Ill Never Be a Peeping Tom Again

Tom Footling performs with the Heartbreakers in Belgium in 1992. Gie Knaeps/Getty Images hide caption

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Tom Petty performs with the Heartbreakers in Kingdom of belgium in 1992.

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

Editor's annotation: This story includes discussions of low, addiction and suicide.

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

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

The vocal was released in 1989 on Petty'south solo album Full Moon Fever. The artist told interviewers that people would come 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 daughter out of a coma," recalls his widow, Dana Petty. "It was her favorite song and they played it and she came out of a coma, which blew his listen."

"It's a very simple song, but a very powerful song," says Petty's lifelong bandmate, guitarist Mike Campbell. "Information technology'due south every bit deep as you want to become. That was one of Tom'due south talents, that he could say a lot with very few words."

Piffling died of an accidental drug overdose in 2017, at age 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 upwardly to everybody. Nobody told him what to do."

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

Over the 20 years that Dana went on the route with Tom Trivial and the Heartbreakers, "I Won't Dorsum Down" was a fixture. "They played that every night," she says. "Tommy never got tired of that one, because of the audience response."

In that location were times, she remembers, when the tens of thousands of fans singing along were so loud they would drown out the band. "It'south a song that touches everyone in their own style," she says. "You could see that they were all singing nigh their lives every night. And it'southward a pretty amazing thing to witness."

The vocal's universal appeal stems from its simplicity, says Tom Piddling'southward girl Adria Niggling. "It'due south like a mantra. Information technology keeps building you up, stronger, stronger, stronger. Every word of the vocal is culminating in more than tenacity."

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

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Your 'I Won't Back Down' Stories

We asked NPR listeners to tell united states of america how "I Won't Back Down" has inspired them as a personal anthem, and more 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 Downward," listen to the total radio story at the sound link.

Ashley Ellis
Buffalo, North.Y.

Ashley Ellis has lyrics from "I Won't Back Down" tattooed on her shoulder blade. Courtesy of Ashley Ellis hide explanation

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

Courtesy of Ashley Ellis

Throughout my life, from the fourth dimension I was a child, I lived and breathed Tom Petty'southward music. As I got older and began suffering from depression, anxiety and self-harm, his music became the light that guided my mode, specially "I Won't Back Down." Every concert I attended, he would play that vocal more beautifully than I always could imagine, and I would stand up there and bask in the music and permit 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 most important quote of my life tattooed: "You can stand up me upwardly at the gates of Hell, but I won't dorsum downwardly."

Vallerie Drorbaugh
Springfield, Neb.

Vallerie Drorbaugh has her mantra printed in a higher place a doorway in her dwelling house. Courtesy of Vallerie Drorbraugh hide caption

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Courtesy of Vallerie Drorbraugh

When I was preparing to have intensive spine surgery, a friend advised me to have a prayer or mantra ready for when it was time to try to walk, because information technology would be very painful, very challenging. The lifelong Little fan that I am (my dwelling is named Dreamville), I of class chose "I Won't Back Downward." My surgeon played it for me every bit I was going under anesthetic earlier the vii-hour surgery, and I played information technology during recovery to walk to, my goal being to walk to the rhythm equally I walked around my staircase. I did recover, my spine fused, and I was stronger than ever and went dorsum to work after a few months.

Before long afterwards returning to work, I was diagnosed with chest cancer. I will never forget going to the nursing home with my brother to tell my 89-twelvemonth-sometime mother that I had cancer. We sat outside in the courtyard. I told her I was about to have a double mastectomy, and we wouldn't know my prognosis until the results from the surgery came in. I said, " Mom, you lot know what a Tom Petty fan I've been all my life? Well, I used this song to get me through the pain and recovery from the spine surgery, and it's gonna get me through this, too." And I played "I Won't Back Down" for her. I held it up to her ear and she and my blood brother and I simply sat with tears in our optics and listened. She listened to the whole thing, sitting there in the courtyard. Information technology was epic.

