Little Girl Blues
Tom Petty
“If you be a good little girl, you’ll get what you want.”
((( Dream Lover )))
dave hogerty
Everything would be wonderful, Betsy used to tell her friends, if she could just talk to Tom, even if it was on the phone.
Over the edge in love
By Diane Julin
Alligator Staff Writer
Betsy Marcus is the first to admit she is “obsessed” with Tom Petty. She is absolutely over the edge, gone crazy, in love.
The day she found out Tom was married — a secret he kept from the public until recently — she jumped up and down on his picture screaming’ “hypocrite, hypocrite.”
She’s forgiven him though, for leading her on. Just get her on the subject of the blond rock ‘n’ roll superstar and you’d swear she’s talking too fast to get a breath between the words.
She even looked up Tom’s father Earl, who lives in Gainesville, and now she calls him regularly long distance from Orlando.
Everything would be wonderful, she used to tell her friends, if she could just talk to Tom. Just over the telephone.
One night while visiting Earl, the 16-year-old Winter Park high school student with dimples and braces had her dream come true.
Tom called, and Earl put her on the phone.
A few minutes later it was over and Betsy was crying. Her friends, Sherry and Debbie, thought they were tears of happiness.
Nope. She was full of regrets.
“I’ve told my friends I’d just like to talk to him over the phone and that would be enough,” she said, after the tears had let up a little.
But then I talked to him and it wasn’t enough.”
Betsy said she’s dreamed about meeting Tom and having him fall in love with her. “But that’s not a fantasy I indulge in,” she said, matter of factly. “I know I’m just one of millions like me, and there’s no way I’ll ever be special to Tom.” Though Tom has been special to Betsy ever since she bought the Heartbreakers’ first album in January 1980. It was the picture of him on the cover in a black jacket that caught her eye.’
He looks like this little punk,”‘ Betsy said.
Before long, she’d bought the rest of the Heartbreakers’ albums. Then she was into bootlegs, singles, posters, magazine articles, buttons… she was hooked. And in love.
“It just seems like Tom could be somebody from my high school. He seems so much like me. He expresses so many feelings (in his songs) that I’ve felt.”
Betsy was “devastated” when she found out Tom had a wife (Jane, a Gainesville girl who lived in the neighborhood). Some of the songs are hard to listen to now, said Betsy. because she knows Tom wrote them for “her.”
But if Tom is happy being married: then Betsy says she’s happy for him. If she can’t have him, at least she can have his music.
“The music is magic,” Betsy said. “It should be enough for anybody.”
—30—
American Girl
Tom Petty
1976 — “Like waves crashing on the beach, she could hear the cars roll by out on 441.”
((( looking for love )))
Shelter RecordsCalifornia Dreaming
1976 — Soon after moving to Los Angeles, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers released their first record, and spread their Gainesville sound far beyond North Florida. Petty’s place in Southern Rock was well rooted, but it was in California, where he created a sound of his own.
Miami Disco
1977 — The Australian brothers were living in Miami (Star Island) when their Saturday Night Fever soundtrack dominated radio and discos across America, Gainesville included.
Hollywood Swingin’
1978 — Soon after being featured in FM, the radio station comedy, Tom Petty, Linda Ronstadt, and Jimmy Buffett would play shows at the University of Florida. For Petty’s part in FM, he appeared (as himself) doing an on-air interview at QSKY Los Angeles, a struggling radio station fighting for artistic freedom, and to survive a corporate takeover. The movie is similar to the popular 1970s, television sitcom, WKRP in Cincinnati.
1979 — Linda Ronstadt w/ Livingston Taylor, and the Eagles w/ Jimmy Buffett playing Florida Field, UF’s 60,000-seat football stadium, were highlights of a year that wasn’t without many others.
1980 — Linda Ronstadt w/ Livingston Taylor, and the Eagles w/ Jimmy Buffett playing Florida Field, UF’s 60,000-seat football stadium, were highlights of a year that wasn’t without many others.
wednesday
october 7, 1981
vol 75 no 32
“YOU GOT LUCKY” (TWO TICKETS TO TOM PETTY PARADISE)
TOM PETTY HOMECOMING ’81 (FATHER KNOWS BEST)
Tom Petty’s dad still lived in the same, small NE Gainesville house his Rock N Roll star son called home, and that year was a most memorable Homecoming.
MUDCRUTCH (BEFORE THE HEARTBREAKERS)
At the Second Annual Halloween Festival (1971), Gainesville’s Tom Petty and his band Mudcrutch played a legendary midnight to sunrise set that changed the name of the Halloween “Festival” into the Halloween “Ball.”
“A LITTLE GIRL’S BLUES” (TOM’S LONG DISTANCE LOVER)
University Avenue
BLUES AT NIGHT
HOMEGROWN ROCK N ROLL
MUDDY WATERS (GAINESVILLE LOVE STORY)
southbound
Songs of the North Florida South
ALLMAN BROTHERS (FLORIDA NATIVES)
@ THE BANDSHELL
SEA LEVEL (CHUCK LEAVELL)
THE DIXIE DREGS (SOUTHERN FUSION)
COWBOY
STEVE FORBERT
DICKEY BETTS
EAGLES w/ JIMMY BUFFETT
FRANK ZAPPA (KISS MY ASS / HALLOWEEN 1979)
PAT BENATAR (@ THE FLORIDA GYM)
TALKING HEADS (POST PUNK AT THE BANDSHELL)
road trips
BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN (TICKET QUEST)
THE POLICE (ROADTRIP TO TOMMORROW)
DIRE STRAITS (VINNY’S NIGHT IN JACKSONVILLE)
ROLLING STONES (TANGERINE BOWL)
movies
THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW
THE MOVIE WITHOUT AN END
HALLOWEEN BALL
UF’S NIGHT OF INSIDIOUS TEMPTATION
Ten Years After, Tom Petty’s performance at the Second Annual Halloween Ball in 1971 is legendary. Tom and his band (Mudcrutch), took the stage at Midnight, and played ’til dawn. He had set the standard for all Halloween Balls to come. Those, that for 10 years have added to UF’s most notorious lore.