The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart – “Free Fallin'” (Tom Petty Cover)
Turntable Kitchen’s Sounds Delicious series has been getting artists to do full-length covers of albums for a couple years now, and their latest entry has the Pains Of Being Pure At Heart doing all of Tom Petty’s 1989 solo debut Full Moon Fever. We’ve already heard one track off Kip Berman and co.’s take on the album, “Runnin’ Down A Dream,” and today they’re sharing their cover of “Free Fallin’.”
Here’s what Berman had to say about the song in an interview with Billboard:
The original was made at the same time as some of the greatest dream pop and shoegaze records. And it works on similar premises of layering, subdued vocals, repetition, and texture. Lyrics aside, this song wouldn’t sound out of place on a Ride album. Obviously, the way Tom Petty did the song was a lot more Americanized, and the production of ELO’s Jeff Lynne was rooted more in a sort of minimal, hyper-nuanced, bright production style. But it’s really just three chords for about four and a half minutes; the genius of the song is that so much builds and delivers without really anything structurally going on. You could play this song if you played guitar for three weeks, but you couldn’t write this song even if you played guitar for 30 years. Some people just have the light and Tom Petty was one of those people.
Listen below.
The Full Moon Fever full album cover is available now via Turntable Kitchen.