what tom pettys music ment to those with mental illness

Tom Picayune performs with the Heartbreakers in Kingdom of belgium in 1992. Gie Knaeps/Getty Images hide explanation

toggle caption

Gie Knaeps/Getty Images

Tom Petty performs with the Heartbreakers in Kingdom of belgium in 1992.

Gie Knaeps/Getty Images

This story is role of American Anthem, a yearlong serial on songs that rouse, unite, celebrate and telephone call to action. Find more at NPR.org/Anthem.

Editor'southward note: This story includes discussions of depression, addiction and suicide.

Of all his many, many hit songs, the one that Tom Piffling said had the most direct and powerful impact on his fans was "I Won't Back Down."

Well, I won't back downwardly
No, I won't back down
You can stand me up at the gates of hell
But I won't dorsum downwards

The song was released in 1989 on Petty'southward solo album Full Moon Fever. The artist told interviewers that people would come upwards to him all the time, or would write to him, sharing stories of how this vocal — with its plainspoken bulletin of resilience and empowerment — helped steer them through difficult times.

"He told me that he heard, or read somewhere, that it brought a girl out of a coma," recalls his widow, Dana Petty. "It was her favorite song and they played it and she came out of a coma, which blew his listen."

"Information technology's a very simple song, but a very powerful vocal," says Petty's lifelong bandmate, guitarist Mike Campbell. "It'due south as deep as yous want to get. That was one of Tom's talents, that he could say a lot with very few words."

Footling died of an accidental drug overdose in 2017, at historic period 66.

"A lot of people ask me what was Tom really like," Campbell says. "And that's him. He didn't back downwards. ... He stood up to everybody. Nobody told him what to do."

"He had a lot of fight in him," Dana Petty agrees.

Over the 20 years that Dana went on the road with Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, "I Won't Back Down" was a fixture. "They played that every night," she says. "Tommy never got tired of that one, considering of the audience response."

There were times, she remembers, when the tens of thousands of fans singing along were so loud they would drown out the ring. "It'southward a song that touches everyone in their own way," she says. "You could see that they were all singing about their lives every night. And it's a pretty amazing thing to witness."

The song's universal appeal stems from its simplicity, says Tom Petty'south daughter Adria Piffling. "It'south similar a mantra. It keeps edifice you up, stronger, stronger, stronger. Every word of the vocal is culminating in more tenacity."

Her younger sister, Annakim Violette, adds, "Anyone that's always [sung] that came out of a really dark identify into a brighter one. It gave them strength. That'due south why information technology's an anthem. It'south an anthem for finding strength."

YouTube

Your 'I Won't Back Downward' Stories

We asked NPR listeners to tell us how "I Won't Back Down" has inspired them every bit a personal anthem, and more than 700 people responded. Here are some of those stories, which accept been lightly edited and condensed. For more on the history of "I Won't Back Downward," listen to the full radio story at the sound link.

Ashley Ellis
Buffalo, N.Y.

Ashley Ellis has lyrics from "I Won't Back Down" tattooed on her shoulder bract. Courtesy of Ashley Ellis hide caption

toggle caption

Courtesy of Ashley Ellis

Ashley Ellis has lyrics from "I Won't Dorsum Down" tattooed on her shoulder blade.

Courtesy of Ashley Ellis

Throughout my life, from the time I was a kid, I lived and breathed Tom Petty's music. As I got older and began suffering from depression, anxiety and cocky-harm, his music became the light that guided my mode, especially "I Won't Back Down." Every concert I attended, he would play that song more beautifully than I e'er could imagine, and I would stand there and enjoy in the music and allow it have me away from all the sadness I felt at that moment. Post-obit his death, I knew I wanted a part of his music to be with me forever, and I got the well-nigh important quote of my life tattooed: "You lot can stand up me upwardly at the gates of Hell, merely I won't back down."

Vallerie Drorbaugh
Springfield, Neb.

