In 1976, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers recorded a song with a spooky backstory. The track, “Luna,” appeared on the band’s self-titled debut album.
Written by Petty, the song started with an improvised two-man demo session with Petty and bandmate Stan Lynch at the nearly empty Tulsa Church Studio, according to the studio’s website.
The basic demo track, which was later used for the final mix that appeared on the debut album, featured Petty playing a Hammond B3 organ, while Lynch played drums and a polyphonic multi-orchestral synthesizer. Petty also crooned haunting lyrics about love and mystery. But a playback revealed some other elements that the bandmates reportedly didn’t record.
In an interview posted on Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers Facebook page, Lynch, 71, looked back on the spontaneous studio session and revealed, “There was a ghost involved.”
“There was an actual ghost involved,” the original Heartbreakers drummer added. “Tom and I were flown to Tulsa to go see the equipment at the Church. Tom was flown there, and he dragged me along as a buddy. He said. ‘Let’s just go look at it.’ There was a B3 and a drum kit there, and we just played it, the two of us. It was fun just being in the room with him and then he kind of put the song together that same night. And we had an encounter with a ghost.”
“I was playing, there’s a cabasa, which makes this little zzzz noise,” Lynch continued. “But at one point we’re doing playback and Tom goes, ‘When did you do the tambourine?’ I go, ‘I never played a tambourine.’ And he goes, ‘There’s a tambourine on this record.’ And neither of us could figure out what it was. And at one point I’m actually playing the low end on the grand piano, and I hear in my headphones ‘Sshhhh.’ Like a definite, it wasn’t white noise. And it’s on tape, at the very end of the song you hear the ghost is telling me like ‘Shut the f— up, you’re not even doing this right.’
“And you explain the tambourine, because nobody played it,” Lynch added.
The moody, spooky surroundings helped inspire the song. Petty, who died in 2017, once revealed that he made up “Luna” on the spot at the Tulsa studio.
According to Something Else Reviews, the rock legend recalled that he flew out to Tulsa “on a lark” after it was suggested that he could cut a track for free at the studio owned by Shelter Records co-founder Denny Cordell.
“It was an empty studio,” Petty reportedly said. “We got there, and it was just empty. … But there was a Hammond organ and some drums. And I made [‘Luna’] up on the spot, and we cut it with me playing the organ and Stan playing the drums. …It’s very improvised, especially the ending. You hear all these weird stops and little licks. It’s just us jamming together.”
Guitarist Mike Campbell, bassist Ron Blair and keyboardist Benmont Tench all added to the track when Petty and Lynch returned home from Tulsa.
Fifty years after its release, “Luna’s” haunting sound is a standout from Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers’ first album. The ghost story adds an eerie twist to the song that you can’t unhear once you find it.
Related: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers’ New ‘Fooled Again’ Video Features Rare Footage 50 Years Later
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