Highway Companion

Sound DNA

• Rock
• Roots Rock

• twangy
• laid-back
• southern

About

Tom Petty’s third and final solo album, <i>Highway Companion</i> is like the quiet clarity that settles in after a period of sadness and confusion. Former collaborator Jeff Lynne, who’d delivered numerous past Petty hits, returned once again for <i>Highway Companion</i>. But while <i>Full Moon Fever</i> and <i>Into the Great Wide Open</i> both leaned on a layered, big-studio sound, Lynne’s efforts on <i>Highway Companion</i> lend Petty’s songs an almost toylike simplicity. The arrangements are mostly acoustic, the lyrics neater and more folksy, and the open wounds of <i>Wildflowers</i>, <i>Echo</i>, and <i>The Last DJ</i> resolved into something more measured and straightforward. The America on display in <i>Highway Companion</i> here is one of postcards and folk art. There are brick houses and little bars (“Big Weekend”), rumpled seersuckers and dash-splattering mosquitoes (“Down South”), and long empty highways under a shining moon (“Night Driver”). You can almost hear the train whistle in the distance, or the ice cracking in the glass as the bartender pours your drink. As a result, <i>Highway Companion</i> is small, comforting, and somehow familiar-sounding. Still, like the clean blade forged in fire, you sense throughout that Petty’s calm is hard-earned. On “Square One,” he even says as much: “Square one, my slate is clear/Rest your head on me, my dear/It took a world of trouble, took a world of tears/It took a long time to get back here.”

via Apple Music

Tracklist

Credits