What a classic this is! It’s one of those songs that lifts your spirits the moment you hear those opening chords. American Girl’s got one foot in the past (the jangly guitar of The Byrds) and one foot in the present (the driving rhythms of the New Wave). On top of that, it’s just a stone-cold classic.
With Petty now being so much a part of the classic rock firmament, it’s funny to recall that when this came out back in 1976 it was very much viewed as part of the New Wave, probably due to that driving rhythm rather than any leather-jacketed spiky-haired element in their image.
It sat well with the Power Pop arm of punk, particularly the stuff coming out of the Beserkley label at the time – artists like The Rubinoos, Greg Kihn and Jonathan Richman’s Modern Lovers – and not a million miles from The Ramones.
Crucially, it was far removed from the behemoths of prog, metal and disco, making it a refreshing change from the music landscape of the time.
For me Petty never recaptured the heights of his first album, though there were still great songs scattered through his later efforts. And I’m surprised to learn that not only was this debut album a complete flop in his native America – it was a hit in the UK first – but this single (and his others) barely scraped the Top 40.
Petty came from Florida and joined his first band, The Sundowners, when he was only 14. He formed a country-rock band called Mudcrutch when he was only 17 with schoolfriends Mike Campbell (guitar) and Benmont Tench (keyboards).
They moved to LA in 1970 in search of fame and fortune, but the band quickly fell apart and itt was five years later that Petty reunited with his old bandmates, now playing in a band called The Heartbreakers with Ron Blair (bass) and Stan Lynch (drums).
I saw them when they came to London to support Nils Lofgren in 1976 and I’m pleased to find some symmetry in the discovery that American Girl was the last song Petty ever played live, as the encore of their 40th anniversary performance on September 25, 2017, at the Hollywood Bowl.
Just over a week later Petty died of complications from cardiac arrest after an accidental prescription medication overdose.