Some of the greatest anthems of all-time have been written using just a handful of chords. One such song is Tom Petty’s classic 1989 hit Free Fallin’ – although it’s not quite as simple as it appears at surface level.
Many have thought, for example, that its main guitar part – performed by Petty on a 12-string acoustic with a capo on the third fret – is really only built around one D shape chord, with the note on the highest string changing to create movement.
Dig a little deeper, however, and you’ll notice how a simple musical concept ended up being brilliantly orchestrated by Petty and his co-writer and producer (and Electric Light Orchestra founder) Jeff Lynne.
The chord sequence played by Petty flows from F to Bbsus2 and then back to F before the final strum of a Csus, with more finger shifts than just one note moving on the high E-string.
And then there’s the parts played by Petty’s long-serving lead guitarist Mike Campbell, which are played lower in pitch with a capo on the first fret of a 12-string electric.
When played together, the two ideas merge to create a much fuller sound that consists of lower-end resonance, mid-range body and upper sparkle.
The recording of the song features Petty on lead and backing vocals and guitars, Campbell on 12-string electric guitar, Lynne on acoustic guitar, bass, synthesizer and backing vocals and Phil Jones on drums.
It became the opening track on Petty’s first solo album, Full Moon Fever.
“Jeff Lynne and I were sitting around with the idea of writing a song,” Petty told Billboard magazine back in 2016 – the year before he passed away. “I was playing the keyboard and I just happened to hit on that main riff, the intro of the song.”
He added: “I think Jeff said something like, ‘That’s a really good riff but there’s one chord too many.’ So I think I cut it back a chord and then, really just to amuse Jeff, honestly, I just sang that first verse. Then he starts laughing.”
Petty went on to explain how he thought he was “just amusing Jeff” but the English musician leaned over and gave him what would end up becoming the song title, encouraging Petty to sing higher.
“So I took my voice up an octave or two, but I couldn’t get the whole word in,” Petty continued in the same interview. “So I sang ‘freeee,’ then ‘free falling.’ And we both knew at that moment that I’d hit on something pretty good. It was that fast.”
Petty continued working on the song by himself over the course of the evening and the following day Lynne was so impressed with the finished product, he insisted that they visit Mike Campbell’s studio to get it recorded. The song was finished in a matter of hours and a few days later it had been mixed for release.
Petty used his 1981 Guild D-212 acoustic 12-string to write the music though opted to use a Gibson Dove six-string for the recording. Though it’s not known which exact guitar Campbell used for his parts, he typically plays it with a Rickenbacker 360/12 electric.
The song's lyrics tell the story of a “good girl” who “loves her mama, loves Jesus and America too” but ends up getting her heart broken by a “bad boy”.
“I don’t know who the girl in Free Fallin’ is,” Petty once admitted. He said he was just trying “to grab a little bit of these characters” he would often drive past in Los Angeles, describing what he saw as “a never-ending scene” that was “pretty true of that time and that era”.
Free Fallin’ ended up being the highest and longest-charting song of Petty’s career, peaking at No 7 in the Billboard Hot 100 in January 1990, while also performing well in Canada, New Zealand and The Netherlands.
Guns N’ Roses members Axl Rose and Izzy Stradlin joined Petty and his band for a rousing performance of Free Fallin’ at the 1989 MTV Video Music Awards.
The track has been covered on stage and in the studio by a number of artists including Stevie Nicks, Coldplay and John Mayer – who performed an acoustic version at the Nokia Theater in Los Angeles in 2007. This ended up appearing on his Where The Light Is live album and performing well as a single.
“It’s turned out to be probably the most famous song I ever wrote,” Petty acknowledged in the interviews for 2005 book Conversations With Tom Petty by Paul Zollo.
He continued: “There’s not a day that goes by that somebody doesn’t hum Free Fallin’ to me or I don’t hear it somewhere. It’s become synonymous with me, I guess. But it was really only 30 minutes of my life.”
