Tom Petty and the Apocalypse: Part I

Way back in 1982, MTV was pretty new, and as the joke goes, “it still showed music videos.”

That year was big for me because I spent its entirety in Monterey, California attending a military language school.  It was also the year Tom Petty released the album Long After Dark, which contained the song, “You Got Lucky” (not something I found notable but for the fact that my roommate at the time was a big Tom Petty fan).  It’s odd the things I remember, and in this case it’s that my roommate had a girlfriend named Janine, and she absolutely hated that song because she thought it was so sexist.

But I digress. 

Here’s what I’m really getting at:  I think the video for this song is one of the most beautiful examples of that era’s disconnect with reality one might find in a lifetime – if one were to look for those things in music videos.  Back in those days it was the Wild West on that scene, and while some of you may not remember, there were people that actually thought the videos being made (and this one in particular) were a form of “art.”

And perhaps this was the case.  I mean, it was the ’80s after all, and I don’t think that decade ever really found itself. Maybe someone did think that overlaying a sexist song with a post-apocalyptic future was the right way to go. Look, Tom Petty actually thought the video was “groundbreaking” for crying out loud, and Mad Max-ish stuff was all the rage. The commies were still out in full-force, Reagan had only been in office for a year, and we still believed the world could end with the push of a button. Not the “send” button on a tweet either, but a real, live button.

But even taking these things into account, I have a hard time getting it – and I was actually alive at that time.

So that brings me to the real point here: historical context is a thing, and we’re really not very good at it.  While my BA is in History (go Silverswords!), I can’t claim any particular specialty.  But I still thought enough of it to major in it back in the ‘80s, and I still love it enough to cringe at how I see people treat it these days. Because of this, I’m hoping we can use this video as a springboard to imagining not just what in the world possessed Tom Petty and his band to come up with this video (we may never know), but also as a means to realize that the fact that someone thought it was a good idea at the time should make us think that we really don’t know the deeper motivations of the people of the past.

This is something about which I am writing another post, but I thought I’d get it started with this one. Stay tuned…