American Girl (song)
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"American Girl" is the title of a 1977 single released by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers from their breakthrough self-titled album. The lyrics were written by Petty, and feature an allusion to his days growing up in Gainesville, Florida in mentioning Route 441.
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[edit] Song information
The song was rumored to have been written about a girl who committed suicide from the Beatty Towers dorm at the University of Florida in Gainesville. There is no record of such an incident though. Although Route 441 runs by the dorms at the University, Tom Petty says he wrote it while living in California listening to the sound of the cars driving along the freeway.
The backing vocals were sung by a friend of Petty's, Dwight Twilley Band member Phil Seymour.
[edit] Usage in recent media
It has been featured in several Hollywood films, most notably The Silence of the Lambs (1991) and Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982).
A lesser-known connection to Hollywood is the fact that the song's opening lines ("She was an American Girl / Raised on promises") are apparently cribbed from a line of dialogue in Dementia 13, a low-budget horror film that marked the directorial debut of a young Francis Ford Coppola.
It was featured in the TV series Scrubs, in a scene of an episode titled "My American Girl", which was first aired in October 2, 2003. Also featured in The Sopranos, in season 6 episode Join the Club (The Sopranos episode).
The Strokes have admitted to taking the riff for their 2001 single, "Last Nite", from this song. In a 2006 interview with Rolling Stone magazine, Tom Petty said "The Strokes took "American Girl", and I saw an interview with them where they actually admitted it. That made me laugh out loud. I was like, 'OK, good for you.' It doesn’t bother me". [1] This was brought up because of plagarism accusations on the Red Hot Chili Peppers for similiarities between their "Dani California" and Petty's "Mary Jane's Last Dance". Petty has stated that he does not care about any similiarities and The Strokes have actually played as an opening act for Tom Petty in summer of 2006.
[edit] Cover versions
American Girl had been covered by artists such as Everclear, Goo Goo Dolls and Matthew Sweet.
