Tom Petty You and I Will Meet Again Meaning
Tom Footling performs with the Heartbreakers in Belgium in 1992. Gie Knaeps/Getty Images hide caption
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Tom Fiddling performs with the Heartbreakers in Belgium in 1992.
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This story is part of American Anthem, a yearlong series on songs that rouse, unite, celebrate and call to action. Find more at NPR.org/Anthem.
Editor's note: This story includes discussions of depression, habit and suicide.
Of all his many, many hit songs, the i that Tom Petty said had the near directly and powerful impact on his fans was "I Won't Back Down."
Well, I won't back down
No, I won't back down
You lot tin stand up me upwards at the gates of hell
But I won't back down
The vocal was released in 1989 on Petty'south solo album Full Moon Fever. The creative person told interviewers that people would come upwardly to him all the time, or would write to him, sharing stories of how this song — with its plainspoken message of resilience and empowerment — helped steer them through hard times.
"He told me that he heard, or read somewhere, that it brought a daughter out of a coma," recalls his widow, Dana Little. "It was her favorite vocal and they played it and she came out of a blackout, which blew his mind."
"It's a very simple song, only a very powerful song," says Picayune's lifelong bandmate, guitarist Mike Campbell. "Information technology's every bit deep as you lot want to get. That was one of Tom'southward talents, that he could say a lot with very few words."
Piffling died of an accidental drug overdose in 2017, at age 66.
"A lot of people ask me what was Tom really similar," Campbell says. "And that's him. He didn't back downwards. ... He stood upward to everybody. Nobody told him what to exercise."
"He had a lot of fight in him," Dana Piddling agrees.
Over the 20 years that Dana went on the road with Tom Piffling 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, because of the audience response."
There were times, she remembers, when the tens of thousands of fans singing forth were so loud they would drown out the band. "Information technology's a song that touches everyone in their ain way," she says. "Y'all could run into that they were all singing well-nigh their lives every night. And it's a pretty astonishing thing to witness."
The vocal's universal entreatment stems from its simplicity, says Tom Petty's daughter Adria Trivial. "Information technology'due south like a mantra. It keeps building y'all up, stronger, stronger, stronger. Every word of the vocal is culminating in more tenacity."
Her younger sis, Annakim Violette, adds, "Anyone that'south ever [sung] that came out of a really dark identify into a brighter one. Information technology gave them strength. That'due south why it's an canticle. It's an anthem for finding strength."
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Your 'I Won't Back Downwards' Stories
Nosotros asked NPR listeners to tell us how "I Won't Back Downward" has inspired them as a personal canticle, and more than 700 people responded. Here are some of those stories, which have been lightly edited and condensed. For more on the history of "I Won't Back Down," listen to the total radio story at the audio link.
Ashley Ellis
Buffalo, Northward.Y.
Ashley Ellis has lyrics from "I Won't Back Down" tattooed on her shoulder blade. Courtesy of Ashley Ellis hide caption
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Ashley Ellis has lyrics from "I Won't Dorsum Downward" tattooed on her shoulder blade.
Courtesy of Ashley Ellis
Throughout my life, from the time I was a child, I lived and breathed Tom Petty'due south music. As I got older and began suffering from depression, anxiety and self-harm, his music became the light that guided my way, especially "I Won't Back Down." Every concert I attended, he would play that song more beautifully than I ever could imagine, and I would stand at that place and savor in the music and allow it take me away from all the sadness I felt at that moment. Following his death, I knew I wanted a office of his music to exist with me forever, and I got the most important quote of my life tattooed: "You lot can stand me upward at the gates of Hell, merely I won't back downwardly."
Vallerie Drorbaugh
Springfield, Neb.
Vallerie Drorbaugh has her mantra printed above a doorway in her home. Courtesy of Vallerie Drorbraugh hide caption
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Courtesy of Vallerie Drorbraugh
When I was preparing to accept intensive spine surgery, a friend advised me to take a prayer or mantra prepare for when information technology was time to endeavor to walk, because it would be very painful, very challenging. The lifelong Petty fan that I am (my habitation is named Dreamville), I of form chose "I Won't Back Down." My surgeon played it for me as I was going nether anesthetic before the seven-hr surgery, and I played it during recovery to walk to, my goal being to walk to the rhythm every bit I walked around my staircase. I did recover, my spine fused, and I was stronger than always and went back to work after a few months.
