You Dont Have to Tell Me I Know That Im Petty

Tom Petty performs with the Heartbreakers in Belgium in 1992. Gie Knaeps/Getty Images hide explanation

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Tom Lilliputian performs with the Heartbreakers in Belgium in 1992.

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This story is part of American Canticle, a yearlong series on songs that rouse, unite, gloat and call to action. Detect more at NPR.org/Anthem.

Editor's notation: This story includes discussions of depression, addiction and suicide.

Of all his many, many hit songs, the one that Tom Picayune said had the most direct and powerful impact on his fans was "I Won't Back Downwards."

Well, I won't back down
No, I won't back down
You can stand me up at the gates of hell
But I won't back down

The song was released in 1989 on Footling's solo album Full Moon Fever. The artist told interviewers that people would come up up to him all the time, or would write to him, sharing stories of how this song — with its plainspoken message of resilience and empowerment — helped steer them through difficult times.

"He told me that he heard, or read somewhere, that it brought a girl out of a coma," recalls his widow, Dana Footling. "It was her favorite song and they played it and she came out of a blackout, which blew his mind."

"It's a very uncomplicated song, simply a very powerful song," says Picayune'south lifelong bandmate, guitarist Mike Campbell. "Information technology's every bit deep equally y'all want to get. That was one of Tom's talents, that he could say a lot with very few words."

Petty died of an adventitious drug overdose in 2017, at historic period 66.

"A lot of people ask me what was Tom really like," Campbell says. "And that's him. He didn't back down. ... He stood up to everybody. Nobody told him what to do."

"He had a lot of fight in him," Dana Petty agrees.

Over the twenty years that Dana went on the route with Tom Footling and the Heartbreakers, "I Won't Back Downwards" was a fixture. "They played that every night," she says. "Tommy never got tired of that one, because of the audience response."

There were times, she remembers, when the tens of thousands of fans singing forth were so loud they would drown out the band. "It's a song that touches everyone in their own way," she says. "You could see that they were all singing about their lives every night. And it's a pretty amazing matter to witness."

The song's universal appeal stems from its simplicity, says Tom Petty's daughter Adria Petty. "It's like a mantra. It keeps building you up, stronger, stronger, stronger. Every discussion of the song is culminating in more tenacity."

Her younger sister, Annakim Violette, adds, "Anyone that's always [sung] that came out of a really nighttime place into a brighter one. It gave them force. That's why it's an anthem. It'due south an anthem for finding strength."

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Your 'I Won't Back Down' Stories

We asked NPR listeners to tell u.s. how "I Won't Dorsum Down" has inspired them as a personal anthem, and more than than 700 people responded. Here are some of those stories, which have been lightly edited and condensed. For more on the history of "I Won't Back Downwards," listen to the full radio story at the audio link.

Ashley Ellis
Buffalo, North.Y.

Ashley Ellis has lyrics from "I Won't Dorsum Downwardly" tattooed on her shoulder blade. Courtesy of Ashley Ellis hibernate caption

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Ashley Ellis has lyrics from "I Won't Back Downwards" tattooed on her shoulder bract.

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Throughout my life, from the time I was a child, I lived and breathed Tom Niggling's music. As I got older and began suffering from low, anxiety and self-harm, his music became the lite that guided my way, peculiarly "I Won't Dorsum Down." Every concert I attended, he would play that vocal more beautifully than I ever could imagine, and I would stand there and bask in the music and let it take me away from all the sadness I felt at that moment. Following his death, I knew I wanted a office of his music to be with me forever, and I got the nigh important quote of my life tattooed: "You lot tin can stand me up at the gates of Hell, but I won't dorsum down."

Vallerie Drorbaugh
Springfield, Neb.