My adjacent two surgeons played "I Won't Back Down" for me. On April 12, 2019, information technology was vii years since I was diagnosed, and I am cancer-free.

Erica Kufus
New Richmond, Wis.

Erica Kufus with her father, Bradley Bundgaard, at her high school graduation in 2000. Courtesy of Erica Kufus hibernate caption

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Erica Kufus with her begetter, Bradley Bundgaard, at her loftier school graduation in 2000.

Courtesy of Erica Kufus

When I was 5, my parents divorced. My dad would come pick me up on the weekends and we would become for a bulldoze in the land, listening to Tom Lilliputian (and of course this song) loud with the windows down in his one-time wood-panel van, or in afterwards years, his red Ford Probe. We would become lost and then find our style out of backroads. It was so much fun! I stayed a Tom Petty fan e'er since.

When I was thirty, my dad died by suicide with a gunshot through his breast. My married man, my i-twelvemonth-old girl and I were the last to leave the funeral home. As we began driving, this vocal began to play. It 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 saying a give-and-take. The line "In that location ain'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 deplorable selection to get out of this broken world, but man, at that place was no piece of cake way out.

Sara Register
Marietta, Ga.

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

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

Courtesy of Sara Annals

Several years ago, after a harrowing 48 hours in which her firm burned down and she finalized her divorce, Sara collection across the country with her young daughter.

We 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 boundless enormity of our country made my previous problems feel then pocket-size. And always, while driving outside cellphone range and social media'southward reach, there was Tom Petty. I take a lot of favorite songs of his that are bottom known, just there is no greater feeling than crossing the plains of Due south Dakota, window downward, belting "I Won't Back Downwardly." Because I wouldn't. I didn't let being alone continue me from seeing the places I had always dreamed of.

When I slept in one case by myself on the side of a mountain, completely sure 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 [Lilliputian] live for the 2d and terminal time at Cherry Rocks a few months earlier he passed, I sang just as loudly, surrounded by several m fellow fans belting with the same strength that I did. There really never had been an easy manner out of what I had gone through. But I made information technology.

Aaron Thomas
Clarksburg, Doctor.

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Aaron Thomas

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I played this song in the midst of dealing with a close friend's suicide and having to figure out how to officiate his funeral with a broken heart (I'chiliad a minister). My married woman and I listened to this vocal on a cross-state trip together after I lost my job and we had to move in with my parents for a time. Our worship leader occasionally breaks out in this vocal prior to Sun service just to entertain me. If in that location's a fourth dimension I need to be reminded of promise, warmth, skilful memories, God, or those I dear: This is the song. Every bit a Christian, I believe some of our principles are to bring hope to the hopeless and strength to the weak. If there was always a song to sum up these principles, information technology'due south "I Won't Back Downwardly." Information technology's the anthem of my life.

Kelli Sexton
Mountain View, Calif.

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

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

Courtesy of Kelli Sexton

When I was in high schoolhouse, I decided to enlist in the Marine Corps. As the fourth dimension got closer for me to get out for kick camp, my fear of the unknown was rising. A recruiter asked me if I had an canticle, and the stand up-your-ground lyrics of "I Won't Dorsum Downwardly" immediately came to mind. "I Won't Dorsum Downwards" became my mantra, and I used the lyrics to reassure myself that I would get through the rigors of grooming. To this day, I give Tom Petty credit for getting me through what I considered to be my toughest claiming at the time. The lyrics not only encouraged me to keep going, [they] gave me a mental escape to the happy times at dwelling with family.

