10 Terrible Songs By Perfect Rock Bands
8. Zombie Zoo - Tom Petty
The road to Tom Petty’s solo record was a long time coming. He had seemed like a solo act for most of his career, but every album he released until this point still had major contributions from the other Heartbreakers, until Jeff Lynne let him run wild and do whatever he wanted. While that led to classics like Free Fallin and I Won’t Back Down, even Petty admitted that the closing track was far from the best he had.
Having more of a comedic tone, Zombie Zoo is a more goofy affair than what Tom was probably intending, talking about some girl who just seems to work a meaningless job day by day and walking around like a walking zombie every day. Some of the lines get a chuckle and guest star Roy Orbison sings well enough, but it feels more like a joke than a proper ending to the album, making the other songs feel a bit lackluster by comparison.
Considering a legend worked on it though, this feels more like a Traveling Wilburys B-side that somehow managed its way onto the proper track listing of the album. Since Tom had written an amazing song around this time called Waiting for Tonight that would surface years later, how was this the one that made the cut?