Vallerie Drorbaugh has her mantra printed in a higher place a doorway in her abode. Courtesy of Vallerie Drorbraugh hibernate caption

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When I was preparing to have intensive spine surgery, a friend advised me to have a prayer or mantra set up for when it was time to effort to walk, because it would be very painful, very challenging. The lifelong Lilliputian fan that I am (my habitation is named Dreamville), I of course chose "I Won't Dorsum Down." My surgeon played information technology for me every bit I was going under anesthetic earlier the seven-hour surgery, and I played it during recovery to walk to, my goal beingness to walk to the rhythm every bit I walked effectually my staircase. I did recover, my spine fused, and I was stronger than e'er and went back to work after a few months.

Presently after returning to piece of work, I was diagnosed with chest cancer. I will never forget going to the nursing dwelling house with my blood brother to tell my 89-year-old mother that I had cancer. We sabbatum outside in the courtyard. I told her I was virtually to have a double mastectomy, and we wouldn't know my prognosis until the results from the surgery came in. I said, " Mom, you know what a Tom Picayune fan I've been all my life? Well, I used this song to go me through the pain and recovery from the spine surgery, and information technology's gonna get me through this, too." And I played "I Won't Dorsum Downwardly" for her. I held it upwards to her ear and she and my brother and I but saturday with tears in our eyes and listened. She listened to the whole thing, sitting there in the courtyard. It was ballsy.

My next 2 surgeons played "I Won't Back Downwardly" for me. On April 12, 2019, it was seven years since I was diagnosed, and I am cancer-free.

Erica Kufus
New Richmond, Wis.

Erica Kufus with her father, Bradley Bundgaard, at her loftier schoolhouse graduation in 2000. Courtesy of Erica Kufus hide caption

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Erica Kufus with her father, Bradley Bundgaard, at her high school graduation in 2000.

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When I was 5, my parents divorced. My dad would come up selection me up on the weekends and we would go for a drive in the land, listening to Tom Petty (and of class this vocal) loud with the windows downward in his old wood-console van, or in after years, his cherry-red Ford Probe. We would go lost and and so observe our way out of backroads. It was so much fun! I stayed a Tom Petty fan e'er since.

When I was 30, my dad died by suicide with a gunshot through his chest. My married man, my 1-year-old girl and I were the terminal to leave the funeral home. As we began driving, this vocal began to play. Information technology wasn't sad, it was an anthem. I felt at peace. I felt freaked out this coincidence happened, but the car was so quiet equally we all listened without proverb a word. The line "There own't no easy way out" took on a new meaning. I knew he had been sick with mental illness and addiction for many years and suffered at the stop of his life with these battles. Suicide is an intensely sad option to go out of this broken world, but human being, there was no easy way out.

Sara Annals
Marietta, Ga.

Sara Register with her daughter, Rhiannon, at a Tom Little concert at Red Rocks, Colo., during his final bout in 2017. A huge rainstorm soaked the crowd. Courtesy of Sara Annals hibernate caption

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Sara Register with her daughter, Rhiannon, at a Tom Petty concert at Ruddy Rocks, Colo., during his final tour in 2017. A huge rainstorm soaked the crowd.

Courtesy of Sara Register

Several years agone, later a harrowing 48 hours in which her house burned downwardly and she finalized her divorce, Sara drove beyond the country with her young daughter.

Nosotros put thousands of miles on my vehicle, and I was happiest when there was a black shimmering strip of highway extending from my hood to the far horizon coupled with countless blue skies. The dizzying enormity of our country made my previous problems experience so small. And always, while driving outside cellphone range and social media'southward reach, at that place was Tom Lilliputian. I have a lot of favorite songs of his that are lesser known, just at that place is no greater feeling than crossing the plains of South Dakota, window downwardly, belting "I Won't Dorsum Downwardly." Because I wouldn't. I didn't allow being solitary continue me from seeing the places I had always dreamed of.

When I slept once by myself on the side of a mountain, completely certain that a cougar was going to come by and snack on me, I sang that song from the safety of my hammock. And when I saw [Niggling] live for the second and final time at Red Rocks a few months earlier he passed, I sang just equally loudly, surrounded by several thousand boyfriend fans belting with the same force that I did. There actually never had been an like shooting fish in a barrel way out of what I had gone through. But I made it.

Aaron Thomas
Clarksburg, Md.

