“Little Girl Blues”
Tom Petty
Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers
1976 — “Be a good little girl, and get what you want”
((( imaginary lover )))
dave hogerty
Everything would be wonderful, Betsy used to tell her friends, if she could just talk to Tom. JUST OVER THE TELEPHONE.
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.”
“American Girl”
Tom Petty
Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers
1976 — “She could hear the cars roll by out on 441, Like waves crashing on the beach.”
((( love song )))
alligator file
The Heartbreakers’ first album was released in 1976, soon after they moved to Los Angeles, where the small-town, Gainesville, Florida boy was recognized for his world class talent.
HOLLYWOOD SWINGIN’
Success came fast for Tom Petty when he left Gainesville for fame and fortune in Los Angeles, California. Not even Tom expected to be living his dream so soon. But he was.
1978 — FM Tom Petty made a brief appearance in the movie FM, taking part, as himself, in an on-air interview at the Los Angeles radio station who’s staff is fighting for artistic freedom, against a bottom-line, corporate take over. The film is more dramatic, but similar to WKRP in Cincinnati, a popular television sitcom at the same time.
BOUND FOR GAINESVILLE — Also appearing in FM were Jimmy Buffett, and Linda Ronstadt, performing in the movie’s concert finale, including Ronstadt with a small speaking role. All three, Tom Petty, Linda Ronstadt, and Jimmy Buffett would play shows, two years later (1980) in Gainesville.
Coming Home
It had been five years since Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers had left Gainesville, and in that time the band had released three record’s including Damn the Torpedos the five years since he left Gainesville, Tom Petty had gone from playing the North Florida backwoods, to arenas and stadiums around the world. Now, he was returning to play the University of Florida’s Homecoming. Everyone was looking forward to it.
wednesday
october 7, 1981
vol 75 no 32
TOM PETTY (HOMECOMING 1981)
•EARL PETTY (FATHER KNOWS BEST)
Meet Earl, Tom’s father, still living in the small NW Gainesville house where Tom learned to play.
•LITTLE GIRL BLUES (DREAM LOVER)
•YOU GOT LUCKY (TWO FRONT ROW TICKETS)
•MUDCRUTCH (THE HOT SHIT LOCAL BAND)
Before Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers, Petty’s band was called Mudcrutch, and he was in the middle of a Southern Rock revolution, that included the Allman Brothers, Lynyrd Skynyrd, The Outlaws, Sea Level, The Atlanta Rhythm Section, Blackfoot, The Dixie Dregs … All the best in North Florida and Georgia, not to mention Gainesvillians Don Felder of the Eagles, and Stephen Stills of Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young.
•HALLOWEEN BALL — UF’S NOTORIOUS NIGHT OF INSIDIOUS TEMPTATION
Tom Petty (Mudcrutch) Legendary was Mudcrutch’s performance at the Second Annual Halloween Ball in 1971, Midnight to Sunrise, a show that set the standard for all Halloween Balls to follow, and high on the list of all University of Florida legend and lore.
tuesday
september 24, 1912
vol. 1 no. 1
• IN THE BEGINNING (Vol.1 No.1)
• florida history (1912-1983)
• WELCOME TO GAINESVILLE
Much more than just another sleepy, little, North Florida town.
New Student Edition 1981
• OPINION (Letters To The Editor)
• CONVENIENCE (Is In The Eye of The Beholder)
• 100 THINGS TO DO (IN GAINESVILLE)
• FOOTBALL ALMIGHTY
• GATOR GROWL (HOMECOMING)
Gainesville Green (“I’d like to fertilize her buds”)
• TOM PETTY (Coming Home)
• MUSIC (The Sound of Higher Education)
• HALLOWEEN BALL
• PREACHERS (On The Green)
• Murphree’s Opening Message (alt.)
• Naked Launch (Pretty As A Florida Picture)
• Diamond Teeth Mary (Singing With The Devil’s)
• MOVIES (Pop Culture of The Day)
