Twee Indie Meets Americana Rock on The Pains of Being Pure at Heart's Cover of "Free Fallin'"

The Pains of Being Pure at Heart are the latest band to cover an album in its entirety for Turntable Kitchen’s Sounds Delicious series. For their contribution, the Kip Berman-led band chose Tom Petty’s 1989 solo debut Full Moon Fever. Previously, TPOBPAH shared their take on “Runnin’ Down a Dream” and today we now can hear how to band has recreated Petty’s massive hit song “Free Fallin’.”

“The original was made at the same time as some of the greatest dream pop and shoegaze records,” says Berman in an interview with Billboard. “And it works on similar premises of layering, subdued vocals, repetition, and texture. Lyrics aside, this song wouldn’t sound out of place on a Ride album. Obviously, the way Tom Petty did the song was a lot more Americanized, and the production of ELO’s Jeff Lynne was rooted more in a sort of minimal, hyper-nuanced, bright production style. But it’s really just three chords for about four and a half minutes; the genius of the song is that so much builds and delivers without really anything structurally going on. You could play this song if you played guitar for three weeks, but you couldn’t write this song even if you played guitar for 30 years. Some people just have the light and Tom Petty was one of those people.”

Previous artists who have contributed to the Sounds Delicious series include Ben Gibbard who took on Teenage Fanclub, Cults covering The Motels, and Frankie Rose covering The Cure. The Full Moon Fever full album cover is available now via Turntable Kitchen. Below, listen to “Free Fallin’” and watch The Pains of Being Pure at Heart’s 2014 KEXP in-studio performance.