John Lennon’s Mark on Tom Petty’s “Hard Promises”

Tom Petty’s Hard Promises album was released on May 5, 1981, approximately five months after John Lennon was shot in front of his Dakota apartment in New York City.

What do the two have in common? Not much, really. But there is an interesting history that draws the two together.

Apparently, Tom and the Heartbreakers were hard at work on their new album in an L.A studio. That studio had many rooms where many artists were doing their thing. Ringo Starr was one of those artists, and he had John Lennon scheduled to come sing on his new album. Tom and Co. caught wind of that and were jazzed by the prospect of meeting Lennon.

That never happened, of course. The call came in that John was gone.

As far as I know, John Lennon is the only Beatle that never collaborated with Tom Petty. Sadly, that will always be true, but Lennon did make it on the Hard Promises album as a note to him etched directly into the vinyl: “We love you J.L.”

I raced to check my copy of the album and, sure enough, there it was. Little bits of history like this tickle my brain.