Tom Petty’s Love Is a Long Road Lyrics Meaning
Love Is a Long Road is a track that was dropped back on 24 April 1989 as part of Tom Petty’s album Full Moon Fever, which is a product of MCA Records. By the looks of things this song was not released as a single but did manage to make it onto the top 10 of Billboard’s Album Rock Tracks chart. And the reason we’re writing about it now, getting to the end of 2023, is that first of all Rockstar Games is on the verge of finally releasing Grand Theft Auto VI (aka GTA 6), the follow-up to their immensely successful Grand Theft Auto V, which first came out in 2013.
Actually, GTA 6 isn’t slated to come out until 2025. But again, there’s a lot of build-up and anticipation concerning its forthcoming release, sorta like a big-budget movie sequel, if you will. And that includes the game being afforded trailers over a year before its issuance, the first of which was made public on 5 December 2023. The backup music Rockstar Games decided to use for that trailer is Love Is a Long Road, resulting in Petty’s song garnering fresh interest some 30 years after its release.
The Lyrics
We don’t yet know the storyline of the upcoming Grand Theft Auto, but as for this song, it’s basically likening romance to “a long, long road”. So it does have sort of an automobile motif, if a listener decides to interpret it as such.
Also, Tom Petty’s romantic interest plays an important role in the lyrics. And it has been pointed out that with GTA 6, for the first time in the series there will be a female character that players can control, and it is she who highlights the trailer and is the protagonist of the game overall. In other words, the fact that gamers can actually play as “Lucia” is one of the software’s main selling points.
But going back to the song itself, basically what Tom is implying is that being in love, at least with the woman he was involved with, is a challenging endeavor. The lyrics are in part relayed from the past tense, implying that they have already broken up. And there seems to be a lot going on here without actually being said.
For instance, it reads as if the other party involved was toxic, so much so that the vocalist was ultimately compelled to “give up”, i.e. dump her, even though he didn’t really want to. But now, in the aftermath of parting ways, he has indeed learned that “love is a long, long road”.
One way of interpreting that statement, in context, is as Tom’s way of recognizing that maybe he or the both of them should have been more patient, as it is also implied that now he wants her back. So the singer has seemingly learned the hard way that being in love isn’t always an enjoyable experience. People, such as his ex, may have their own personal vision that they try to force onto their partner. But that said, it’s better to endure and gear up for the long haul rather than dumping the person to later realize that you want them back.