Vallerie Drorbaugh has her mantra printed above a doorway in her abode. Courtesy of Vallerie Drorbraugh hide caption

toggle caption

Courtesy of Vallerie Drorbraugh

When I was preparing to have intensive spine surgery, a friend advised me to have a prayer or mantra ready for when it was fourth dimension to effort to walk, because it would be very painful, very challenging. The lifelong Niggling fan that I am (my habitation is named Dreamville), I of course chose "I Won't Back Downwards." My surgeon played it for me as I was going under anesthetic before the seven-hour surgery, and I played it during recovery to walk to, my goal being to walk to the rhythm as I walked around my staircase. I did recover, my spine fused, and I was stronger than always and went back to work afterward a few months.

Shortly after returning to work, I was diagnosed with breast cancer. I will never forget going to the nursing abode with my brother to tell my 89-year-one-time mother that I had cancer. We sat outside in the courtyard. I told her I was about to take a double mastectomy, and we wouldn't know my prognosis until the results from the surgery came in. I said, " Mom, yous know what a Tom Footling fan I've been all my life? Well, I used this song to get me through the pain and recovery from the spine surgery, and it's gonna go me through this, too." And I played "I Won't Dorsum Down" for her. I held information technology upwards to her ear and she and my brother and I only sabbatum with tears in our eyes and listened. She listened to the whole thing, sitting there in the courtyard. It was epic.

My next ii surgeons played "I Won't Back Down" for me. On April 12, 2019, it was seven years since I was diagnosed, and I am cancer-gratis.

Erica Kufus
New Richmond, Wis.

Erica Kufus with her male parent, Bradley Bundgaard, at her loftier school graduation in 2000. Courtesy of Erica Kufus hibernate caption

toggle caption

Courtesy of Erica Kufus

Erica Kufus with her begetter, Bradley Bundgaard, at her high school graduation in 2000.

Courtesy of Erica Kufus

When I was 5, my parents divorced. My dad would come option me up on the weekends and nosotros would get for a drive in the country, listening to Tom Petty (and of course this song) loud with the windows down in his erstwhile wood-console van, or in after years, his red Ford Probe. We would go lost then find our style out of backroads. It was and then much fun! I stayed a Tom Petty fan ever since.

When I was xxx, my dad died by suicide with a gunshot through his chest. My husband, my ane-twelvemonth-old girl and I were the terminal to leave the funeral home. Equally we began driving, this vocal began to play. Information technology wasn't sad, it was an anthem. I felt at peace. I felt freaked out this coincidence happened, simply the car was so quiet every bit nosotros all listened without saying a word. The line "There ain't no easy way out" took on a new meaning. I knew he had been ill with mental illness and addiction for many years and suffered at the terminate of his life with these battles. Suicide is an intensely sad option to get out of this broken globe, but man, at that place was no easy mode out.

Sara Register
Marietta, Ga.

Sara Register with her girl, Rhiannon, at a Tom Piffling concert at Red Rocks, Colo., during his final bout in 2017. A huge rainstorm soaked the crowd. Courtesy of Sara Register hide caption

toggle caption

Courtesy of Sara Register

Sara Register with her daughter, Rhiannon, at a Tom Trivial concert at Red Rocks, Colo., during his concluding tour in 2017. A huge rainstorm soaked the crowd.

Courtesy of Sara Annals

Several years ago, after a harrowing 48 hours in which her house burned downward and she finalized her divorce, Sara drove across the country with her immature daughter.

We put thousands of miles on my vehicle, and I was happiest when there was a black shimmering strip of highway extending from my hood to the far horizon coupled with endless blue skies. The dizzying enormity of our country made my previous issues feel so small. And always, while driving exterior cellphone range and social media'due south attain, there was Tom Little. I take a lot of favorite songs of his that are lesser known, merely there is no greater feeling than crossing the plains of South Dakota, window down, belting "I Won't Back Downwardly." Because I wouldn't. I didn't let being alone continue me from seeing the places I had always dreamed of.

When I slept once past myself on the side of a mountain, completely sure that a cougar was going to come by and snack on me, I sang that song from the safety of my hammock. And when I saw [Petty] live for the 2d and last time at Red Rocks a few months earlier he passed, I sang simply as loudly, surrounded by several thousand boyfriend fans belting with the same force that I did. There really never had been an like shooting fish in a barrel mode out of what I had gone through. But I made it.

Aaron Thomas
Clarksburg, Md.

