10 Most Underrated Songs (On Classic Albums)
7. All the Wrong Reasons - Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
At the end of the 80's, Tom Petty seemed to be reaching an unheard-of creative peak. Long after his initial success with Damn the Torpedoes, Petty's first solo album Full Moon Fever gave him countless hits with "Free Fallin" and "I Won't Back Down." It ended up working so well that Petty asks producer and ELO leader Jeff Lynne to produce the Heartbreakers' next record, which yielded even bigger hits with "Learning to Fly" and the title track "Into the Great Wide Open."
The record has some of Petty's most straightforward writing, but the joy wasn't always felt by the rest of the guys. In particular, "All the Wrong Reasons" got a hell of a slogging in the rehearsal room, with some band members calling it a blatant re-do of "Free Fallin." That criticism is certainly warranted given the similar guitar riff and key, but this song has a different kind of edge to it.
The whole track divulges into the lives of people who are down on their luck and go down a dark path to make ends meet, which makes the happy sounding tune all the more heart-wrenching. It's not going to replace the classic status of "Free Fallin," but "All The Wrong Reasons" fleshes out its story and may even surpass its parent song in a few respects.