The day has arrived. Make that...the day before the day has arrived. Though maybe I left mentally a few days ago, I'm actually leaving for vacation tomorrow.

Tom Petty's Highway Companion has no direct relation to the trip TheWife™ and I have so been looking forward to. Well, except for this: it has stood out far above all of the music I've listened to over the past week. A week, I must add, that's been full of late nights scrambling through the CD collection to flush out which recordings must make their way to the iPod. Hours and hours and hours of music and this little, almost unassuming record takes the day.

There was a recent interview with Petty where he mentioned that he almost felt like Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers were somewhat underappreciated in the world of rock. He didn't mean this in an "Oh, Poor Me!" way. In fact, the idea was that he'd become consistent enough to be overlooked. I have to agree. I mean, I saw him on an awards show not too long ago and was sort of taken aback at the quite lengthy list of hits he'd produced with his band, solo, and in other collaborations. Sure enough, I had sort of taken him for granted. The hits moved back in time all the way back to my first Petty album: Damn The Torpedoes (which has a funny/pathetic story attached to it in my mind. Ah, my young and irresponsible phase). Somehow, I had taken Petty for granted.

Honestly, I wasn't particularly looking forward to Highway Companion. The Jeff Lynne alarm bells were going off. Turns out that there was no need for concern. Lynne gets out of the way and allows Petty to make one fantastic record. Sparse in instrumentation (just Petty, Mike Campbell, and Lynne), direct in theme (except for "Ankle Deep"), and intense in focus. It's the kind of record that isn't made often today (folks like The White Stripes excepted). With so much "air" in the music, the rolling arpeggios of Petty's Rickenbacker and Campbell's sharp leads are that much more effective.

Highway Companion is an interesting take on a "road record." Most of it is not your typical "Windows down...Volume UP!" sort of thing. The themes of travel have more to do with movement through our lives. Still, it's a mostly hopeful trip. The opening "Saving Grace," a musical cousin to Chris Isaac's "Baby Did A Bad Bad Thing," just might have you cranking windows and volume in opposing directions. "Ankle Deep" might puzzle with the lyrics, but you'll hear a tune that Springsteen and Petty could have gone in together on. "Big Weekend" is an ode to a sanity-protecting getaway ("I need a big weekend/Kick up the dust/Yeah a big weekend/If you don't run you rust").

That's it. A sanity-protecting getaway. It's interesting to me how my "Catalog of Petty" can include items as different as a drug-induced marathon listening session and a two-week vacation.

All part of the journey, I suppose.