Tom Petty scored a huge hit with “I Won’t Back Down” from his ‘Full Moon Fever’ album in 1989. The song was written by Petty and Jeff Lynne. Tom said he didn’t want the song to sound “too macho.”
The classic topped the ‘Billboard Album Rock Tracks’ chart and peaked at #12 on the ‘Hot 100’ in 1989.Heartbreakers guitarist Mike Campbell played on the song and co-produced Petty’s first solo album, ‘Full Moon Fever.’
Campbell didn’t take part in writing the song, but he did recall the first time he heard Petty and Jeff Lynne working on it. He said, “I went in to mix ‘Free Fallin’,’ and when I got there they were in the next room at the piano working on a song. And I went in there and they were working on ‘I Won’t Back Down.’ That’s all they had was ‘I won’t back down’ and they were trying to make a song out of it. Maybe Jeff came up with that lyric for all I know. At one point, Tom was a little worried about the macho stance of ‘I Won’t Back Down.’ He didn’t really want to write a macho point of view about it, so he sort of softened it up a little bit so it wasn’t like a heavy metal tune.”
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[Source: Classic Hits Today]