Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers: Into the Great Wide Open

Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers: Into the Great Wide Open
Song 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.