Tom Petty Thought People Were ‘Frightened’ of Elvis

Growing up, Tom Petty was a zealous fan of Elvis Presley. He discovered a love of music through Elvis’ songs and traded one of his most prized possessions for Elvis records. His music tastes evolved as he grew older, but he always held a soft spot for Elvis. Looking back as an adult, Petty explained why he thought Elvis seemed so dangerous to audiences in the 1950s and 60s. 

Tom Petty was a huge fan of Elvis growing up

Petty had the opportunity to meet Elvis when he was growing up. While they didn’t have much of a conversation, the moment stuck with Petty.

“What stays with me is the whole scene,” he told Esquire in 2006. “I had never seen a real mob scene before. I was really young and impressionable. Elvis really did look — he looked sort of not real, as if he were glowing. He was astounding, even spiritual. It was like a procession in church: a line of white Cadillacs and mohair suits and pompadours so black, they were blue.”

He explained that it became his “mission in life” to get an Elvis record. 

“One of my friends had an older sister who’d gone to college and left her box of 45s behind,” he told the Independent in 1994. “So I traded in my aluminum slingshot, which was my most prized possession, for this box of records, and my life was transformed from that moment on. I just didn’t do anything but play these records. I didn’t even dream of singing or playing an instrument. All I wanted to do was listen to this music.”

He shared why he thought Elvis was frightening to people in positions of authority

In his penultimate interview, Petty spoke about Elvis for the documentary Elvis Presley: The Searcher. He shared his belief that people in positions of power were frightened of Elvis.

“I don’t know this,” he said in the interview, per the LA Times, “but I often wonder … if there had ever been like a 21-year-old that had that sort of power. That could mobilize millions of youths with the wave of his hand. They’re clearly afraid of him. Even though he makes gospel records, and he loves his mother, and he knows all the ground rules to follow … you can see that glint in his eye. And I think it frightened them maybe.”

Tom Petty said his love of Elvis dimmed when he first heard The Beatles

Petty remained a lifelong fan of Elvis, but the frenzy of his youthful devotion softened as he grew older. By the time The Beatles came to America, Petty was a bigger fan of them than his childhood hero.

“I was [a fan] until ’64, and then Elvis was getting so s****y by then,” he said in the book Conversations With Tom Petty by Paul Zollo. “It had never been the music of my generation. I was an odd kid for even being interested in Elvis. So when The Beatles came, I lost interest in Elvis, because [The Beatles] were the music of my generation, and I was a huge record buff. So I lost interest in Elvis, though I kind of felt an allegiance to him. I still went and saw those s****y movies for a while. But I knew the difference by then. It didn’t have the vitality that these new records did.”

Still, he remained enough of a fan that Elvis Presley: The Searcher director Thom Zimny said, “in some ways, Tom’s comments came to represent the soul of this film to me.”

Even though he didn’t like Elvis’ later work, Petty said it would be a shame to write off his music altogether.

“We shouldn’t make the mistake of writing off a great artist by all the clatter that came later,” he said. “We should dwell on what he did that was so beautiful and everlasting, which was that great, great music.”