The Meaning Behind One of Tom Petty’s Most Classic Classic Rock Staples, “American Girl”

Tom Petty wrote “American Girl” during the mid-1970s, while living in a rented apartment in Encino, California. He was a newcomer to the West Coast, having left his hometown of Gainesville, Florida, one year earlier to chase down a record deal in Los Angeles. It was the American highway system that brought him all the way to California, and the same stretch of blacktop now snaked its way past his new home, filling his bedroom with the noise of countless motorists running down their own dreams. 

“I was living in an apartment where I was right by the freeway, and the cars would go by,” he told author Paul Zollo for the book Conversations with Tom Petty. “In Encino, near Leon Russell’s house. And I remember thinking that [the traffic] sounded like the ocean to me. That was my ocean, my Malibu where I heard the waves crash, but it was just the cars going by. I think that must have inspired the lyric.”

Born on the Fourth of July

When Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers recorded “American Girl” on July 4, 1976, the rest of the country was busy celebrating the Bicentennial of the United States. That’s an appropriately meaningful origin story for a song that, since its release in November 1976, has soundtracked everything from Hillary Clinton’s campaign rallies to the 2008 Super Bowl halftime show. “American Girl” is about longing, desperation, optimism, and wanderlust, with lyrics that focus on a young woman’s attempt to summon the strength needed to chase down a better future. It’s a uniquely American narrative. 

The first verse introduces us to our heroine: an American girl who’s itching to leave her hometown. She’s been “raised on promises,” after all—promises that life would be bigger, better, more exciting than her childhood—and those promises haven’t been fulfilled. She couldn’t help thinking that there was a little more to life somewhere else, Petty sings sympathetically. Before the verse ends, we learn that one promise remains unbroken: a promise the American girl made to herself. She’s going to create a better future for herself, or die trying. 

Spooky Rumors Refuted

“Die” is the key word here. Since the release of “American Girl,” there’s been a lot of urban mythology surrounding the song, with some listeners claiming it tells the morbid story of a University of Florida student leaping to her death from the school’s Beaty Towers dormitory. Lyrics from the second verse—”She could hear the cars roll by out on 441, like waves crashing on the beach”—seem to support this conspiracy theory, since U.S. Route 441 runs by the Beaty building in Gainesville. Petty put those rumors to rest in the Paul Zollo book, though, explaining, “That story really gets around. They’ve really got the whole story. I’ve even seen magazine articles about that story. ‘Is it true, or isn’t it true?’ They could have just called me and found out it wasn’t true.”

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Instead, “American Girl” is all about living. It’s about the human condition, too. Our protagonist is grasping for “something that’s so close and still so far out of reach,” and even though Petty tries to soothe her struggle during each chorus, we know he can empathize, too. After all, “American Girl” was written shortly after Petty’s move to California; it captures an East Coast transplant at the start of a long career, who’s confident (or crazy) enough to chase down his own horizons. Listening to the song, you get the sense he’s rooting for his character. When he sings “Take it easy, baby,” he’s not admonishing—he’s sympathizing. 

Each chorus ends with the same four words that kickstart the song: “She was an American girl.” The sentence is vague enough to inspire all sorts of interpretations, and that universality was one of Petty’s strengths. He wrote songs that belonged to everyone. At the heart of his song’s immortal chorus, though, is the only backstory we need to explain the American girl’s unquenchable wanderlust. She’s someone who believes in the American Dream, and she was raised to believe she deserved it. She’s determined to shape her own world. She’s not being greedy; she’s simply fulfilling a birthright. 

Photo by Rick Diamond/Getty Images for Sacks & Co