About the Song

Track: Have Love, Will Travel

Length: 4:05

Album: The Last DJ (2002)

Artist: Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers

Songwriter: Tom Petty

Favorite part:

“You never had a chance, did you baby

So good looking, so insecure

And now you say you can’t remember

When the lines you drew began to blur”

Here’s Why I Love It

Here’s the thing: most great songwriters write at a high level for five years, ten years, maybe even fifteen or twenty. But make no mistake: Tom Petty, whose work stretched over forty years (1974-2014), might be the most consistently great songwriter of all time. He’d at least be on a list of people short enough to count on one hand. If he hadn’t passed away in 2017, I have no reason to believe he wouldn’t have a hit song ringing in our ears right now. Consider this: the song you’re about to listen to came out almost thirty years after “American Girl,” and over twenty years after side A that I shared last week, “The Waiting.” (And honestly, that’s just the tip of the iceberg.) There’s a nuance in his writing that gets straight to the heart of a sentiment without being saccharine. When paired with that classic Petty voice—a painful, yearning tone—everything sounds so damn believable. Maybe it’s the secret sauce that makes Petty Petty.

“Have Love, Will Travel” lands in a big way for me. It opens up with such a painfully romantic verse (the one seen above), only to be followed by a pre-chorus that hammers through your heart like a nail driving through soft wood. “Yeah, when all of this over / Should I lose you in the smoke / I want you to know you were the one.” It’s pure, and for those who might be thinking, “Hm, I don’t see it,” I urge you to write seven consecutive lines that paint the picture of lost love in a more honest, humble, and empathetic way. (If you do, please email me. I’d enjoy reading it.) Just a warning though: your competition is stiff. In a recent NY Times article, Petty was coined “a rock n’ roll Hemingway in tinted shades.”

The first two lines get me right out of the gate. In present-day America, does anyone “have a chance” when they’re “good looking” and “insecure?” I mean, social media has sort of made that combo a ticking time-bomb strapped to the chest of millions, and a virtual minefield almost impossible to escape without “blurring the lines we drew.” It’s so sad, but all too true.

The second verse (not seen) takes a snapshot of three one-line vignettes for different people struggling to hold on, or, as Petty says, “keep the flames from the temple.” In the final verse (also not seen), Petty shows us how people who enjoy different things get moved in the same way by those different things. Ultimately, this makes people more similar at their core then any outer expressions indicate. Of course, you never lose the true sentiment of the song because he always brings it back with the chorus: “Baby, may my love travel with you always.” This is one that you’ve gotta listen to and read the lyrics.

Listen to the song and read the lyrics for full effect.

You can now listen to the Lyrics I Love playlist on Spotify. A new song is added with each edition!

*This article is part of the ongoing Lyrics I Love series: short interpretations of the meaning and story behind one song with lyrics that move me.