Aaron Thomas Courtesy of Aaron Thomas hide caption

toggle explanation

Courtesy of Aaron Thomas

Aaron Thomas

Courtesy of Aaron Thomas

I played this vocal in the midst of dealing with a shut friend's suicide and having to figure out how to officiate his funeral with a cleaved center (I'thou a government minister). My wife and I listened to this vocal on a cross-country trip together later on I lost my job and we had to movement in with my parents for a time. Our worship leader occasionally breaks out in this song prior to Sunday service just to entertain me. If there's a fourth dimension I need to be reminded of promise, warmth, good memories, God, or those I honey: This is the vocal. Every bit a Christian, I believe some of our principles are to bring promise to the hopeless and strength to the weak. If there was ever a song to sum upwards these principles, it's "I Won't Back Down." It'due south the anthem of my life.

Kelli Sexton
Mountain View, Calif.

Kelli Sexton (left) with her sister, Jamie Stauffer, at Parris Island, S.C., on the twenty-four hours Sexton graduated from Marine Corps boot army camp. Courtesy of Kelli Sexton hide caption

toggle explanation

Courtesy of Kelli Sexton

Kelli Sexton (left) with her sister, Jamie Stauffer, at Parris Island, Southward.C., on the day Sexton graduated from Marine Corps kicking army camp.

Courtesy of Kelli Sexton

When I was in high school, I decided to enlist in the Marine Corps. Equally the time got closer for me to leave for boot army camp, my fear of the unknown was rising. A recruiter asked me if I had an anthem, and the stand-your-ground lyrics of "I Won't Back Down" immediately came to mind. "I Won't Back Down" became my mantra, and I used the lyrics to reassure myself that I would get through the rigors of training. To this day, I requite Tom Niggling credit for getting me through what I considered to be my toughest challenge at the fourth dimension. The lyrics non only encouraged me to keep going, [they] gave me a mental escape to the happy times at abode with family.

Niki Vonderwell
Mannheim, Frg

The phrase "I won't back down" is engraved on the hymeneals rings of Niki Vonderwell and her married man, Matthias Luft. Courtesy of Niki Vonderwell hide caption

toggle caption

Courtesy of Niki Vonderwell

The phrase "I won't dorsum down" is engraved on the hymeneals rings of Niki Vonderwell and her married man, Matthias Luft.

Courtesy of Niki Vonderwell

Niki is from Ohio. In 2011, at a modest IT security briefing in Dayton, she met a German language man who — six years subsequently — would become her husband:

I heard his vox before I saw him, and I held my jiff as he made his way upwardly the stairs while telling some joke to his colleagues. When I saw him, I couldn't formulate a single thought in my encephalon other than "Wow!" We spent the residuum of the day flirting, and by the second day I had volunteered to drive him on an errand he needed to run. We had gotten to know a little nearly each other the day earlier, merely my truthful exam of compatibility was coming: Did he know Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, and if then, what did he call up? I explained every bit we got in the motorcar this was my favorite ring in the whole world. I associated every big milestone in my life (and some small-scale ones) with a different song from the band (no pressure, right?). He had never heard of them, only gamely asked to hear a few songs while we drove. I played "I Won't Back Down" beginning, and he was hooked thereafter.

He flew dorsum to Deutschland the next mean solar day, and we decided a week or so later to try long-distance dating. For 2 i/2 years, we played "I Won't Dorsum Down" when the distance got to be too much and nosotros were missing each other like crazy. It was a reminder that no affair what the statistics said virtually long-distance relationships, we could make it work. We would not back downwardly from what was important to united states of america: our relationship. I moved to Frg eventually, and two years agone he proposed. When I said yeah, he asked how I felt well-nigh engraving our rings with "I Won't Dorsum Down" and making it our first dance. Information technology was perfect. The week after our wedding ceremony, we flew to London for the Heartbreakers' only European stop in 2017. Of course they played "I Won't Back Down." I call up swaying dorsum and forth with my husband in this beatific moment, thinking how amazing information technology was to have come full circle, in a way. Tom Piddling died just over ii months later.

Carla Corpancho
Beaverton, Ore.

Carla moved to the U.Due south. from her domicile state of Peru in 2001. Her sister used to play this song all the time back in Lima, and it has special significant for her now, in this land.

