The first song Tom Petty and Jeff Lynne wrote together: ‘That opened it all up to me’

It would have taken a strong argument for anyone to tell Tom Petty what to do in the studio. While he trusted most of the producers he worked with, there was no way anyone was going to talk him into trying to make a pop hit or convince him to chase trends to keep up with the times. After loosening up with The Traveling Wilburys, though, Petty found a musical partnership made in rock and roll heaven with Jeff Lynne on ‘Yer So Bad’.

Granted, it’s not like Lynne was just some fellow rock star that Petty hit it off with once. He had already been an admirer of ELO’s music since the 1980s, even making the song ‘Change of Heart’ in an attempt to copy their style of chordal riffing. When he saw how Lynne worked with legends like George Harrison and Roy Orbison, Petty knew he had found someone who could take his songs in a new direction.

As Lynne recalled, Petty first got in touch by running into him on the road in the middle of Los Angeles, telling Runnin’ Down a Dream, “He was screaming ‘JEFF’ and hooting his horn at me. We pulled over to the side of the street, and he said ‘I loved George’s new album [Cloud Nine]. You fancy on working on some songs with me?’”.

This was going to be the first time that Petty accepted songwriting help from a producer. Outside of working with Mike Campbell’s guitar lines to bring songs like ‘Refugee’ and ‘Here Comes My Girl’ to life, ‘Yer So Bad’ was a fragment of a song until Lynne helped fill in the gaps for him the first time they sat down to work.

When talking with Paul Zollo, Petty remembered the one move that Lynne made that wrapped the song up, saying, “I showed Jeff one night I had written the song ‘Yer So Bad’. But there was one little bit in the B-section where I didn’t know where to go. And he showed me this E-minor chord, and that completely opened it all up to me…I was so elated because I had been working on the song for days, and I couldn’t get the verse to the chorus somehow. He showed me this little bit, and I said, ‘Great! Will you produce this?’”.