“He had an astute ear for the strangeness of just kicking around Earth—the way that agitation and anxiety can, on occasion, subsume a person for no good reason, the way that we get bored and start looking for new ways to make trouble.” Amanda Petrusich: Free Falling with Tom Petty.

+ LA Times: Why losing Tom Petty feels like losing a piece of ourselves.

+ “When we toured two years later, I noticed people in the audience wearing Confederate flag bandanas and things like that. One night, someone threw one onstage. I stopped everything and gave a speech about it. I said, ‘Look, this was to illustrate a character. This is not who we are. Having gone through this, I would prefer it if no one would ever bring a Confederate flag to our shows again because this isn’t who we are.'” Rolling Stone on Tom Petty’s use of the Confederate flag and why he tried to ban it from his shows. “It Was Downright Stupid.”

+ “He had history, he had gravitas, he had insight, he was the antithesis of a prepubescent rocker, all poses and no substance. He’d lived, played bars, gone to shows, and when he finally put out a record…It was the one he wanted to make. Those are the ones that last. Not the ones made for a market, chasing a hit, but personal statements, of truth.” Bob Lefsetz on Tom Petty.

+ Tom Petty’s 50 greatest songs. And Pitchfork with an essential 9 songs.