Runnin' Down a Dream
| "Runnin' Down a Dream" | ||||||||||||
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| Single by Tom Petty | ||||||||||||
| from the album Full Moon Fever | ||||||||||||
| B-side | "Alright For Now" "Down the Line" (12" & CD only) |
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| Released | July 29, 1989 | |||||||||||
| Format | 7", cassette, 12" & CD (UK only) |
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| Recorded | 1988 | |||||||||||
| Genre | Heartland rock, hard rock | |||||||||||
| Length | 4:25 | |||||||||||
| Label | MCA | |||||||||||
| Writer(s) | Tom Petty, Jeff Lynne, Mike Campbell | |||||||||||
| Producer(s) | Jeff Lynne, Tom Petty, Mike Campbell | |||||||||||
| Tom Petty singles chronology | ||||||||||||
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| 12 tracks |
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"Runnin' Down a Dream" is a song co-written and recorded by Tom Petty. It was released in July 1989 as the second single from his first solo album Full Moon Fever. "Runnin' Down a Dream" achieved reasonable chart success, reaching number 23 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and the top of the Billboard Album Rock Tracks chart. It has since garnered significant airplay on classic rock stations, and lent its name to the 2007 documentary on Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers.
The song was co-written by Mike Campbell, along with Petty and Jeff Lynne. It was a nod to Petty's musical roots, with the lyric "me and Del were singin' 'Little Runaway'" making reference to Del Shannon and "Runaway".
The song uses E major as a tonic, but makes ample use of chords outside that key, such as D, G, and C major chords. Some passages (including the extended outro) use a pedal point of E in the bass, while changing chords from E major to C and D major chords above it. The repeating fuzz guitar riff, using the notes B, B♭, A, G, and E, lacks only a D to complete the hexatonic E blues scale.
The original US compact disc release of the album contained a hidden track just after the song with a brief tongue-in-cheek monologue by Petty over a background of barnyard noises explaining that there would be a pause "in fairness to those listeners [listening on LP or cassette]" who would at that point have to flip over to side 2. The interlude is not included in other versions of the album, though it is mentioned (as "Attention CD Listeners") in the album credits in all versions. This interlude would be jokingly referenced on cassette releases of 1991's Into the Great Wide Open, where listeners were instructed on how to flip the tape over and prepare it for side 2.
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