Tuesday January 5, 2021 “Leave Virginia Alone” Tom Petty
This ‘new’ Tom Petty song has been getting a lot of radio airplay recently but it turns out it was already a number one hit in Canada for Rod Stewart...in 1995...really.
Included on the posthumously released 2020 Tom Petty album/CD Wildflowers and All the Rest this song was dropped from the original Wildflowers album in 1995 because Petty said it felt too much like one of his other songs (“Mary Jane’s Last Dance”?). As the story goes the song was then given to Rod Stewart who reluctantly recorded the tune which turned out to be a fairly decent international hit for him, twenty-five years ago.
Born and raised in northern Florida, Tom Petty began playing music while he was still in high school. At the age of 17, he dropped out of school to join the band Mudcrutch, which also featured guitarist Mike Campbell and keyboardist Benmont Tench who would both become Heartbreakers and join Petty for a long and successful career that would cover more than forty years, thirteen albums, twenty eight singles and become members of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.
Petty would have a very significant solo career as well as be a member of the Travelling Wilburys which would included Bob Dylan, George Harrison, Jeff Lynne and Roy Orbison.
Jangly guitars, nice pop melody, the exact formula that always works for me, dark lyrics aside.
Stay safe and well...and be like Virginia, “she finds good where nobody could”.
Well they chased her down the alley
And over the hill to steal her will
She was hot as Georgia asphalt
When the "A" crowd came to adore her brain
So leave Virginia alone
Leave Virginia alone
She's not like you and me
She's not like you and me
You should've seen her back in the city
Poetry and jewels, broke all the rules
She was high as a Georgia pine tree
Makeup and pills, overdue bills
So leave Virginia alone
Leave Virginia alone
She's not like you and me
She's not like you and me
Some sunny day when the hands of time
Have had their way
You'll understand why it was so hard to run away
She's a loser, she's a forgiver
And she still finds good, where no one could
You ought to want her more than money
Cadillacs and rust, diamonds and dust
So leave Virginia alone
Leave Virginia alone
She's not like you and me
She's not like you and me
Yeah, leave Virginia alone
Leave Virginia alone
She's not like you and me
She's not like you and me