Dear Tom Petty:

I grew up with Full Moon Fever and your other Jeff Lynne-produced work. I hated your voice. Next to George Harrison, however, you were Al Green, so I let it pass. I have liked lots of other songs over the years, generally the loosey-goosey stuff that's not preoccupied with embalming the remains of Roger McGuinn for exhibition at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Museum (generally you've been pitching your work at a fictive rock & Roll Hall of Fame Museum since 1976) – stuff like "Jammin' Me" and "You Got Lucky." Once in a while you write a ballad like "A Woman in Love (That's Not Me)" right in your range and the Heartbreakers play the hell out of it; on occasion you write a good ballad and the Heartbreakers aren't around (but Rick Rubin always is). Although you've never recorded a couple of near-great records on the order of John Mellencamp, your double-disc compilation is as useful as his; I bought it last Tuesday, coincidentally.

I'd no idea until Friday that you were the Superbowl halftime show.

My friend: "Who's that old lady?"

Confused,
Alfred