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Aaron Thomas

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I played this song in the midst of dealing with a shut friend's suicide and having to figure out how to officiate his funeral with a broken heart (I'm a minister). My married woman and I listened to this song on a cantankerous-country trip together after I lost my job and we had to movement in with my parents for a time. Our worship leader occasionally breaks out in this song prior to Dominicus service just to entertain me. If in that location's a fourth dimension I demand to be reminded of hope, warmth, skillful memories, God, or those I love: This is the song. Equally a Christian, I believe some of our principles are to bring hope to the hopeless and strength to the weak. If at that place was ever a song to sum upwardly these principles, information technology's "I Won't Back Down." It's the anthem of my life.

Kelli Sexton
Mountain View, Calif.

Kelli Sexton (left) with her sis, Jamie Stauffer, at Parris Island, S.C., on the twenty-four hours Sexton graduated from Marine Corps boot camp. Courtesy of Kelli Sexton hide caption

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Kelli Sexton (left) with her sister, Jamie Stauffer, at Parris Island, S.C., on the solar day Sexton graduated from Marine Corps boot camp.

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When I was in high school, I decided to enlist in the Marine Corps. As the time got closer for me to leave for kicking military camp, my fright of the unknown was rise. A recruiter asked me if I had an anthem, and the stand-your-ground lyrics of "I Won't Dorsum Down" immediately came to mind. "I Won't Back Downwardly" became my mantra, and I used the lyrics to reassure myself that I would get through the rigors of training. To this 24-hour interval, I give Tom Petty credit for getting me through what I considered to be my toughest challenge at the time. The lyrics not only encouraged me to proceed going, [they] gave me a mental escape to the happy times at home with family unit.

Niki Vonderwell
Mannheim, Frg

The phrase "I won't dorsum downward" is engraved on the wedding rings of Niki Vonderwell and her husband, Matthias Luft. Courtesy of Niki Vonderwell hibernate caption

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The phrase "I won't back downward" is engraved on the wedding rings of Niki Vonderwell and her husband, Matthias Luft.

Courtesy of Niki Vonderwell

Niki is from Ohio. In 2011, at a modest IT security conference in Dayton, she met a German human who — six years later — would go her husband:

I heard his voice earlier I saw him, and I held my breath as he made his mode upwards the stairs while telling some joke to his colleagues. When I saw him, I couldn't codify a single thought in my encephalon other than "Wow!" We spent the residue of the solar day flirting, and by the 2d twenty-four hour period I had volunteered to bulldoze him on an errand he needed to run. Nosotros had gotten to know a piddling about each other the twenty-four hours before, merely my true test of compatibility was coming: Did he know Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, and if so, what did he think? I explained as we got in the machine this was my favorite band in the whole world. I associated every big milestone in my life (and some small ones) with a different song from the band (no pressure, right?). He had never heard of them, but gamely asked to hear a few songs while we drove. I played "I Won't Dorsum Downward" offset, and he was hooked thereafter.

He flew back to Germany the next twenty-four hours, and we decided a week or so afterwards to try long-distance dating. For ii 1/2 years, we played "I Won't Back Down" when the altitude got to be too much and we were missing each other like crazy. It was a reminder that no thing what the statistics said well-nigh long-altitude relationships, we could make information technology work. We would non dorsum down from what was important to us: our relationship. I moved to Germany eventually, and two years ago he proposed. When I said yes, he asked how I felt about engraving our rings with "I Won't Back Downward" and making it our first trip the light fantastic toe. It was perfect. The week after our wedding, we flew to London for the Heartbreakers' merely European stop in 2017. Of grade they played "I Won't Back Down." I think swaying back and along with my husband in this beatific moment, thinking how amazing it was to have come total circle, in a way. Tom Petty died just over ii months afterwards.

Carla Corpancho
Beaverton, Ore.

Carla moved to the U.S. from her habitation country of Peru in 2001. Her sister used to play this song all the time back in Lima, and it has special meaning for her at present, in this country.

