Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers: Into the Great Wide OpenSong released September 9, 1991
Music Video
DVD
B+
Petty's best video since "You Got Lucky" is notable for several things:
- It returns to the "storybook" motif, and indeed it is, at just under seven minutes, a life story, cliched but all the more effective because of its tropes;
- It features recognizable actors, from Johnny Depp and Faye Dunaway to a blink-and-you'll-miss-him Matt LeBlanc at the end;
- It's about rock & roll, with Petty cast as both the humble "roadie named Bart" and a Godlike giant looking down on this;
- It references both Elvis Presley and Demi Moore;
- Petty's rhymes and his slow, wry delivery mesh well;
- Backdraft and Thelma & Louise are on a movie marquee, rooting this in the early '90s as much as the fashions do;
- There's a puckish sense of humor mixed with Eddie Rebel's rise & fall, as if the message is "This is just life, nothing serious";
- And, in a different way than "Free Falling," it's a very Los-Angeles video.
So why not an A- or higher? I guess because, unlike Squeeze's "Hourglass," the video is afraid to just let itself go entirely. Like Eddie, it's holding something back.
