Tom Petty And The Heartbreakers - The Waiting

What this video is

Released April 1981 as the lead single from Hard Promises, 'The Waiting' arrived at a pivotal inflection point: MTV launched in August 1981, making this clip one of the earliest pieces of Tom Petty visual content to circulate in the new video era. The song peaked at No. 19 on the Billboard Hot 100 and spent six consecutive weeks at No. 1 on the Rock Tracks chart, cementing Petty's status as a mainstream rock force.…

Why it matters

A foundational artifact of American heartland rock's early-1980s mainstream breakthrough. The clip documents the Byrds-influenced jangle rock aesthetic that defined the Heartbreakers' 'Hard Promises' era and established a template for understated, performance-integrity-first music video production…

The director

Jim Lenahan received an honors degree in Theatrical Scenic Design from the University of Florida in 1973, then worked at Walt Disney World before Tom Petty invited him to California. A childhood friend of Petty from Florida, he briefly sang in Petty's…