Niki Vonderwell
Mannheim, Federal republic of germany

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

Courtesy of Niki Vonderwell

Niki is from Ohio. In 2011, at a small IT security conference in Dayton, she met a German language man who — six years later — would become her husband:

I heard his vocalization earlier I saw him, and I held my breath as he made his way up the stairs while telling some joke to his colleagues. When I saw him, I couldn't formulate a single thought in my encephalon other than "Wow!" We spent the rest of the day flirting, and by the second day I had volunteered to drive him on an errand he needed to run. We had gotten to know a petty nigh each other the day before, but my true test of compatibility was coming: Did he know Tom Trivial and the Heartbreakers, and if then, what did he call up? I explained as nosotros got in the car this was my favorite band in the whole world. I associated every big milestone in my life (and some small ones) with a dissimilar song from the band (no pressure level, right?). He had never heard of them, but gamely asked to hear a few songs while we drove. I played "I Won't Dorsum Down" first, and he was hooked thereafter.

He flew back to Germany the side by side day, and we decided a week or so subsequently to try long-altitude dating. For 2 1/2 years, nosotros played "I Won't Back Downward" when the distance got to be besides much and we were missing each other like crazy. Information technology was a reminder that no affair what the statistics said about long-distance relationships, we could make information technology work. We would not back down from what was important to us: our relationship. I moved to Germany eventually, and two years ago he proposed. When I said aye, he asked how I felt about engraving our rings with "I Won't Back Down" and making it our first dance. It was perfect. The week later on our wedding, nosotros flew to London for the Heartbreakers' only European cease in 2017. Of grade they played "I Won't Dorsum Down." I call up swaying back and forth with my husband in this blissful moment, thinking how amazing information technology was to have come full circle, in a way. Tom Petty died but over two months later on.

Carla Corpancho
Beaverton, Ore.

Carla moved to the U.Southward. from her domicile country of Peru in 2001. Her sis used to play this song all the time back in Lima, and information technology has special meaning for her now, in this country.

I dearest that song. It's my song. I am an immigrant, and fifty-fifty after being treated horribly considering I wait different and because I take an accent, I won't dorsum downwards. I won't give up. I volition never lower my head in front of anyone. Never. This vocal speaks to me and gives me the energy to fight and never requite upwardly. I don't care how many times people call me names and say, "Y'all don't even speak English," I won't dorsum down. I deserve a expert life, and I sing this song from the depth of my heart.

Jim Benes
Lincoln, Neb.

Jim Benes every bit a Coast Guard air crew fellow member on a rescue helicopter in 2005. Courtesy of Jim Benes hide explanation

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Jim Benes every bit a Declension 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 elevation of their range while driving down a route?

I fell in dearest with this vocal and a lot of Tom Footling songs when I joined the U.S. Declension Baby-sit. I was stationed on a river boat in Iowa, and I was a closeted gay kid from Nebraska. I felt really out of identify, and I felt like I was lost, wondering what I had done, if I had made a mistake. I joined the military immediately post-obit nine/11, as an impulsive response to a surge of patriotism and the pull to practice something. Similar all good moments when I've gone out on a limb, joining the Declension Guard turned out to be one of the all-time decisions I've ever made.

Tom'southward Lilliputian'southward 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" armed services service. I'1000 happy that this policy is no longer in identify.

Monica Owings
County, Ga.

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Monica Owings in her garden.

Courtesy of Monica Owings

As an introvert who fought through deep depression and crippling anxiety, I had to fight a constant internal battle invisible to those around me. Music was an elixir, and specifically Tom Petty music. At 30, I had a breakdown of sorts. My low and anxiety were consuming me. Although I had a successful career, what internal strength it took to boxing the demons of the depression became insurmountable. I distinctly call back waking up and knowing I only couldn't go on. I didn't desire this feeling to proceed; I'd rather be expressionless. The alarm clock went off, and I heard Tom Petty sing, "They tin can stand me up at the gates of hell and I won't back down." In that very moment, I made a choice. The choice to carry on and alive.

Over my lifetime, equally I've lived with chronic low, this song has get an canticle of sorts for me. Tom Petty'southward lyrics accept fueled my desire to choose life. The words Tom Picayune 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 Petty's songs were inspirational to me, merely I will remain forever grateful to a man I'll never know who saved my life.