I honey that song. It's my song. I am an immigrant, and even after being treated horribly because I look different and because I have an accent, I won't dorsum downward. I won't give upwards. I volition never lower my head in front of anyone. Never. This song speaks to me and gives me the energy to fight and never requite up. I don't care how many times people telephone call me names and say, "Y'all don't even speak English," I won't back down. I deserve a good life, and I sing this song from the depth of my center.

Jim Benes
Lincoln, Nib.

Jim Benes as a Declension Baby-sit air coiffure member on a rescue helicopter in 2005. Courtesy of Jim Benes hide caption

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Jim Benes every bit a Coast Guard air crew member on a rescue helicopter in 2005.

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Who hasn't felt beaten, bruised and dilapidated, turned on the radio and belted this tune at the tiptop of their range while driving downward a road?

I fell in dearest with this vocal and a lot of Tom Little songs when I joined the U.S. Declension Guard. I was stationed on a river gunkhole in Iowa, and I was a closeted gay kid from Nebraska. I felt really out of place, and I felt like I was lost, wondering what I had done, if I had fabricated a mistake. I joined the armed forces immediately following 9/11, equally an impulsive response to a surge of patriotism and the pull to do something. Similar all good moments when I've gone out on a limb, joining the Coast Baby-sit turned out to exist one of the best decisions I've ever made.

Tom's Petty's music served as a soundtrack to these tough times, and got me through a lot of seemingly hopeless personal moments as I struggled with my sexuality in a "don't ask, don't tell" military service. I'1000 happy that this policy is no longer in place.

Monica Owings
Canton, Ga.

Monica Owings in her garden. Courtesy of Monica Owings hibernate explanation

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Monica Owings in her garden.

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Every bit an introvert who fought through deep depression and crippling anxiety, I had to fight a abiding internal boxing invisible to those effectually me. Music was an elixir, and specifically Tom Petty music. At 30, I had a breakdown of sorts. My depression and anxiety were consuming me. Although I had a successful career, what internal strength it took to battle the demons of the depression became insurmountable. I distinctly remember waking up and knowing I merely couldn't continue. I didn't want this feeling to continue; I'd rather be dead. The alarm clock went off, and I heard Tom Petty sing, "They can stand me up at the gates of hell and I won't back downwards." In that very moment, I made a choice. The choice to acquit on and alive.

Over my lifetime, as I've lived with chronic depression, this song has become an anthem of sorts for me. Tom Piddling'southward lyrics have fueled my desire to choose life. The words Tom Petty wrote literally made the difference in me living or dying. They came on the radio that morning at that moment, and because they did, I'm hither today writing this. Many of Tom Niggling'south songs were inspirational to me, but I will remain forever grateful to a man I'll never know who saved my life.

Heather Williams
Los Angeles

Heather Williams at a Los Angeles teachers' strike action in January. Courtesy of Heather Williams hibernate caption

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Heather Williams at a Los Angeles teachers' strike action in January.

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In 2008, Heather was at a conference of grassroots labor activists in Dearborn, Mich., when steelworkers were on strike nearby.

As a function of the conference, nosotros were encouraged to leave the hotel and go support the striking steelworkers. It was freezing cold exterior, and so cold that the picketers had started fires in two trash barrels. The sentinel line didn't have many people on it when nosotros arrived on our bus. Obviously the strike had been going on for nearly two years and was struggling. Our grouping of conference attendees swelled the line to over 100. The mood instantly improved. We began quietly marching on the lookout man line. The weather was miserable. After a few minutes of this, a man pulled up in a pickup truck alongside the picket line. We didn't know if he was there to be supportive or to abuse us. He hung his head out the window and yelled "Hey!" and and so cranked his stereo. "I Won't Back Down" started playing. He never got out of his truck, but put the vocal on echo. It played 4 or five more times. Everyone started singing. Information technology was really wonderful. I'll never forget it.

Melissa Hughes
Olympia, Wash.

Melissa Hughes (center) with her sisters Michelle Feist (left) and Jessica Feist (correct) at a Tom Footling concert in Seattle in August 2017. Courtesy of Melissa Hughes hide caption

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Melissa Hughes (center) with her sisters Michelle Feist (left) and Jessica Feist (right) at a Tom Petty concert in Seattle in August 2017.