Shortly after returning to piece of work, I was diagnosed with chest cancer. I will never forget going to the nursing home with my brother to tell my 89-year-old female parent that I had cancer. We saturday outside in the courtyard. I told her I was about to have a double mastectomy, and we wouldn't know my prognosis until the results from the surgery came in. I said, " Mom, you lot know what a Tom Petty fan I've been all my life? Well, I used this song to become me through the pain and recovery from the spine surgery, and it's gonna get me through this, too." And I played "I Won't Back Down" for her. I held it up to her ear and she and my brother and I but sat with tears in our eyes and listened. She listened to the whole thing, sitting in that location in the courtyard. Information technology was epic.
My next 2 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 father, Bradley Bundgaard, at her loftier school graduation in 2000. Courtesy of Erica Kufus hide explanation
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Erica Kufus with her father, Bradley Bundgaard, at her high schoolhouse graduation in 2000.
Courtesy of Erica Kufus
When I was 5, my parents divorced. My dad would come pick me upwardly on the weekends and we would go for a drive in the country, listening to Tom Footling (and of course this song) loud with the windows down in his old woods-panel van, or in later on years, his ruddy Ford Probe. We would get lost and then find our way out of backroads. It was so much fun! I stayed a Tom Niggling fan ever since.
When I was thirty, my dad died by suicide with a gunshot through his chest. My husband, my 1-twelvemonth-old daughter and I were the last to leave the funeral domicile. As we began driving, this song began to play. It wasn't sad, it was an anthem. I felt at peace. I felt freaked out this coincidence happened, only the auto was then quiet as nosotros all listened without saying a word. The line "There own't no piece of cake way out" took on a new meaning. I knew he had been sick with mental illness and addiction for many years and suffered at the terminate of his life with these battles. Suicide is an intensely sad selection to get out of this broken world, just man, at that place was no easy way out.
Sara Register
Marietta, Ga.
Sara Register with her daughter, Rhiannon, at a Tom Petty concert at Carmine Rocks, Colo., during his final tour in 2017. A huge rainstorm soaked the crowd. Courtesy of Sara Register hibernate caption
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Courtesy of Sara Register
Sara Annals with her girl, Rhiannon, at a Tom Lilliputian concert at Red Rocks, Colo., during his final tour in 2017. A huge rainstorm soaked the crowd.
Courtesy of Sara Register
Several years ago, after a harrowing 48 hours in which her house burned downward and she finalized her divorce, Sara drove across the state with her young 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 countless bluish skies. The dizzying enormity of our state made my previous bug feel so pocket-size. And e'er, while driving exterior cellphone range and social media'due south attain, in that location was Tom Petty. I have a lot of favorite songs of his that are bottom known, just at that place is no greater feeling than crossing the plains of South Dakota, window down, belting "I Won't Back Downwardly." Considering I wouldn't. I didn't allow being solitary keep me from seeing the places I had always dreamed of.
When I slept once by myself on the side of a mountain, completely sure that a cougar was going to come past and snack on me, I sang that song from the safety of my hammock. And when I saw [Petty] live for the second and last time at Red Rocks a few months earlier he passed, I sang just equally loudly, surrounded past several k young man fans belting with the aforementioned force that I did. There really never had been an piece of cake mode out of what I had gone through. Just I made it.
Aaron Thomas
Clarksburg, Dr..
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Aaron Thomas
Courtesy of Aaron Thomas
I played this song in the midst of dealing with a close friend's suicide and having to figure out how to officiate his funeral with a broken heart (I'k a minister). My wife and I listened to this song on a cantankerous-state trip together afterward I lost my job and nosotros had to motility in with my parents for a fourth dimension. Our worship leader occasionally breaks out in this song prior to Sunday service but to entertain me. If there's a time I demand to be reminded of hope, warmth, skilful memories, God, or those I dearest: This is the song. As a Christian, I believe some of our principles are to bring hope to the hopeless and strength to the weak. If in that location was ever a song to sum up these principles, it's "I Won't Dorsum Down." It's the anthem of my life.
Kelli Sexton
Mount View, Calif.
Kelli Sexton (left) with her sister, Jamie Stauffer, at Parris Island, South.C., on the day Sexton graduated from Marine Corps boot military camp. Courtesy of Kelli Sexton hide caption
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Kelli Sexton (left) with her sister, Jamie Stauffer, at Parris Isle, S.C., on the day Sexton graduated from Marine Corps boot army camp.