Heather Williams
Los Angeles

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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 part of the briefing, we were encouraged to leave the hotel and become support the striking steelworkers. It was freezing cold outside, and then common cold that the picketers had started fires in two trash barrels. The picket line didn't have many people on it when we arrived on our motorbus. Apparently the strike had been going on for nearly two years and was struggling. Our group of briefing attendees swelled the line to over 100. The mood instantly improved. We began quietly marching on the sentinel line. The weather was miserable. Afterwards a few minutes of this, a human being pulled up in a pickup truck aslope the lookout man line. We didn't know if he was there to be supportive or to abuse united states of america. He hung his head out the window and yelled "Hey!" and and then cranked his stereo. "I Won't Back Down" started playing. He never got out of his truck, but put the song on repeat. It played iv or five more than times. Everyone started singing. It was really wonderful. I'll never forget it.

Melissa Hughes
Olympia, Wash.

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

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

Courtesy of Melissa Hughes

"I Won't Dorsum Downward" is a battle cry, an anthem with lyrics that grasp straight to the middle. It is a song for any struggle.

When I hear the first few strums, I'k instantly transported back in time. All of a sudden I'k eleven in my dad's Ford Ranger on the style to soccer do. I was a nervous child. Even with my dad existence the best pre-game motivational speaker to convince a shy, well-mannered 11-year-old to get amped, information technology wasn't plenty to become my caput in the game. My dad would say, "Melissa, yous've got to get mad! Run like yous're angry."

Cue Petty on vocals, Campbell on guitar, and the lines and so etched on my middle, "You lot can stand me up at the gates of hell, but I won't back downwards." I'd headbang along, strapping my shinguards in place, mentally preparing as if going into boxing. I could experience it, hit repeat, then over again, heart racing, deep inhales, equally centering equally a meditation, equally holy as a prayer. Information technology was the quintessential mantra that fabricated me dash out with pride onto every field. It was the method for dealing with whatsoever insurmountable obstacle. Information technology provided the fortitude to keep trying.

Footling's words gave me the grit I needed to make it through college every bit the first girl in my family ever to do then. 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 my basis, won't be turned effectually."

Jason Enright
Scottsdale, Ariz.

Jason Enright and his son, Connor, meeting Tom Piddling on his tour jitney in June 2013, with the guitar Jason made for Petty at Connor'southward urging. Andy Tennille/Courtesy of Jason Enright hide explanation

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Andy Tennille/Courtesy of Jason Enright

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

Andy Tennille/Courtesy of Jason Enright

I'1000 a unmarried full-time dad. My wife and I split simply before my son Connor's third 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 upward somehow? How do I get him to eat anything other than chicken nuggets and mac and cheese? Simply, every bit I had washed 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.

One day early in our us-against-the-world battle, we decided to prepare out for Southern California for a few days to go out the "existent earth" behind. I glanced in the rearview mirror and looked at Connor sleeping in his car seat, the endless desert stretched out backside him in the rear windshield. Once again, the thought crossed my mind: How am I going to do this and practise it well? Non even 10 seconds later, "I Won't Dorsum Down" came on the radio. I allow out a loud "Ha!"

There was TP in one case once again, letting me know that everything was going to be all right as long as I didn't surrender.

Fast-forward to a few years after. We're in Hollywood in a guitar store because I wanted to purchase a T-shirt. Afterward I bought my shirt, I found Connor standing next to a three-quarter-size guitar. "Can I get this?" he asked. "I tin can learn to play Tom Piffling songs with it." We were on our last day of vacation, low on money. I checked my bank business relationship. If I returned the T-shirt, if we ate fast food for dinner, and if we could get home on a tank of gas, we could pull it off. He slept with that guitar in the hotel that night. He was 6 years old.

Arriving abode, he took lessons. The get-go song he learned? "I Won't Dorsum Downwards." He soon played every day and learned one Heartbreakers song afterward another. A year later he asked for a "real" guitar, specifically a Telecaster, because TP played a Telecaster in concert when we saw him here in Phoenix.