Courtesy of Melissa Hughes

"I Won't Back Down" is a battle weep, an anthem with lyrics that grasp straight to the heart. It is a vocal for any struggle.

When I hear the start few strums, I'g instantly transported back in time. Suddenly I'm 11 in my dad's Ford Ranger on the way to soccer do. I was a nervous child. Even with my dad beingness the best pre-game motivational speaker to convince a shy, well-mannered eleven-yr-old to go amped, it wasn't enough to become my head in the game. My dad would say, "Melissa, you've got to become mad! Run similar you're angry."

Cue Lilliputian on vocals, Campbell on guitar, and the lines then etched on my heart, "You lot can stand me upwardly at the gates of hell, simply I won't back downwardly." I'd headbang along, strapping my shinguards in place, mentally preparing every bit if going into boxing. I could feel information technology, hit repeat, then again, heart racing, deep inhales, as centering as a meditation, as holy as a prayer. It was the quintessential mantra that made me dash out with pride onto every field. It was the method for dealing with whatever insurmountable obstacle. It provided the fortitude to keep trying.

Petty's words gave me the grit I needed to brand it through college as the first girl in my family ever to practice so. Currently, I climb mountains. I lug my heavy pack along river bends and cliff faces, and all over the hills I hear, "No, I'll stand up my basis, won't exist turned effectually."

Jason Enright
Scottsdale, Ariz.

Jason Enright and his son, Connor, meeting Tom Trivial on his bout bus in June 2013, with the guitar Jason fabricated for Petty at Connor's urging. Andy Tennille/Courtesy of Jason Enright hide caption

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Jason Enright and his son, Connor, meeting Tom Petty on his bout passenger vehicle in June 2013, with the guitar Jason made for Petty at Connor's urging.

Andy Tennille/Courtesy of Jason Enright

I'k a single full-time dad. My wife and I split just before my son Connor's 3rd birthday. I was faced with raising him on my own six days a week and it was somewhat terrifying: Volition I be expert at this? Am I going to mess him up somehow? How practice I go him to eat anything other than craven nuggets and mac and cheese? Simply, as I had done a lot of times in my life when I was stressed or in pain or scared, I turned to Tom Lilliputian and the Heartbreakers. The music would ease the stress, numb the pain, and make any I was scared of a lot less scary.

Ane day early on in our us-confronting-the-earth boxing, we decided to set out for Southern California for a few days to leave the "real world" behind. I glanced in the rearview mirror and looked at Connor sleeping in his machine seat, the countless desert stretched out behind him in the rear windshield. Again, the thought crossed my heed: How am I going to practice this and do it well? Non fifty-fifty 10 seconds later, "I Won't Dorsum Down" came on the radio. I allow out a loud "Ha!"

At that place was TP one time again, letting me know that everything was going to be all right every bit long equally I didn't give upwardly.

Fast-forward to a few years later on. We're in Hollywood in a guitar store because I wanted to buy a T-shirt. Afterwards I bought my shirt, I found Connor standing adjacent to a three-quarter-size guitar. "Can I get this?" he asked. "I tin learn to play Tom Lilliputian songs with information technology." We were on our last day of vacation, depression on money. I checked my bank business relationship. If I returned the T-shirt, if nosotros ate fast nutrient for dinner, and if nosotros could get dwelling on a tank of gas, we could pull it off. He slept with that guitar in the hotel that nighttime. He was 6 years erstwhile.

Arriving habitation, he took lessons. The outset song he learned? "I Won't Back Downward." He soon played every day and learned one Heartbreakers song after another. A twelvemonth later he asked for a "real" guitar, specifically a Telecaster, considering TP played a Telecaster in concert when we saw him here in Phoenix.

He picked one out he liked, just it was $ii,000. I never wanted to permit him down, so I explained as best as I could why we couldn't beget something like that. "But," I said. "Perchance I could just make you ane."

I'd never made anything in my life. I didn't own whatsoever tools. We lived in an apartment.

