Saturday, December 13, 2025

Ways To Be Wicked - Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers

Ways To Be Wicked - Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
3:26
Playback, 1995 [recorded 1987]
Written by Tom Petty and Mike Campbell

This is an outtake from the Let Me Up (I've Had Enough) sessions.  The narrator of this song, like that of so many old blues classics, has a low-down woman who knows just how to hurt him.  She knows so many ways to be wicked, but nothing about love.  The man knows he can take it, but she's just in it to hurt him.  "Yeah those cobra eyes / Light with a smile / You take pride / In that devil down inside."  It's a solid, no-frills rocker, and Petty sings it with conviction and attitude.  But the song never turns the corner.  There's no twist or final insight; I'm left wondering why the narrator is with this devil of a woman.  Also, while I know Petty's a hit machine with legions of fans, to me the majority of his material has a country-rock sameness to it.

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