Trail Stops

Gainesville, FL 32601

https://maps.app.goo.gl/HPG6XLEUj4GTKRA88

     Tom Petty's hometown is a song title of this Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers recording from 1998 that was not released until the 2018 posthumous box set "An American Treasure." Here is a lyric from "Gainesville": 

"Good times roll and then move on 

Long ago and far away, 

another time, another day 

Gainesville was a big town." 

     You can watch the nostalgic video for it here: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E6NxbUzNM5U 

     Note that at 33 North Main St. in downtown Gainesville you will find the office for the Alachua County Visitors and Convention Bureau, otherwise known as Visit Gainesville, where you can learn about all there is to see and do in the Gainesville region. Or you can browse its website, found here: https://www.visitgainesville.com/ 

Photo courtesy of Visit Gainesville.

112 SE 1st St, Gainesville, FL 32601

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     Today this is a bar called Lillian's Music Store, but it once was an actual music store frequented by Tom Petty in his youth, The historic sign and the business name remain, despite it now being a bar. Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers' song "Dreamville," from the 2002 album "The Last DJ" contains this lyric: 

"Goin' down to Lillian's Music Store 

To buy a black diamond string 

Gonna wind it up on my guitar 

Gonna make that silver sing 

Like it was Dreamville 

A long time ago 

A million miles away 

All the trees were green 

In Dreamville" 

      Keith Harben, who was Tom Petty's lifelong friend and lived in Tom's neighborhood through their child and teen years, recalled to me that he was with Tom when he purchased from the store a set of black diamond strings, which were hung on the wall to the left as you walked through the front door. Keith noted that Tom's mother, who was on her way to work, drove them to Lillian's Music Store that day. After getting the guitar strings, Tom and Keith would walk the mile and a half back home. Tom would later strum these strings on his acoustic guitar.

Photo by Shawn Murphy.

2424 NW 23rd Blvd, Gainesville, FL 32605

https://maps.app.goo.gl/2RGxYqsNcnGShtSe7

     "Dreamville" from the 2002 album "The Last DJ" recalls a childhood trip Tom Petty made with his mother, Kitty, to Glen Springs Pool. The public pool, which closed in 1970, is today located behind the privately owned Elks Lodge No. 990. Here is that lyric:

"Ridin' with my mama 

To Glen Springs Pool 

The water was cold 

My lips were blue 

There was rock and roll 

Across the dial 

When I think of her 

It makes me smile 

Like it was Dreamville 

A long time ago 

A million miles away 

All the trees were green 

In Dreamville." 

     Here you can listen to the song:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ViczcWEHgaY

      Keith Harben, Tom's neighborhood friend, told me that Tom would typically go to the pool with him because his mother didn't have a job during the week while Tom's mother did. The Harben family had a pass for the pool, which was especially popular in the broiling hot summer months. While one could wonder whether the year-round 72-degree water was so cold it could turn lips blue, Keith noted that it was possible for some people since the air was so hot and humid. And for Tom Petty, Keith said it most certainly did turn his lips blue one day. Keith recalls Tom, thin as a rail with pale white skin, standing in a white bathing suit with a towel wrapped around him, shivering while his lips turned blue.

Glen Springs Pool postcard, circa late 1940s. Courtesy of  the University of Florida Digital Collections.

874 SE 4th St, Gainesville, FL 32601

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     Once a regional railroad hub, the old train station now anchors Depot Park, a public park that has been a site of Tom Petty Gathering concerts. To the north of this public park is Depot Avenue, which perhaps was the inspiration for Mudcrutch’s first single “Depot Street” from 1975. Here is part of that lyric: "Down on Depot Street 

I'm gonna see my baby

Depot Street I'm gonna see my girl... 

We ain't got no money

We don't have no car

We stay down

On Depot Street

Just dancin' in the park." 

     You can listen to the song here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wHPe2yPAQYY 

Photo by Shawn Murphy.

4005 NW 13th St, Gainesville, FL 32609

https://maps.app.goo.gl/7CP9U5P84yuTcdQ88

     Currently a bar named "Munegin’s on 13th," it once was the Cypress Lounge, where Mudcrutch performed and which became part of the background story told in the introduction to the live version of Tom Petty and the Hearbreakers' song “Spike." In the 2012 Estero, Fla., concert recording, Tom sets up the song by calling the Cypress Lounge "the meanest, nastiest bar in the whole state of Florida." In crafting the tale of the character Spike, Tom expands: 

     "There were hippie-killers in the Cypress Lounge...it was scary in there. There were robbers, and muggers, and retired shrimp boat captains in there. There were guitar thieves in there."  

     This live version can be watched here:

https://youtu.be/1u2fgGEgaPo

     And to read more about the song and its live versions, read this piece, titled "The Devil and Tom Petty," by author John Griswold in "The Common Reader: Journal of the Essay": https://commonreader.wustl.edu/the-devil-and-tom-petty/ 

Photo by Shawn Murphy.

