Songoftheday 8/18/16 - Well I know what's right I got just one life, in a world that keeps on pushin' me around but I'll stand my ground...

"I Won't Back Down" - Tom Petty
from the album Full Moon Fever (1989)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #12 (one week)
Weeks in the Top-40: 9

Today's song of the day comes from the Floridian mainstream rock artist Tom Petty, who by the late eighties was in a bit of a lull with his band the Heartbreakers. After their Let Me Up (I've Had Enough) album which produced the hit "Jammin' Me", which spend a month on top of Billboard's Rock radio chart, he joined up with legends Roy Orbison, Bob Dylan, George Harrison, and Jeff Lynne for the critically and financially successful Traveling Wilburys project. During that time, Petty also set off to record what would be his first "solo" album, Full Moon Fever. Even though Heartbreakers guitarist Mike Campbell would co-produce, play, and provide the studio for, and most of the rest of the band made appearances on, Petty set out to make this his "own" record. With fellow Wilbury Lynne also at the control board, the album didn't sound too different from Petty's work with the band. The first single from the set, "I Won't Back Down", shares the easy-going delivery and vague western influence of 1982's "You Got Lucky". With Howie Epstein from the band and George Harrison singing backup, it was like a mesh of his two previous works. And in the music video, Petty and Campbell are joined by Lynne and half the Beatles in Harrison and Ringo Starr...

"I Won't Back Down" became Petty's first "solo" and eleventh overall top-40 pop hit in July of 1989. The song spent five weeks on top of Billboard's Mainstream Rock chart, and even crossed over to #29 on their Modern Rock tally (his only charting hit on that format). Internationally, the single was big in Canada, reaching #5 on their singles chart, while going to #16 in Australia, and #28 in the UK.

The following year, the Full Moon Fever album would be nominated for Album of the Year, losing out to Bonnie Raitt's Nick Of Time comeback album.

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Here's Petty and the Heartbreakers performing "I Won't Back Down" in concert in 1994...

In 2000, Johnny Cash covered the song for his third American album, with Petty singing backup...

Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder sang it during the band's shows at the Gorge in 2006...

In 2011, Dia Frampton performed the song with coach Blake Shelton on The Voice, and the finalist hit the pop chart in America at #57 (and #67 in Canada)...

Ears were pricked when it was revealed that Petty and Lynne came to an agreement with British singer Sam Smith that gave them royalties to his breakthrough single "Stay With Me" because it inadvertently came too close to "I Won't Back Down". I really don't see it myself, listen and judge on your own, but gladly it was settled amicably...

Finally, we go back to Tom live in concert in 2001 for the America: A Tribute to Heroes fundraiser concert...

Up tomorrow: British post-punkster has got something for Archie's girl?