Runnin' Down a Dream
by Tom Petty
- 172
- BPM
- A major
- Key
- 11B
- Camelot
- 48
- Danceability
- 1
- Acousticness
Tom Petty, Mike Campbell and Jeff Lynne wrote "Runnin' Down a Dream". The lyric tips a hat to Petty's roots: "me and Del were singin' 'Little Runaway'" refers to Del Shannon and his hit "Runaway".
Petty put it out in July 1989 as the second single from Full Moon Fever, his first solo album. It reached number 23 in both Canada and on the US Billboard Hot 100. It topped the Album Rock Tracks chart. The repeating fuzz guitar riff uses the notes B, B flat, A, G and E. Campbell played the guitar solo that closes the song. It runs nearly two full minutes and was recorded in one take.
Jim Lenahan directed the video, animated by two Pittsburgh studios. It borrowed from Winsor McCay's Little Nemo in Slumberland and showed Petty and a character resembling Flip traveling through Slumberland. At one point Petty stands atop the Chrysler Building and swats at giant mosquitoes, a nod to King Kong. In 2007 the song gave its name to a documentary on Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers.
Runnin' Down a Dream runs at 172 BPM, the tempo of drum and bass and jungle. In classical terms it sits in vivace territory. A bar of 4/4 lasts 1.4 seconds, and a quarter-note delay is 349 ms. It is in A major, Camelot 11B, which shares its notes with F# minor and mixes cleanly with D major and E major.
We use multiple sources as part of our online research for the song story including Wikipedia.