10 Great Songs On Otherwise Terrible Albums

For all of the road work he paved in the early '80s, Tom Petty felt pretty weather beaten by the end of the decade. Though he was about to embark on a solo run for the ages with songs like Free Fallin, Let Me Up I've Had Enough has been known as a stop gap for Petty, almost like a last hoorah for the classic heartland rock he was known for. Aside from a few by the numbers rockers though, he had one more golden song with Runaway Trains.

Then again, you aren't going to mistake this for coming out in any other decade, with synthesizer sounds that pretty much have the year 1987 pre-stamped on them. When you peel back the layers of the song though, this is one of the most jaded love ballads Petty had ever penned at this point, as he tells the tale of a lonesome traveler going from one city to the next, hoping that his old flame doesn't haunt his dreams anymore.

Considering the gold that they had on their hands here, it's a wonder why they went with the more forgettable songs like Jammin Me to actually promote the record. Even though Runaway Trains might sound like a product of its time, the melody on here has held onto that power as time has gone on.