It can be easy for a songwriter to lose the plot with a song, especially when they’re in the middle of a strenuous stretch of recording. That’s when a fresh perspective can make a huge difference, especially when it comes from another songwriter of great renown.
In the case of “The Best of Everything,” the closing track from Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers’ 1985 album Southern Accents, Petty received some help from Robbie Robertson. Robertson not only placed the song, which Petty had sitting around somewhat unfinished for years, in just the right musical context, but he also employed a couple of his buddies from The Band to add the perfect finishing touches.
“Everything” in Flux
As beloved as the album now stands among Tom Petty aficionados, Southern Accents emanated from a notoriously difficult recording process. Petty originally envisioned a concept album reflecting his Southern upbringing. Along the way, he met David Stewart of Eurythmics, who encouraged him to include some songs that veered into a modern pop direction.
It turned into a case of trying to do too much all at once. Petty ended up putting a few songs on the record that he would later openly criticize. And his attempts to get the song “Rebels” just right frustrated him so much he punched a wall and severely injured his hand, which only further complicated the recording.
It says something about the chaos about the process that “The Best of Everything,” a song he had written years earlier but hadn’t used, ended up closing out a record for which Petty had specifically written a boatload of material. Petty initially offered the track to Robertson when he was putting together the soundtrack for the movie The King of Comedy.
Robertson took it from Petty under the condition he be left alone to do what he wanted with it. He told Petty he could change it if he didn’t like it once it was done. When Petty heard the song, he was floored by how it had been transformed, as Robertson had added a horn section to bring out the soulfulness. He also enlisted former Band members Garth Hudson (on keyboards) and Richard Manuel (on backing vocals), and the two worked their typical magic.
In addition, Robertson eliminated some lyrics he felt were extraneous, boiling the song down to its essentials. Although it ended up not making the movie, Petty revived it to be the closing act to Southern Accents.
Exploring the Lyrics to “The Best of Everything”
“The Best of Everything” comes from the perspective of a guy looking back on a lost love, caught somewhere between regretting they didn’t make it further and hoping she made it all right once he was no longer in the picture. The chorus, both uplifting and heartbreaking all at once, says it all: Wherever you are tonight / I wish you the best of everything in the world / And honey, I hope you found whatever you were looking for.
That last line of the chorus makes clear, without openly saying it, he couldn’t fulfill her elusive needs, as much as he might have tried. The first verse is spent wondering where her path would have led. He imagines her as working in a restaurant, but doubts she could have sustained in that environment. And he also thinks back to when the pair sang together, although he doubts that it ever amounted to anything.
In the second verse, the narrator begins to muse on the transitory nature of life and how the good times are hard to hold. It’s telling this comes while he’s reflecting upon this girl, suggesting she represented a benevolent moment in his life he wishes he grasped a little tighter. He admits that they never had the real thing, but when Petty and Manuel harmonize on the line, But sometimes we used to kiss, the emotion that shines through implies that maybe it was the real thing after all.
“The Best of Everything” turned out to be the ideal elegiac closer for Southern Accents, even as it originated well before that project was first even imagined. In one final sad twist, it also turned out to be one of the final moments on record for Richard Manuel, who died in 1986 just a year after Petty’s album arrived.
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