Courtesy of Kelli Sexton
When I was in loftier schoolhouse, I decided to enlist in the Marine Corps. As the time got closer for me to go out for boot camp, my fright of the unknown was rise. A recruiter asked me if I had an canticle, and the stand up-your-ground lyrics of "I Won't Dorsum Down" immediately came to mind. "I Won't Dorsum Down" became my mantra, and I used the lyrics to reassure myself that I would get through the rigors of preparation. To this day, I requite Tom Little credit for getting me through what I considered to exist my toughest challenge at the time. The lyrics not only encouraged me to go on going, [they] gave me a mental escape to the happy times at home with family unit.
Niki Vonderwell
Mannheim, Germany
The phrase "I won't back down" is engraved on the wedding rings of Niki Vonderwell and her husband, Matthias Luft. Courtesy of Niki Vonderwell hide caption
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The phrase "I won't back down" is engraved on the wedding rings of Niki Vonderwell and her husband, Matthias Luft.
Courtesy of Niki Vonderwell
Niki is from Ohio. In 2011, at a small It security briefing in Dayton, she met a German man who — six years later on — would get her husband:
I heard his voice earlier I saw him, and I held my breath every bit he made his way upwards the stairs while telling some joke to his colleagues. When I saw him, I couldn't formulate a unmarried thought in my brain other than "Wow!" We spent the rest of the day flirting, and by the second twenty-four hours I had volunteered to drive him on an errand he needed to run. We had gotten to know a footling about each other the twenty-four hours before, merely my truthful test of compatibility was coming: Did he know Tom Lilliputian and the Heartbreakers, and if so, what did he recall? I explained equally nosotros got in the motorcar this was my favorite band in the whole globe. I associated every big milestone in my life (and some pocket-sized ones) with a different song from the band (no pressure, right?). He had never heard of them, but gamely asked to hear a few songs while we collection. I played "I Won't Back Down" first, and he was hooked thereafter.
He flew back to Germany the next day, and we decided a calendar week or then later to endeavor long-distance dating. For 2 ane/two years, we played "I Won't Back Down" when the distance got to be too much and we were missing each other like crazy. Information technology was a reminder that no matter what the statistics said about long-distance relationships, nosotros could make it work. We would non back downwards from what was important to us: our relationship. I moved to Federal republic of germany eventually, and two years ago he proposed. When I said yes, he asked how I felt nearly engraving our rings with "I Won't Back Down" and making it our commencement dance. Information technology was perfect. The week after our wedding, nosotros flew to London for the Heartbreakers' only European cease in 2017. Of course they played "I Won't Dorsum Down." I remember swaying dorsum and forth with my husband in this beatific moment, thinking how astonishing it was to have come full circle, in a way. Tom Petty died just over two months later.
Carla Corpancho
Beaverton, Ore.
Carla moved to the U.S. from her home country of Peru in 2001. Her sister used to play this song all the time back in Lima, and information technology has special meaning for her at present, in this land.
I love that song. It'due south my song. I am an immigrant, and even subsequently existence treated horribly considering I look dissimilar and because I accept an emphasis, I won't back down. I won't give up. I will never lower my head in front of anyone. Never. This song speaks to me and gives me the energy to fight and never give upward. I don't care how many times people call me names and say, "You lot don't even speak English," I won't back down. I deserve a good life, and I sing this vocal from the depth of my center.
Jim Benes
Lincoln, Neb.
Jim Benes as a Coast Baby-sit air coiffure fellow member on a rescue helicopter in 2005. Courtesy of Jim Benes hide explanation
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Jim Benes as 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 top of their range while driving down a road?
I fell in dear with this song and a lot of Tom Picayune songs when I joined the U.Southward. Coast Baby-sit. I was stationed on a river boat in Iowa, and I was a closeted gay kid from Nebraska. I felt really out of place, and I felt like I was lost, wondering what I had washed, if I had made a error. I joined the military immediately following nine/11, every bit an impulsive response to a surge of patriotism and the pull to exercise something. Like all good moments when I've gone out on a limb, joining the Coast Baby-sit turned out to be one of the best decisions I've e'er made.
Tom'southward Lilliputian'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 ask, don't tell" military service. I'm happy that this policy is no longer in place.
Monica Owings
Canton, Ga.
Monica Owings in her garden. Courtesy of Monica Owings hide caption
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Monica Owings in her garden.
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Equally 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 Fiddling music. At 30, I had a breakdown of sorts. My depression and anxiety were consuming me. Although I had a successful career, what internal strength it took to battle the demons of the depression became insurmountable. I distinctly remember waking up and knowing I just couldn't proceed. I didn't want this feeling to continue; I'd rather exist dead. The alarm clock went off, and I heard Tom Petty sing, "They tin stand me upwardly at the gates of hell and I won't back downward." In that very moment, I made a choice. The selection to carry on and live.