"OK!" he said.

Honestly, I thought it would just buy me some time to find him a cheaper one. Just 1 of our golden rules is, "Exercise what you say y'all're going to do." So I found a inexpensive Telecaster on Craigslist and tore it down to refinish it, just to see if I could even do that. It turned out all right, so I started reading websites and books on how to make an electric guitar.

I ordered wood and parts off the Internet, and over the side by side few months, I fabricated an electric guitar. I finished it about thirty minutes earlier Connor'south eighth-birthday political party. I found out I was pretty practiced at it and fabricated a couple more.

Looking at a block of wood i night in our apartment, mouth full of spaghetti, Connor looked up at me and said, "You could build one for Tom Piffling. You lot make squeamish ones and he likes guitars."

"I don't think it works that way," I said.

"Sure, but yous didn't think y'all could even make one and that happened," he said. "Nosotros already have tickets to encounter them in LA in June, anyhow. Plus, if you make him one I could give information technology to him and I'd get to meet him." He smiled.

And then, as whatever single dad/crazy person would do, I fired off a long email to Tom Little's direction company that probably made them remember I was bananas. A few weeks later, Evan from the company contacted me, said Tom got my email, and if I could bring the guitar to the show, there was a really good take a chance nosotros'd go to give the guitar to Tom.

On the day of the show, we received a phone call from him letting u.s.a. know that it was going to happen: Tom was going to come across us prior to the show so we could give him the guitar. Later at the Fonda Theatre, we were sitting in the lobby when Evan came to talk to the states. "I can't believe I'1000 going to say this, but ... he wants to meet you lot on his motorbus. And no i gets to get on his jitney."

He led the states to the back of the edifice and suddenly, I was standing adjacent to my wide-eyed 9-yr-quondam son, on Tom Trivial's tour double-decker, holding a guitar I built for him. A moment afterward, Tom emerged, with his wife, Dana, right backside him. He was larger than life (but actually shorter than I expected; onstage he looks x feet tall).

Tom smiled, walked correct up to my son, leaned over and shook his hand and said, "Hey, you lot must exist Connor. I'chiliad Tom. Nice to meet you." He then shook my hand, introduced united states to Dana, and just fell into conversation with Connor. It was — and still is — surreal. He greeted usa like family unit he'd never met. Despite Evan telling us the meeting would be brief, we spent a proficient 15 minutes on his motorcoach.

Jason and Connor Enright with Tom Fiddling in 2013. Andy Tennille/Courtesy of Jason Enright hide explanation

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Jason and Connor Enright with Tom Piffling in 2013.

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He gushed over the guitar when we opened the case and gave it to him. As he went to put it back into the instance, Connor was in conversation with Dana, so I leaned over to Tom. "At that place are no words, man," I said. "Thank y'all so much for doing this. He's going to think this for the rest of his life."

Tom looked at me and then downward at the guitar.

"Just wait what you did for me," he said. "I know these aren't like shooting fish in a barrel to make. And you thought enough of me to go through all this trouble." He put his paw on his heart and said, "Actually, I'k just touched. I'g humbled. Thank you for doing this for me."

He gave Connor some guitar picks and signed a concert affiche for him. We shook hands, he hugged Connor, and off we went back into the venue. Nosotros probably weren't in there more than a couple minutes earlier the Heartbreakers took the stage.

About halfway through the show, a woman leaned over to me and said, "Your male child knows all the words to every song! He's and so cool! You're such a great dad!" I thanked her and idea, "You have no idea where nosotros were an hr ago."

After the testify, we went to a Denny's and ate biscuits and gravy and rehashed the evening over the adjacent few hours. We were as well amped up to sleep.

"I'm curious," I said to Connor. "Does this whole experience teach you lot anything?"

"Yep," he said, slurping on a chocolate shake. "Anything is possible. Anything."

Walter Ray Watson produced this story for air. Daoud Tyler-Ameen contributed to the digital version.

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Source: https://www.npr.org/2019/05/08/721228788/tom-petty-i-wont-back-down-american-anthem-resolve