Tom Petty: Bummed Out About Middle Age?

Could Tom Petty use some positive psychology? Help with a (late) midlife crisis? Or even a career change?

Music critic Mark Guarino of the Chicago Daily Herald seems to think so. Guarino writes of Petty's new "Highway Companion:"

Petty is in a downcast mood on these songs, which are introspective about age, searching for early inspiration, fighting back time and taking a stab at rebirth.

These themes are common for many at Petty’s crossroads — he is 55, one year from the age Bob Dylan was when he released 1997’s “Time Out of Mind” (Columbia), another album that looked at the graying years with fear and regret. But while Dylan matched his sadness and self-loathing with morbid humor and playful imagery, Petty simply sounds resigned to the fall.

The review is headlined "Middle Ground, Middle Age: 55-year-old Petty looks at graying years with mediocre tunes." Ouch.

The Village Voice, with faint praise, says it's "great for a cookout." More positively, Rolling Stone thinks it's "worth the trip," and the UK's Guardian also likes it, concluding its review with "... only a voice of true experience could deliver 'Flirting With Time,' the most achingly honest moment of an album of beautifully delivered, uncomfortable home truths."

Petty doesn't tour or do interviews any more, so there's no telling what he feels life has in store for him now. But the writer of "Even the Losers," "Deliver Me," and "Running Down A Dream" certainly knows how to be positive; I hope he hasn't forgotten the lessons in those songs.