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.
Article comments
1 - DJRadiohead
A marvelous record it is (my review is still in draft mode) and some wonderful observations about it.
Enjoy that vacation.
2 - Tom
It's funny that you mention "Saving Grace" sounding like another song. You say Isaacs' "Baby Did a Bad Thing," my wife says George Thorogood's "One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer," and I swear it's an homage to Canned Heat's "On The Road Again." I just went and gave all four a listen and sure enough, all of them (roughly) fit!
3 - El Bicho
chris isaac?
who dat? ;-)
4 - DJRadiohead
I had been saying "On the Road Again" myself, Tom. It's a great opener.
5 - Tom Johnson
As they say, great minds think alike . . .
Say, anyone think maybe TP heard all four of these songs in close succession and suddenly realized he himself undermined the case against the Chili Peppers' "Dani California" lifting from "Mary Jane's Last Dance" (which, from what I remember, borrows pretty heavily from a Jayhawks song, too)?
6 - Timmy
There are two, maybe three keepers on the album. The rest are makeovers of old Lynne-produced Petty tunes. And not to turn this into a Lynne praise or criticism thread, but if I'm paying Jeff Lynne to produce my record, I want it to sound like Jeff Lynne produced my album. Even most of Lynne's signature harmonizing is absent here. Petty peaked when Rick Rubin gave him "Wildflowers" (top 5 rock album of all time). It's been downhill ever since.
7 - Vern Halen
I think the best stuff on this album is the stuff that sounds like it was produced by...Rick Rubin. Jeff Lynne? No thanks, usually.
Yeah, all those old blues licks sound the same nowadays. it's TP's drumming of all things that saves the day on this recording - 60's garage thrash at its finest.
I think this album will be remembered as one the better TP efforts from his later years.