I honey that vocal. It's my song. I am an immigrant, and fifty-fifty later on being treated horribly because I wait different and because I have an accent, I won't back downwards. I won't give up. I volition never lower my head in front end of anyone. Never. This song speaks to me and gives me the energy to fight and never give up. I don't care how many times people call me names and say, "You don't even speak English," I won't dorsum down. I deserve a good life, and I sing this song from the depth of my heart.

Jim Benes
Lincoln, Neb.

Jim Benes as a Coast Guard air crew member on a rescue helicopter in 2005. Courtesy of Jim Benes hide caption

toggle caption

Courtesy of Jim Benes

Jim Benes equally a Coast Guard air crew member on a rescue helicopter in 2005.

Courtesy of Jim Benes

Who hasn't felt beaten, bruised and battered, turned on the radio and belted this tune at the summit of their range while driving down a road?

I fell in love with this song and a lot of Tom Petty songs when I joined the U.South. Coast Baby-sit. I was stationed on a river boat in Iowa, and I was a closeted gay kid from Nebraska. I felt actually out of place, and I felt like I was lost, wondering what I had done, if I had made a mistake. I joined the military immediately following 9/11, as an impulsive response to a surge of patriotism and the pull to do something. Like all proficient moments when I've gone out on a limb, joining the Coast Guard turned out to be one of the all-time decisions I've ever made.

Tom's Niggling's music served as a soundtrack to these tough times, and got me through a lot of seemingly hopeless personal moments as I struggled with my sexuality in a "don't inquire, don't tell" military service. I'one thousand happy that this policy is no longer in place.

Monica Owings
Canton, Ga.

Monica Owings in her garden. Courtesy of Monica Owings hide caption

toggle caption

Courtesy of Monica Owings

Monica Owings in her garden.

Courtesy of Monica Owings

As an introvert who fought through deep depression and crippling anxiety, I had to fight a constant internal battle invisible to those around me. Music was an elixir, and specifically Tom Piffling music. At xxx, I had a breakdown of sorts. My depression and anxiety were consuming me. Although I had a successful career, what internal force information technology took to boxing the demons of the depression became insurmountable. I distinctly remember waking up and knowing I simply couldn't go on. I didn't desire this feeling to continue; I'd rather be dead. The alert clock went off, and I heard Tom Petty sing, "They can stand up me upwards at the gates of hell and I won't back down." In that very moment, I made a choice. The choice to carry on and live.

Over my lifetime, every bit I've lived with chronic depression, this song has go an anthem of sorts for me. Tom Petty'due south lyrics have fueled my desire to choose life. The words Tom Petty wrote literally made the divergence in me living or dying. They came on the radio that morning time at that moment, and because they did, I'chiliad hither today writing this. Many of Tom Piffling's songs were inspirational to me, merely I will remain forever grateful to a man I'll never know who saved my life.

Heather Williams
Los Angeles

Heather Williams at a Los Angeles teachers' strike action in January. Courtesy of Heather Williams hide caption

toggle caption

Courtesy of Heather Williams

Heather Williams at a Los Angeles teachers' strike action in Jan.

Courtesy of Heather Williams

In 2008, Heather was at a conference of grassroots labor activists in Dearborn, Mich., when steelworkers were on strike nearby.

As a role of the conference, we were encouraged to get out the hotel and go back up the hit steelworkers. It was freezing common cold exterior, so cold that the picketers had started fires in ii trash barrels. The picket line didn't take many people on it when nosotros arrived on our bus. Plainly the strike had been going on for nearly two years and was struggling. Our grouping of conference attendees swelled the line to over 100. The mood instantly improved. Nosotros began quietly marching on the picket line. The weather was miserable. After a few minutes of this, a human pulled up in a pickup truck alongside the picket line. We didn't know if he was at that place to be supportive or to abuse us. He hung his caput out the window and yelled "Hey!" and then cranked his stereo. "I Won't Back Down" started playing. He never got out of his truck, but put the song on repeat. It played four or five more times. Everyone started singing. Information technology was really wonderful. I'll never forget it.

Melissa Hughes
Olympia, Wash.

