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Tom Petty – Runnin' Down A Dream Lyrics 10 years ago
Tom made the reference to Del Shannon just as a quick one-off name check for his friend, who was a kind of old-time 50s crooner type who had written the #1 hit "Little Runaway" back in 1961 and was hanging around the studio a lot when Tom was recording Full Moon Fever in 1988. They got along really good, I think Tom admired him since he was much older than him and was kind of a fish out of water in the new music world.

The imagery makes this song really tremendously sad since Del killed himself just two years after this song was released.

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