Tom Petty – Highway Companion

In classic rock mythology, the road was charged with possibility, motion equaling escape and a change in direction equaling a change in attitude. But as rock music has become less of a calling and more of a profession, and its foremost statesmen have become elder, being on the road has become its own reward, its own destination. You have only to think of all that bus mileage Bob Dylan accrues rolling from town to town in his old fartage — or listen to Tom Petty’s nothing-if-not-mellow Highway Companion, which marks his 30th year in the business.

At 55, Petty has seen the inside of too many buses and trains to get excited about getting his motor runnin’ and headin’ out on the highway. When he sings “Rockets in the tail lights/Red burns into night/Rolling out of sight,” or “Running for another place/To find that saving grace,” or “Drifting home again/Headlights in my eyes,” he invests far more in reflection than release. Highway Companion is a polished, patient work by an artist who still loves a good twang but is too honest to hang on to old poses — the chief one being that time is on his side. “Maybe time, baby,” he sings, “is catching up with you.”

Produced by Jeff Lynne, in more streamlined fashion than on his past studio collaborations with Petty (Mike Campbell is the only Heartbreaker on board; Petty himself plays drums), Highway Companion has a cinematic quality in anthologizing visually detailed tales of romance and regret and the search for solace. In the end, all roads lead to Pettyville, where consistency is the highest virtue and, even without any individual songs demanding airplay this time, craft reigns supreme.