Over my lifetime, equally I've lived with chronic depression, this song has become an canticle of sorts for me. Tom Petty'southward lyrics take fueled my want to choose life. The words Tom Petty wrote literally made the difference in me living or dying. They came on the radio that morning at that moment, and because they did, I'm here today writing this. Many of Tom Piddling's songs were inspirational to me, but 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 Jan. Courtesy of Heather Williams hide explanation
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Heather Williams at a Los Angeles teachers' strike activeness in January.
Courtesy of Heather Williams
In 2008, Heather was at a briefing of grassroots labor activists in Dearborn, Mich., when steelworkers were on strike nearby.
Every bit a part of the briefing, we were encouraged to leave the hotel and go support the striking steelworkers. It was freezing cold outside, so cold that the picketers had started fires in ii trash barrels. The watch line didn't have many people on it when we arrived on our bus. Apparently the strike had been going on for nearly two years and was struggling. Our group 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. Later on a few minutes of this, a homo pulled upwards in a pickup truck alongside the lookout man line. Nosotros didn't know if he was in that location to be supportive or to corruption us. He hung his caput out the window and yelled "Hey!" so cranked his stereo. "I Won't Back Down" started playing. He never got out of his truck, but put the song on repeat. Information technology played iv or five more times. Everyone started singing. It was really wonderful. I'll never forget information technology.
Melissa Hughes
Olympia, Wash.
Melissa Hughes (center) with her sisters Michelle Feist (left) and Jessica Feist (right) at a Tom Niggling concert in Seattle in August 2017. Courtesy of Melissa Hughes hibernate caption
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Melissa Hughes (eye) with her sisters Michelle Feist (left) and Jessica Feist (correct) at a Tom Petty concert in Seattle in Baronial 2017.
Courtesy of Melissa Hughes
"I Won't Dorsum Down" is a battle cry, an anthem with lyrics that grasp direct to the center. It is a song for any struggle.
When I hear the first few strums, I'm instantly transported back in time. Suddenly I'm 11 in my dad's Ford Ranger on the way to soccer practice. I was a nervous kid. Fifty-fifty with my dad being the best pre-game motivational speaker to convince a shy, well-mannered 11-year-old to get amped, it wasn't enough to go my caput in the game. My dad would say, "Melissa, yous've got to go mad! Run like you lot're angry."
Cue Piddling on vocals, Campbell on guitar, and the lines so etched on my center, "Y'all can stand me up at the gates of hell, but I won't back down." I'd headbang along, strapping my shinguards in identify, mentally preparing as if going into boxing. I could feel it, hit repeat, and so again, center racing, deep inhales, every bit centering equally a meditation, as holy as a prayer. It was the quintessential mantra that made me nuance out with pride onto every field. It was the method for dealing with any insurmountable obstacle. It provided the fortitude to keep trying.
Footling's words gave me the dust I needed to arrive through college as the commencement girl 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 exist turned effectually."
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 Petty at Connor'southward urging. Andy Tennille/Courtesy of Jason Enright hibernate caption
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Jason Enright and his son, Connor, coming together Tom Petty on his tour bus in June 2013, with the guitar Jason made for Petty at Connor's urging.
Andy Tennille/Courtesy of Jason Enright
I'thou a single full-time dad. My married woman and I split only before my son Connor's tertiary birthday. I was faced with raising him on my own six days a week and information technology was somewhat terrifying: Will I be expert at this? Am I going to mess him upward somehow? How practice I get him to eat anything other than craven nuggets and mac and cheese? Only, every bit I had done a lot of times in my life when I was stressed or in pain or scared, I turned to Tom Footling and the Heartbreakers. The music would ease the stress, numb the pain, and make whatever I was scared of a lot less scary.
One 24-hour interval early in our the states-confronting-the-earth battle, we decided to ready out for Southern California for a few days to exit the "real world" behind. I glanced in the rearview mirror and looked at Connor sleeping in his car seat, the countless desert stretched out backside him in the rear windshield. Again, the thought crossed my mind: How am I going to do this and practice it well? Not even ten seconds subsequently, "I Won't Back Down" came on the radio. I let out a loud "Ha!"
At that place was TP in one case once again, letting me know that everything was going to exist all right every bit long as I didn't give up.
