Opening Songs Ranked

When Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers first started making albums in the late ’70s, they were not the well-oiled machine they ultimately became.

“There was a lot of trial and error,” Petty later said of the band’s debut album for the book Conversations With Tom Petty. “I think it’s only 28 minutes long. [Laughs] It was just the first 10 things written. And we did it at lightning speed.”

Regardless of how quickly written an album is, a key factor in its overall appeal lies in its first track. (We are assuming, for the purposes of this article, that readers are listening to an album from start to finish as the artist intended it to be heard.) It is, in essence, the opening statement, the introduction, the prologue to what is to come. Hook a listener with the first song and you will hopefully bring them along for the whole journey.

Over the course of his career, Petty released 13 studio albums with the Heartbreakers and three solo LPs. Below, we’ve ranked all of their opening tracks.

16. “Jefferson Jericho Blues”
From: Mojo (2010)

In 2010, Petty finally put out the heavier blues album he’d been meaning to for years. “We couldn’t have made this in the ’70s,” he told Rolling Stone then about Mojo. “We didn’t have those kinds of chops in the ’70s. We grew into this.” The LP begins with “Jefferson Jericho Blues,” a lively opener but not the most-gripping of Petty’s career.

15. “Walls (Circus)”
From: Songs and Music from “She’s the One” (1996)

This writer personally prefers “Walls (No. 3)” to “Walls (Circus),” the opening track to 1996’s Songs and Music From “She’s the One.” It’s unique for featuring Lindsey Buckingham on backing vocals, but in reality, Petty didn’t care for the track, to put it mildly. “Never listened to it. I hated that record – the whole idea of it offended me,” he told Men’s Journal in 2015. “I only did it because I didn’t have anything else to do.”

14. “Jammin’ Me”
From: Let Me Up (I’ve Had Enough) (1987)

You might think that starting an album with a song you co-wrote with Bob Dylan would be a foolproof idea. Unfortunately in the case of “Jammin’ Me” from 1987’s Let Me Up (I’ve Had Enough), the result is a bit more confusing than impressive. It’s a quirky track, but has that quintessential ’80s sound . If you know you know.

13. “When the Time Comes”
From: You’re Gonna Get It! (1978)

“When the Time Comes” from You’re Gonna Get It! has, like many early Petty songs, a Byrds-like quality to it and sets the tone for the rest of the album nicely. The stronger tracks come later on though…

12. “A One Story Town”
From: Long After Dark (1982)

You can interpret the title of “A One Story Town” a few different ways — “story” as in building height, or perhaps “story” as in the narrative the town runs on. In any case, this is an upbeat opening number, with a great drum fill intro by Stan Lynch that propels the rest of the song.

11. “Room at the Top”
From: Echo (1999)

Opening an album with an inward-looking ballad is not something everyone can pull off, but Petty did with “Room at the Top.” “I still think that’s one of the better moments of the album,” Petty said in Conversations With Tom Petty. “It was a great example of the Heartbreakers at work. On my own I would have never arrived at that arrangement of the song. But they really took it somewhere I would have never got to myself.”

10. “Rebels”
From: Southern Accents (1985)

An album’s opening track is like the first shot in a movie. It sets the scene, creates the atmosphere and entices a listener to keep listening. “Rebels” is a good example of that, a song that pulls one into the world of the south Petty not only wrote about but came from himself.

9. “American Dream Plan B”
From: Hypnotic Eye (2014)

“American Dream Plan B,” and therefore the entirety of 2014’s Hypnotic Eye, begins with what Mike Campbell once described as a “tough guitar sound.” The Heartbreakers, as Campbell saw it, always aimed to make albums that were meant to be heard in full, starting with the opening track. “The album format is what we grew up on. It’s what we aspired to when we were first discovering music – it’s what’s what we know,” he told MusicRadar in 2014. “We actually talked about this because nowadays, with iTunes and everything, there’s a lot of pressure to get this track and that track, whatever. We really made an effort to fight that as much as possible and present this as an entire piece.”

8. “The Last DJ”
From: The Last DJ (2002)

Something about the introductory descending riff in “The Last DJ” feels a bit like falling down the rabbit hole into the album of the same name. Welcome to the world of corporate greed, the kind that can both shoot a musician to the top and drag them right back down. As Rolling Stone described it: “At once nostalgic and forward-looking, The Last DJ is quintessential Petty, by turns strident and starry-eyed.”

7. “Rockin’ Around (With You)”
From: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers (1976)

As the opening track to the Heartbreakers’ debut album, “Rockin’ Around (With You)” could be considered the opening track to the band’s entire career. Lynch’s shuffle-y intro gives way to a Beatles Revolver-esque melody in the first song and the rest of the album falls into place after it.

6. “The Waiting”
From: Hard Promises (1981)

Not only does “The Waiting” work well as an opening track with its confident intro — can’t go wrong with a couple of Rickenbacker guitars — the first lines invite a listener in: “Oh baby don’t it feel like heaven right now? Don’t it feel like something from a dream?” Clearly, fans agreed since “The Waiting” was a Top 20 hit for the Heartbreakers.

5. “Saving Grace”
From: Highway Companion (2006)

Sometimes the cliche is true: it it isn’t broke, don’t fix it. One could say that about the musical partnership of Petty and Jeff Lynne, who co-produced several of Petty’s albums including 2006’s Highway Companion. Yes, this was a solo Petty album, but that didn’t stop him from having Campbell play on it anyway. “Saving Grace” is a little bit gritty, a little bit sexy and a great start to an album that showcases Petty as a seasoned songwriter.

4. “Wildflowers”
From: Wildflowers (1994)

If there was one thing Petty was exceptionally good at, it was writing theoretically simple songs that packed a whole lot of meaning and emotion into them. “Wildflowers” is a perfect example — the chords are easy, even for a beginner musician, and yet it creates a beautiful, sweet and hopeful opening to an album about vulnerability, solitude and maturity.

3. “Learning to Fly”
From: Into the Great Wide Open (1991)

It bears repeating: sometimes the straightforward path is the most powerful one. “Learning to Fly” doesn’t have a bridge, just a few verses alternating with an easy-to-sing-to chorus, but one need only hear live versions of this song to know how much Petty’s audience loved it. Somehow, Petty never wore out the themes of open skies, new possibilities and resilience in the face of struggle.

2. “Free Fallin'”
From: Full Moon Fever (1989)

Have you ever blasted “Free Fallin'” with all the windows down in the car rolling down the highway? If so, then you probably understand why this song is at the No. 2 spot on this list. Simple verses give way to an anthemic chorus that sets up the rest of 1989’s Full Moon Fever. A perfect road trip opener.

1. “Refugee”
From: Damn the Torpedoes (1979)

Not to be dramatic but the snare drum intro in “Refugee” is like a call to arms. It grabs one’s attention immediately and tees up the guitars for that iconic riff — plus Benmont Tench‘s crucial organ part — that builds into the chorus. The rest of Damn the Torpedoes falls in place behind it like rock ‘n’ roll dominos.