10 Legendary Songs That Were Completely Improvised

As Tom Petty would have told you, his songs weren't really meant to do a whole lot of jamming. His heroes were always about the power of the 3 minute single, and he was a firm believer of the 'don't bore us, get to the chorus' style of songwriting. During the Damn the Torpedoes sessions though, he ended up recording one of his greatest songs without even thinking about where the chorus would go.

In between recordings of songs like Refugee and Here Comes My Girl, Even the Losers still had yet to be completed, with Petty only writing the verses of the song. By the time they were actually set to record it, Petty had nothing and just decided to go ahead anyway, not having a clue what he was going to do. In a spur of the moment decision, Tom just randomly filled in the lyrics when they were tracking the song, coming up with the line about losers getting lucky sometimes.

What's even crazier is just how well that one line ended up tying the song together. Even though the character in this song is revisiting an old flame and thinking that it was too good to last, the chorus gives him a little bit hope that his chances might not be over after all. This was not the way it was supposed to go, and yet the Heartbreakers turned this little gem of an idea into one of the greatest heartland rock songs ever made. You can be writing songs for years, but sometimes the stars align in just the right way to give you the perfect line.