"Into the Great Wide Open" | ||||
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Single by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers | ||||
from the album Into the Great Wide Open | ||||
B-side | "Makin' Some Noise" | |||
Released | September 9, 1991 [1] | |||
Genre | Rock | |||
Length |
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Label | MCA | |||
Songwriter(s) | ||||
Producer(s) |
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Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers singles chronology | ||||
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Music video | ||||
"Into the Great Wide Open" on YouTube |
"Into the Great Wide Open" is a song by American rock band Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, included as the third track on their eighth studio album, Into the Great Wide Open (1991). Released as a single in September 1991, the song reached number four on the US Billboard Album Rock Tracks chart but stalled at number 92 on the Billboard Hot 100. Internationally, the song peaked at number 23 on the Canadian RPM Top Singles chart and found moderate success in Belgium and Germany.
This section needs additional citations for verification .(September 2017) |
The music video for the single, directed by Julien Temple, [2] stars Johnny Depp as the protagonist, Eddie Rebel, as well as Gabrielle Anwar as Eddie's girlfriend and Faye Dunaway as his manager, and features cameos by Terence Trent D'Arby, Chynna Phillips, and Matt LeBlanc. The video was shot during the filming of Arizona Dream , in which both Depp and Dunaway starred, which was on hiatus as its director Emir Kusturica had suffered a nervous breakdown. The song was extended in order to include more of the 18 minutes of footage Temple had created.
Fresh out of high school, Eddie catches a bus to Hollywood and meets a girl (Anwar) who has a tattoo to match his: a heart impaled with a stiletto knife. They move into a motel-style apartment building. Eddie works as a doorman while his girlfriend teaches him to play guitar. Their landlady (Dunaway) turns out to be a cross between a fairy godmother and a svengali, managing his increasing success as a rock star.
Success quickly goes to Eddie's head. Things come to a peak when he excludes his manager from a red carpet event. Infuriated, she waves her magic wand (in the form of a cigarette holder) and breaks the spell, with disastrous results. Vanity Flaire magazine reports that Eddie's girlfriend is pregnant. He appears drunk and belligerent at an awards ceremony, then acts up during a music video shoot. Eddie's career quickly fizzles, his girlfriend leaves him, and the heart in his tattoo fades away. The story closes with Eddie returning to the tattoo parlor, where he finds a newcomer (LeBlanc) getting the same tattoo from a new artist (Depp). Tom Petty then closes the video with the classic fairy tale ending, sardonically, that "they all lived happily ever after".
Petty took the line "a rebel without a clue" from Jim Steinman, who wrote "Rebel Without a Clue" for Bonnie Tyler on her 1986 release Secret Dreams and Forbidden Fire .
Petty himself appears in the video playing multiple roles, including the narrator, the tattoo artist, Eddie's roadie Bart and a reporter. The other members of the Heartbreakers are also given cameos throughout the video. Lead guitarist Mike Campbell helps present the award to Eddie toward the end of the video, keyboardist Benmont Tench portrays Eddie's record producer, bassist Howie Epstein portrays a motorcycle dealer, and drummer Stan Lynch portrays the doorman who refuses to let Eddie's manager into the red carpet event. Petty's manager Tony Dimitriades is also given a cameo as the record label A&R man who signs Eddie into a recording contract.
Petty later commented that it was "one of the only times I've ever felt fulfilled by a video. I even had people coming to me wanting to make it into a movie." [3]
7-inch and cassette single [4] [5]
UK CD single [6]
| European 7-inch single [7]
European 12-inch and CD single [8] [9]
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Chart (1991) | Peak position |
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Australia (ARIA) [10] | 112 |
Belgium (Ultratop 50 Flanders) [11] | 48 |
Canada Top Singles ( RPM ) [12] | 23 |
Germany (Official German Charts) [13] | 54 |
US Billboard Hot 100 [14] | 92 |
US Mainstream Rock ( Billboard ) [15] | 4 |
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers were an American rock band from Gainesville, Florida. Formed in 1976, the band originally comprised lead singer and rhythm guitarist Tom Petty, lead guitarist Mike Campbell, keyboardist Benmont Tench, drummer Stan Lynch and bassist Ron Blair. In 1982, Blair, weary of the touring lifestyle, departed the band. His replacement, Howie Epstein, stayed with the band for the next two decades. In 1991, Scott Thurston joined the band as a multi-instrumentalist—mostly on rhythm guitar and second keyboard. In 1994, Steve Ferrone replaced Lynch on drums. Blair returned to the Heartbreakers in 2002, the year before Epstein's death. The band had a long string of hit singles including "Breakdown", "American Girl", "Refugee", "The Waiting", "Learning to Fly", and "Mary Jane's Last Dance", among many others, that stretched over several decades of work.
Into the Great Wide Open is the eighth studio album by American rock band Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. Released in July 1991, it was the band's last with MCA Records. The album was the second that Petty produced with Jeff Lynne, following the successful Full Moon Fever (1989).
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