Of all the songs I’ve written I think I get the most feedback about that song. And it is a personal song – when I did it I sort of thought that I laid it out, you know, with no ambiguity at all – like I just said it very plainly – and I kind of felt nervous about it like maybe I should take it back and disguise it a little bit, but I’m glad I didn’t – and it’s very much like me. – Tom Petty

Tom Petty’s Tribute To Gerry Lindgren

During a conversation with Rolling Stone Magazine a few years back, Petty let slip that his “I Won’t Back Down” was inspired by his favorite distance runner, Lindgren.

Well, I won't back down
No, I won't back down
You can stand me up at the gates of hell
But I won't back down

Petty went on to say “when Lindgren entered that 1964 season, his two mile PR was just 9:23. When he ran that 9 flat, right out of the chute, his own Rogers High School coach told Gerry that apparently, it was a lap short. The very next week, the seventeen-year-old kid, who by the way looks like fourteen, has the audacity to duke it out with that muscled and mustachioed cat from Belgium that holds the steeplechase WR and lands a feature piece in Sports Illustrated.

“As if that weren’t enough, the Spokane schoolboy came back down to San Francisco a month later and took on that awesome Aussie named Clarke. Hell, Mr. Clarke Bar, couldn’t get around the Sparrow until the very bitter end of that fight… brought his deuce PR down by 43 seconds in five weeks, hence, the inspiration for my Gerry song.”

Don’t you just LOVE it when rock ‘n roll and running collide? Like a near perfect storm.

This heretofore unknown tale is a Mike Fanelli Facebook post from a few years back, Showed up as one of those daily “Memories.” Say what you will about Facebook, I treasure reminders of old friends and loved ones. Sometimes they can weird me out.

Today, Mike Fanelli is my muse.

Wikipedia makes no mention of The Spokane Sparrow

“I Won’t Back Down” is a song by American rock musician Tom Petty. It was released in April 1989 as the lead single from his first solo album, Full Moon Fever. The song was co-written by Petty and Jeff Lynne, his writing partner for the album. It reached number 12 on the Billboard Hot 100 and topped the Album Rock Tracks chart for five weeks, starting the album’s road to multi-platinum status.

Petty has said the following about the recording of the song: “At the session George Harrison sang and played the guitar. I had a terrible cold that day, and George went to the store and bought a ginger root, boiled it and had me stick my head in the pot to get the ginger steam to open up my sinuses, and then I ran in and did the take.”

In the 2007 documentary Runnin’ Down a Dream, Petty said that he felt some initial hesitation about releasing the song, given how straightforwardly it conveys its message

In June 2020, Petty’s family issued a cease and desist letter to President Donald Trump’s campaign for its use of “I Won’t Back Down” at Trump’s rally in Tulsa on June 20, 2020. The letter stated: “Trump was in no way authorized to use this song to further a campaign that leaves too many Americans and common sense behind. Both the late Tom Petty and his family firmly stand against racism and discrimination of any kind. Tom Petty would never want a song of his used for a campaign of hate. He liked to bring people together.”

Playing the song has become a tradition at Florida Gators football games at the University of Florida in Gainesville, Petty’s hometown. Petty died unexpectedly on October 2, 2017, and at the next home football game vs. LSU the following Saturday, “I Won’t Back Down” was played between the third and fourth quarters immediately after the traditional university song “We Are the Boys from Old Florida”. It has been played at that time at every subsequent Gator home game, with fans singing along and holding aloft cell phones to fill the stadium with lights.

Good Story, If Proved

I know some people, so I asked around. One aged local in Petty’s hometown said, “If he [Tom Petty] ever ran, he would’ve been forced to in PE.”

Even asked Gerry Lindgren what he thought about the alleged connection to Petty’s hit song.

“I was young and had no knowledge of running. To compete, I just ran. If I had to run faster, I did. No idea what I was doing.”

Ignorance may be bliss, I told him, but it looked like courage to the rest of us.

A Joyous Night For A Pixie

Gerry Lindgren looks like an elf but he runs like a giant, as he proved last weekend when he trounced an honored idol, Australia’s Ron Clarke

“It was an amazing, rather unnerving experience,” Clarke recalled as he prepared for an encore. “He was so little he couldn’t have looked more than 13 years old. He was such a hero to the crowd that a tall bloke like me, dressed in a dark outfit, automatically became a villain. When I tried to pass him he wouldn’t let me. Once I brushed him accidentally. The crowd booed so hard I thought they were going to come after me with clubs.”

https://vault.si.com/vault/1967/02/27/a-joyous-night-for-a-pixie

It is not the size of the dog in the fight….

[Verse 1]
Well, I won’t back down
No, I won’t back down
You can stand me up at the gates of Hell
But I won’t back down
No, I’ll stand my ground
Won’t be turned around
And I’ll keep this world from draggin’ me down
Gonna stand my ground
And I won’t back down

[Chorus]
(I won’t back down)
Hey, baby, there ain’t no easy way out
(I won’t back down)
Hey, I will stand my ground (Ooh)
And I won’t back down

[Verse 2]
Well, I know what’s right
I got just one life
In a world that keeps on pushin’ me around
But I’ll stand my ground
And I won’t back down

[Chorus]
(I won’t back down)
Hey, baby, there ain’t no easy way out
(I won’t back down)
Hey, I will stand my ground (Ooh, I won’t back down)
And I won’t back down