4565 NW 13th St, Gainesville, FL 32609

https://maps.app.goo.gl/EkQG3Zezc3z6ws6e7

     This convenience store and gas station is a good place to park because it is across NW 13th St. from the former location of Dub's Steer Room where Mudcrutch was the house band for months in the early 1970s (after Dub's was razed, a Social Security administration building was erected).  

     This spot is also where one can reflect on an essential song of the Tom Petty song catalog -- "American Girl." NW 13th St., which runs vertically through Gainesville, is part of U.S. 441, a route that runs south to north from Kissimmee to High Springs. The route became part of the "American Girl" lyric on the 1976 debut album by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. Here is part of that lyric about the girl "raised on promises": 

"She was an American girl... 

She stood alone on her balcony

Yeah, she could hear the cars roll by

Out on 441

Like waves crashin' on the beach" 

     Here you can watch a video of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers performing this song in 2002 for their induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqYZLNMDVJc

Photo by Shawn Murphy.

Brooker, FL 32622

https://maps.app.goo.gl/uFQtsnKRa9q5Lrdd9

     Tom Petty used the town's name in "A Mind With a Heart of Its Own," a song from Tom Petty's 1989's "Full Moon Fever" album. Here is that lyric:

"Well I've been to Brooker, 

and I've been to Micanopy

I've been to St. Louis too, 

I've been all around the world

I've been over to your house

And you've been over sometimes to my house

I've slept in your tree house

My middle name is Earl

A mind with a heart of its own"

     You can listen to the song here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwZwJPbb__g

Photo by Shawn Murphy.

Micanopy, FL  32667 

https://maps.app.goo.gl/YTz7A5iJeprF6feLA

     Micanopy (pronounced mi-kuh-no-pee) is the "Town That Time Forgot" is where Tom and Jane Petty would periodically shop for antiques. He would use the town's name in "A Mind With a Heart of Its Own," a song from Tom Petty's 1989's "Full Moon Fever" album. Here is that lyric:

"Well I've been to Brooker, 

and I've been to Micanopy

I've been to St. Louis too, 

I've been all around the world

I've been over to your house

And you've been over sometimes to my house

I've slept in your tree house

My middle name is Earl

A mind with a heart of its own"

     You can listen to the song here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwZwJPbb__g

Photo by Shawn Murphy.

2010 N Main St, Gainesville, FL 32609

https://maps.app.goo.gl/rwXJhNVrqDCKkSxV7

     The Clock restaurant is where Tom Petty's father, Earl, would have his morning breakfast. If you wish, ask a waiter to point out Earl's table.

     One can only wonder whether Tom had this in mind for the song "You Don't Know How It Feels" from the 1994 "Wildflowers" album, which include this lyric:

"My old man was born to rock

He's still tryin' to beat the clock"

     You can watch the video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9TlBTPITo1I

Photo by Shawn Murphy.

100 Savannah Blvd, Micanopy, FL 32667

https://maps.app.goo.gl/p2bTsQMynE64xj2q9

     Rumored to have been the landscape vista that inspired the song "Into the Great Wide Open" from the 1991 album of the same name -- despite that there is no topical connection to this 22,000-acre Paynes Prairie Preserve State Park, a savannah where bison and horses roam freely. 

     You can watch the video here: https://youtu.be/xqmFxgEGKH0 

Photo courtesy of Florida State Parks.

Cassadaga, FL 32706

https://maps.app.goo.gl/WViuqZasTqtUAppi6

     Cassadaga is a spiritualist community dating back to 1894 (called by some the "Psychic Capital of the World") that became the basis for the Heartbreakers song "Casa Dega," although spelled differently. Here is part of that lyric:

"That she said to me as she holds my hand

And reads the lines of a stranger

Yeah and she knows my name 

yeah she knows my plan

In the past in the present and for the future

Oh honey now I think I'm starting to believe the things that I've heard

Cause tonight in Casa Dega I hang on every word"

     Here you can watch a video of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers performing it on New Year's Eve 1978 in Santa Monica, Calif.:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UcdFjuV4bNc

Photo by Shawn Murphy.

Daytona Beach, FL 32114

https://maps.app.goo.gl/XJ3NufsL6nG9fQcn6

     Daytona is named in "About to Give Out," a song from Tom Petty and the Heartbreaker's 1999's "Echo" album. Here is that lyric:

"Rickey and Dickey

Standing in the sun

Out there on that highway and the dog wouldn't run

Rickey rolled a number

Dickey raised the hood

Time we hit Daytona I was feeling pretty good

Oh, mama I'm about to give out

Oh, mama I'm about to give out

I'm Davey Crockett in a coonskin town"

     You can listen to that song here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jerrKK0LRS0

Photo courtesy of the Daytona Beach Convention and Visitors Bureau.