Melissa Hughes (center) with her sisters Michelle Feist (left) and Jessica Feist (right) at a Tom Petty concert in Seattle in August 2017. Courtesy of Melissa Hughes hide caption

toggle caption

Courtesy of Melissa Hughes

Melissa Hughes (center) with her sisters Michelle Feist (left) and Jessica Feist (right) at a Tom Footling concert in Seattle in August 2017.

Courtesy of Melissa Hughes

"I Won't Back Down" is a battle cry, an canticle with lyrics that grasp directly to the heart. Information technology is a song for any struggle.

When I hear the starting time few strums, I'chiliad instantly transported back in time. Suddenly I'thou xi in my dad's Ford Ranger on the way to soccer do. I was a nervous kid. Fifty-fifty with my dad being the best pre-game motivational speaker to convince a shy, well-mannered 11-yr-onetime to become amped, information technology wasn't enough to get my head in the game. My dad would say, "Melissa, y'all've got to get mad! Run similar you're aroused."

Cue Footling on vocals, Campbell on guitar, and the lines then etched on my heart, "You can stand up me up at the gates of hell, but I won't dorsum downward." I'd headbang forth, strapping my shinguards in place, mentally preparing as if going into battle. I could feel it, hit repeat, then again, heart racing, deep inhales, equally centering as a meditation, as holy equally a prayer. Information technology was the quintessential mantra that made me dash out with pride onto every field. It was the method for dealing with any insurmountable obstacle. It provided the fortitude to proceed trying.

Petty's words gave me the grit I needed to make information technology through college as the starting time daughter in my family unit ever to do so. Currently, I climb mountains. I lug my heavy pack along river bends and cliff faces, and all over the hills I hear, "No, I'll stand my ground, won't be turned around."

Jason Enright
Scottsdale, Ariz.

Jason Enright and his son, Connor, meeting Tom Petty on his tour bus in June 2013, with the guitar Jason made for Lilliputian at Connor's urging. Andy Tennille/Courtesy of Jason Enright hide explanation

toggle caption

Andy Tennille/Courtesy of Jason Enright

Jason Enright and his son, Connor, meeting Tom Petty on his tour omnibus in June 2013, with the guitar Jason made for Petty at Connor'due south urging.

Andy Tennille/Courtesy of Jason Enright

I'yard a single full-time dad. My wife and I divide only earlier my son Connor's third birthday. I was faced with raising him on my own six days a week and it was somewhat terrifying: Will I be skillful at this? Am I going to mess him up somehow? How practice I get him to eat annihilation other than chicken nuggets and mac and cheese? But, as I had washed a lot of times in my life when I was stressed or in hurting or scared, I turned to Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. The music would ease the stress, numb the pain, and make whatever I was scared of a lot less scary.

Ane day early in our us-confronting-the-world battle, we decided to set out for Southern California for a few days to leave the "real world" behind. I glanced in the rearview mirror and looked at Connor sleeping in his auto seat, the endless desert stretched out backside him in the rear windshield. Again, the thought crossed my mind: How am I going to exercise this and practice information technology well? Not even ten seconds later on, "I Won't Dorsum Downwardly" came on the radio. I allow out a loud "Ha!"

In that location was TP once again, letting me know that everything was going to be all right as long equally I didn't surrender.

Fast-forward to a few years later. We're in Hollywood in a guitar shop considering I wanted to buy a T-shirt. Subsequently I bought my shirt, I establish Connor continuing next to a three-quarter-size guitar. "Can I get this?" he asked. "I tin learn to play Tom Footling songs with information technology." Nosotros were on our last day of holiday, low on money. I checked my bank account. If I returned the T-shirt, if nosotros ate fast nutrient for dinner, and if we could become domicile on a tank of gas, we could pull it off. He slept with that guitar in the hotel that night. He was vi years one-time.

Arriving home, he took lessons. The first song he learned? "I Won't Back Downwards." He presently played every day and learned one Heartbreakers song after another. A twelvemonth later he asked for a "real" guitar, specifically a Telecaster, because TP played a Telecaster in concert when nosotros saw him here in Phoenix.

He picked one out he liked, just it was $2,000. I never wanted to allow him down, so I explained every bit best equally I could why we couldn't afford something similar that. "Simply," I said. "Perchance I could just make you one."

I'd never fabricated anything in my life. I didn't own any tools. Nosotros lived in an apartment.

