Speak To Me, Vol. 3
Tom Petty, thank you for writing “You Got Lucky.” I have always loved this song. It takes a melancholy emotion and turns it on its head. Instead of being a sad woe-is-me break-up song, it tells the lover off without really being rude. “Good love is hard to find” is both a warning and a cool observation.
The first time I heard this song, I loved it because of its keyboard part that sounds like chopsticks. It sounds funny, but what he is doing by playing those close intervals against a chord and then resolving them is creating tension. This song has a classic pop/rock form of verses in a minor key and chorus in the relative major. The verse builds with dark tension and by the time he gets to the chorus to repeat “good love is hard to find”, you find yourself cheering him on. Genius.
I wondered what it would sound like to slow this song WAY down and it turns out it’s pretty creepy.
Recorded live at Artichoke Music in Portand…