Damn the Torpedoes (1979)
1. Refugee
2. Here Comes My Girl
3. Even the Losers
4. Shadow of a Doubt (A Complex Kid)
5. Century City
6. Don't Do Me Like That
7. You Tell Me
8. What Are You Doin' in My Life?
9. Louisiana Rain
By the time of his third album, Tom Petty was no longer simply an up-and-comer. He had arrived. If the first two records were the controlled ignition of a slow burn, Damn the Torpedoes was the full detonation. In fact, there are many who will go to the mat insisting that, for all the accolades and platinum plaques that came later, this remains the quintessential Tom Petty LP. One needn’t disagree.
Crucial to the album’s seismic shift in stature was producer Jimmy Iovine, who finally wrapped Petty’s wiry Southern sound in the kind of full-bodied, radio-baiting production it had previously lacked. This was not simply more of the same. Where the earlier albums had charm and muscle, this one added sweep. There’s a measured polish here—a kind of deliberate sonic atmosphere—that places the listener not in the sweaty garage or roadside bar where the earlier songs lived, but rather inside the echo of a gymnasium dance or a roller rink, perhaps even a movie montage. The sound is expansive, wide-lensed, without ever turning bloated. Mike Campbell’s guitar tone, sharp as ever, is finally afforded its rightful clarity, while Benmont Tench’s electric keyboards slip seamlessly into the cracks, adding dimension rather than clutter. And over all this, Petty’s familiar drawl, channeling Roger McGuinn’s nasal poise, cuts through like a signal flare.
Of course, none of this would matter if the songs hadn’t been up to it. But they are. Indeed, Damn the Torpedoes is one of those rare records in which a majority of the tracks were not only radio hits at the time, but have remained fixtures in the Petty canon ever since. The opening trifecta—Refugee, Here Comes My Girl, and Don’t Do Me Like That—formed an unimpeachable front line, all swagger, ache, and momentum. But even the so-called “deep cuts” are anything but. Century City pulses with new wave urgency, Shadow of a Doubt (A Complex Kid) injects nervous romanticism into Petty’s songbook, and What Are You Doin’ In My Life? barrels forward with bar-band glee. Virtually any of these could have been singles, and in some alternate universe probably were. That Petty continued to dust them off in concerts decades later speaks volumes.
The final track deserves particular mention. Louisiana Rain, with its country-laced melancholy and uncharacteristically ornate production, closes the album on a contemplative note. It’s one of Petty’s finest compositions—ambitious, cinematic, and unhurried. Here, one can detect a subtle shift, a deeper maturity settling into the songwriting that would become more prominent in albums to come. Far from being an overreached misfire, the song succeeds because of its ambition. It hints at the evolving artist Petty would soon become: older, wiser, more assured, but still unmistakably himself.
In retrospect, Damn the Torpedoes was less a mere breakthrough than it was a declaration. It confirmed that Petty was not simply a regional curiosity or a promising talent with a good band. He was a major American songwriter with a sound—jangling, driving, wounded, defiant—that was already timeless before anyone realized it.
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