Kings Highway

The Tom Petty Project

Like Learning To Fly, it’s a song that the band would change the arrangement of and when Paul Zollo mentions the acoustic version on the Playback boxset, Tom responds that “It’ll work just about any way you want to play it.” He also goes on to say “It was a tricky one to record. We went through a few changes trying to get the track to sound the way we wanted.”

I think that “the Kings Highway” here isn’t at all a reference to the road that runs through Brooklyn, New York. If I had to guess, that was just one of Tom’s little flashes of genius. I’d bet that he had “and we’ll ride down the …something… highway” and toyed with different words to slot in there. A lesser writer could have gone with "wide highway", or "long highway", or "cold highway" or some type of adjective, but using “King’s highway” reinforces that idea of better, or more, or grander. It’s a great little bit of writing.

Today’s episode covers the second track from "Into The Great Wide Open", Kings Highway.

You can listen to the song here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-h3gXKArWyw

Here's a great live, full band arrangement from the Into The Great Wide Open tour: https://youtu.be/OdqDeBzqlP0

If you want to hear the acoustic version that Tom and Paul Zollo were talking about in Conversations With Tom Petty, you can find it here: https://youtu.be/wM-sHhnvZeM

And to see a fantastic behind the scenes rehearsal from the Dogs With Wings tour, check this out (Howie's harmonies are stunning): https://youtu.be/AnMT-46q3mo

The Tom Petty Project is a proud member of The Deep Dive Podcast Network, which you can find on Twitter: https://twitter.com/deepdivepodnet

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All music, including the theme song, provided by my very best friend Randy Woods. Check him out at https://www.randywoodsband.com/

Logo provided Ed Booth, who you can find here: https://edboothart.com/

The Tom Petty Project is not affiliated with the Tom Petty estate in any way and when you’re looking for Tom’s music, please visit the official YouTube channel first and go to tompetty.com for official merchandise.

A last very special thanks to Paul Zollo. Without his book, Conversations with Tom Petty, this podcast wouldn't be nearly as much fun to research.

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