10 Most Underrated Rock Ballads Of All Time
6. To Find a Friend - Tom Petty
Some of the biggest songs of Tom Petty's career have been based on ballads. As much as we've known him to be the rough and tumble heartland rocker, you can't really get over the beauty of a song like Free Fallin after you've heard it for the first time. And as Tom's marriage started to fade away, you can definitely hear his pain start to unfurl in song.
While the next album Echo was the fallout of his marriage, To Find a Friend is the moment where Tom starts to realize that it's not going to work out with his wife, as he tells a story of a nameless man who leaves his wife behind to make something of himself. This could have been just a random story that Tom made up on the spot, but you can't help but think of the traveling musician always running off to be bad while his wife is sitting at home.
It's not all sunshine and roses in the fallout though, with our protagonist coming home to see that his wife's boyfriend has taken over his home, leaving him to start back at zero and create a whole new life for himself. Considering this story is largely based on fiction, it's amazing how much a song like this parallels reality for the rock star lifestyle. It's flashy and it's fun from time to time, but most of all it's lonely.