"OK!" he said.

Honestly, I thought information technology would just buy me some time to observe him a cheaper one. But one of our golden rules is, "Practice what you say you're going to do." So I institute a cheap Telecaster on Craigslist and tore information technology down to refinish it, merely to see if I could even do that. It turned out all correct, and then I started reading websites and books on how to make an electrical guitar.

I ordered wood and parts off the Internet, and over the next few months, I made an electric guitar. I finished it nearly 30 minutes earlier Connor's 8th-altogether party. I found out I was pretty skilful at information technology and made a couple more than.

Looking at a block of woods ane night in our apartment, mouth full of spaghetti, Connor looked up at me and said, "Yous could build one for Tom Trivial. You make nice ones and he likes guitars."

"I don't think it works that fashion," I said.

"Certain, but y'all didn't think you could even make i and that happened," he said. "We already have tickets to run across them in LA in June, anyway. Plus, if yous make him 1 I could give it to him and I'd go to encounter him." He smiled.

And then, as any unmarried dad/crazy person would exercise, I fired off a long email to Tom Petty's direction visitor that probably made them retrieve I was bananas. A few weeks later, Evan from the company contacted me, said Tom got my email, and if I could bring the guitar to the bear witness, there was a really good adventure nosotros'd get to requite the guitar to Tom.

On the solar day of the show, we received a call from him letting us know that it was going to happen: Tom was going to run into u.s.a. prior to the show so we could give him the guitar. Later at the Fonda Theatre, we were sitting in the lobby when Evan came to talk to us. "I can't believe I'yard going to say this, merely ... he wants to meet you on his bus. And no one gets to go on his charabanc."

He led us to the back of the building and suddenly, I was standing next to my wide-eyed 9-year-one-time son, on Tom Piddling's tour passenger vehicle, belongings a guitar I built for him. A moment later, Tom emerged, with his wife, Dana, right behind him. He was larger than life (but actually shorter than I expected; onstage he looks 10 feet alpine).

Tom smiled, walked right up to my son, leaned over and shook his hand and said, "Hey, you must be Connor. I'grand Tom. Nice to meet you." He so shook my hand, introduced united states to Dana, and just savage into conversation with Connor. It was — and still is — surreal. He greeted us similar family he'd never met. Despite Evan telling united states the coming together would exist cursory, we spent a skillful 15 minutes on his bus.

Jason and Connor Enright with Tom Picayune in 2013. Andy Tennille/Courtesy of Jason Enright hide explanation

toggle caption

Andy Tennille/Courtesy of Jason Enright

Jason and Connor Enright with Tom Petty in 2013.

Andy Tennille/Courtesy of Jason Enright

He gushed over the guitar when we opened the case and gave it to him. Equally he went to put it back into the case, Connor was in conversation with Dana, so I leaned over to Tom. "There are no words, man," I said. "Thank you so much for doing this. He'due south going to recall this for the rest of his life."

Tom looked at me and and then downwards at the guitar.

"Just expect what y'all did for me," he said. "I know these aren't easy to make. And you idea plenty of me to go through all this trouble." He put his hand on his heart and said, "Really, I'm only touched. I'one thousand humbled. Thank yous for doing this for me."

He gave Connor some guitar picks and signed a concert poster for him. Nosotros shook hands, he hugged Connor, and off we went back into the venue. We probably weren't in there more than a couple minutes before the Heartbreakers took the stage.

About halfway through the show, a adult female leaned over to me and said, "Your boy knows all the words to every vocal! He'due south so cool! Y'all're such a cracking dad!" I thanked her and thought, "Y'all have no idea where we were an 60 minutes ago."

After the show, we went to a Denny'due south and ate biscuits and gravy and rehashed the evening over the next few hours. We were too amped upwardly to sleep.

"I'm curious," I said to Connor. "Does this whole experience teach you anything?"

"Yeah," he said, slurping on a chocolate shake. "Anything is possible. Annihilation."

Walter Ray Watson produced this story for air. Daoud Tyler-Ameen contributed to the digital version.

samuelleworef.blogspot.com

Source: https://www.npr.org/2019/05/08/721228788/tom-petty-i-wont-back-down-american-anthem-resolve

Share this post