Halftime Heartbreakers

[This email discussion is several weeks old. It will become more relevant as we near Super Bowl Sunday. Also, prepare yourself for an onslaught of "Tom Petty's face in high definition" jokes.]

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I'm listening to some Petty today in anticipation of his Super Bowl Halftime performance. Normally, artists perform about 3 songs during the break, and I'm trying to determine which 3 he (and the Heartbreakers) will
select.

Right now I'm leaning toward the upbeat numbers:

1. American Girl (obvious, and the only real lock)
2. Running Down a Dream (fits in well with the dream of winning the Lombardi trophy)
3. You Wreck Me (shows America more recent Petty, doesn't mention anything about "the gates of hell" or "mary jane", so it's safe for the TV audience.)

Give me your 3 choices.

--dn

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great question...

unfortunately for the purposes of discussion, i think you nailed it. and it's not like i'm rusty on my petty...i just took in the 4-hr documentary over the weekend. although, You Wreck Me is now something like 13 years old, so if he's gonna throw a new one in i'm guessing it would be Saving Grace or Big Weekend (which i think may easily be the weakest TP song ever, but he likes it and it's thematically appropriate).

other possibilities:
You Got Lucky (badass)
I Need To Know (a rocker)
Honey Bee (a badass rocker)
I Won't Back Down (gates of hell notwithstanding, this has to be a frontrunner)
Free Fallin (his biggest hit and essentially the verses are a slice of americana on par with the coug)

i will definitely ponder this one...

~jeff

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As a tangent, I think the most unlikely three (popular) songs are:

1.> Last Dance with Mary Jane
2.> You Don't Know How it Feels
3.> Stop Draggin' My Heart Around (with Stevie Nicks)

--dn

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i'll throw out It's Good To Be King as a least likely choice...i'm sure the NFL wants no mention of dogs (even if it's about them getting wings...as opposed to mercilessly ripping each other to shreds)...

~jeff

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This is a tough question, but here's my best guess of how the sequence will go:

1) Running Down a Dream = Even though the baseball playoffs from a few years ago killed this song, he's still opening with it.

2) Learning to Fly = This is my sleeper pick. Even though this song can be interpreted in a way that NBC would probably not approve of, I think Tom will still want to bring it down a notch before he gets to.....

3) American Girl = Obvious ending. Although, I think they should be required to show the scene from "Silence of the Lambs" where this song was used on the Jumbotron while it's being played. Nothing says "America's greatest sporting event" like images of Buffalo Bill on a Jumbotron.

--paul

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You both have pretty much hammered out the three most likely possibilities (I think: American Girl, Saving Grace, Free Fallin'); therefore I will throw out my three Least Expected Tunes.

1.) Crawling Back to You -The un-PC Indian shooting out the lights would cause an uproar in the Southwest.
2.) Don't Come Around Here No More -A good song, yes. But to let this 5:00 song drag out for half of halftime would be half foolish.
3.) Girl on LSD -no comment necessary

--gav