He picked one out he liked, just information technology was $2,000. I never wanted to allow him down, so I explained equally best as I could why nosotros couldn't afford something like that. "Just," I said. "Perchance I could just make yous one."

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

"OK!" he said.

Honestly, I thought it would only buy me some fourth dimension to find him a cheaper one. But one of our aureate rules is, "Practise what you say you're going to practice." And 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 electrical guitar.

I ordered wood and parts off the Internet, and over the adjacent few months, I made an electrical guitar. I finished it about 30 minutes earlier Connor's eighth-birthday party. I found out I was pretty good at information technology and made a couple more.

Looking at a cake of wood one dark in our flat, mouth full of spaghetti, Connor looked upwardly at me and said, "You could build ane for Tom Piffling. You make dainty ones and he likes guitars."

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

"Certain, only y'all didn't think you could fifty-fifty make one and that happened," he said. "We already take tickets to meet them in LA in June, anyway. Plus, if you make him i I could give information technology to him and I'd go to meet him." He smiled.

And so, equally any unmarried dad/crazy person would exercise, I fired off a long email to Tom Petty'south management company that probably made them retrieve I was bananas. A few weeks later, Evan from the visitor contacted me, said Tom got my email, and if I could bring the guitar to the show, there was a really good chance we'd get to give the guitar to Tom.

On the solar day of the show, nosotros received a telephone call from him letting us know that information technology was going to happen: Tom was going to meet u.s.a. prior to the show so we could give him the guitar. Afterwards at the Fonda Theatre, we were sitting in the lobby when Evan came to talk to u.s.. "I can't believe I'thou going to say this, merely ... he wants to run into yous on his motorbus. And no 1 gets to keep his double-decker."

He led us to the back of the building and suddenly, I was standing next to my broad-eyed nine-year-old son, on Tom Petty's tour coach, property a guitar I built for him. A moment afterward, Tom emerged, with his wife, Dana, right backside him. He was larger than life (only actually shorter than I expected; onstage he looks 10 anxiety tall).

Tom smiled, walked right up to my son, leaned over and shook his hand and said, "Hey, you lot must be Connor. I'm Tom. Nice to see you." He so shook my hand, introduced us to Dana, and merely fell into chat with Connor. Information technology was — and still is — surreal. He greeted us like family he'd never met. Despite Evan telling us the meeting would be brief, we spent a skillful 15 minutes on his passenger vehicle.

Jason and Connor Enright with Tom Piddling in 2013. Andy Tennille/Courtesy of Jason Enright hide caption

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Andy Tennille/Courtesy of Jason Enright

Jason and Connor Enright with Tom Petty in 2013.

Andy Tennille/Courtesy of Jason Enright

He gushed over the guitar when nosotros opened the example and gave it to him. As he went to put it back into the case, Connor was in chat with Dana, then I leaned over to Tom. "There are no words, homo," I said. "Thank you so much for doing this. He's going to retrieve this for the remainder of his life."

Tom looked at me and then down at the guitar.

"But look what you did for me," he said. "I know these aren't piece of cake to make. And yous thought enough of me to go through all this trouble." He put his paw on his heart and said, "Really, I'g simply touched. I'g humbled. Thank you for doing this for me."

He gave Connor some guitar picks and signed a concert poster for him. We shook hands, he hugged Connor, and off we went back into the venue. We probably weren't in at that place more than a couple minutes before the Heartbreakers took the phase.

Nigh halfway through the show, a woman leaned over to me and said, "Your boy knows all the words to every vocal! He'south so cool! You're such a great dad!" I thanked her and thought, "You accept no idea where nosotros were an hour ago."

Afterwards the show, we went to a Denny's and ate biscuits and gravy and rehashed the evening over the next few hours. Nosotros were as well amped up to sleep.

"I'yard curious," I said to Connor. "Does this whole feel teach you anything?"

"Yeah," he said, slurping on a chocolate milk 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

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