Fast-frontwards to a few years afterwards. Nosotros're in Hollywood in a guitar store because I wanted to buy a T-shirt. After I bought my shirt, I institute Connor standing next to a three-quarter-size guitar. "Can I get this?" he asked. "I tin larn to play Tom Petty songs with it." We were on our terminal day of holiday, low on coin. I checked my bank account. If I returned the T-shirt, if we ate fast food for dinner, and if we could go habitation on a tank of gas, nosotros could pull it off. He slept with that guitar in the hotel that night. He was 6 years old.
Arriving home, he took lessons. The first vocal he learned? "I Won't Back Down." He soon played every twenty-four hours and learned one Heartbreakers song afterward another. A yr later he asked for a "real" guitar, specifically a Telecaster, because TP played a Telecaster in concert when we saw him here in Phoenix.
He picked 1 out he liked, only it was $2,000. I never wanted to permit him downward, so I explained as best as I could why nosotros couldn't afford something like that. "But," I said. "Possibly I could just make you one."
I'd never fabricated anything in my life. I didn't own any tools. We lived in an apartment.
"OK!" he said.
Honestly, I idea it would just buy me some time to find him a cheaper 1. But ane of our golden rules is, "Practice what you say you're going to do." And so I found a cheap Telecaster on Craigslist and tore information technology downward to refinish it, just to run into if I could even do that. Information technology turned out all correct, so I started reading websites and books on how to make an electric guitar.
I ordered wood and parts off the Internet, and over the next few months, I fabricated an electric guitar. I finished it about 30 minutes before Connor's eighth-birthday party. I plant out I was pretty good at information technology and made a couple more than.
Looking at a block of wood one night in our apartment, mouth full of spaghetti, Connor looked up at me and said, "You could build 1 for Tom Trivial. You make dainty ones and he likes guitars."
"I don't think information technology works that way," I said.
"Certain, but yous didn't think you could fifty-fifty make one and that happened," he said. "We already accept tickets to see them in LA in June, anyway. Plus, if yous make him 1 I could requite it to him and I'd become to come across him." He smiled.
So, every bit whatsoever single dad/crazy person would do, I fired off a long email to Tom Petty's direction visitor that probably made them think I was bananas. A few weeks subsequently, Evan from the company contacted me, said Tom got my email, and if I could bring the guitar to the show, at that place was a really adept chance we'd get to give the guitar to Tom.
On the day of the show, we received a call from him letting us know that it was going to happen: Tom was going to meet us prior to the bear witness so nosotros could give him the guitar. Later at the Fonda Theatre, we were sitting in the anteroom when Evan came to talk to us. "I can't believe I'm going to say this, but ... he wants to meet you on his bus. And no one gets to keep his bus."
He led us to the dorsum of the building and suddenly, I was standing adjacent to my wide-eyed 9-year-onetime son, on Tom Trivial's bout bus, belongings a guitar I congenital 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'm Tom. Prissy to meet y'all." He then shook my hand, introduced us to Dana, and merely fell into chat with Connor. It was — and still is — surreal. He greeted us like family unit he'd never met. Despite Evan telling us the coming together would be brief, nosotros spent a good 15 minutes on his bus.
Jason and Connor Enright with Tom Picayune in 2013. Andy Tennille/Courtesy of Jason Enright hide caption
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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 instance, Connor was in conversation with Dana, then I leaned over to Tom. "In that location are no words, man," I said. "Cheers and so much for doing this. He's going to remember this for the rest of his life."
Tom looked at me and then downwardly at the guitar.
"Merely expect what you did for me," he said. "I know these aren't easy to make. And you thought plenty of me to become through all this problem." He put his mitt on his eye and said, "Really, I'g only touched. I'thousand humbled. Thank you for doing this for me."
He gave Connor some guitar picks and signed a concert poster for him. We shook hands, he hugged Connor, and off nosotros went back into the venue. We probably weren't in in that location more a couple minutes before the Heartbreakers took the phase.
Nearly halfway through the prove, a woman leaned over to me and said, "Your boy knows all the words to every song! He's and so absurd! You're such a slap-up dad!" I thanked her and idea, "You have no idea where nosotros were an 60 minutes agone."
After the show, we went to a Denny's 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. "Annihilation is possible. Annihilation."
Walter Ray Watson produced this story for air. Daoud Tyler-Ameen contributed to the digital version.
Source: https://www.npr.org/2019/05/08/721228788/tom-petty-i-wont-back-down-american-anthem-resolve
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