“Runnin' Down a Dream” from Tom Petty's solo album Full Moon Fever was featured to excellent effect in Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. Although only a moderate billboard success on its initial release in 1989, it had become a staple of classic rock radio stations by the early 1990s. Reflecting this trend, the song appears on the in-game classic rock radio station "K-DST The Dust". It perfectly complements the game's depiction of the rise of a crime lord in a fictionalised version of 1992 California. For many gamers, the dirty and dry tones of the opening guitar riff recalls memories of cruising towards an objective outside Los Santos while in-game DJ Tommy "The Nightmare" Smith, voiced by Axl Rose, hollers about pollution.
The track itself has the perfect balance of grit and melody with a tight rhythm section that hammers home the chorus while Mick Campbell's economical guitar lines just about manage to tie Petty's trademark vocal stylings into that sparse arrangement that by the late 80s had become a hallmark of Petty's style. The song manages to perfectly capture that sense of freedom and adventure in hurtling down the open highway in a beat up old rust bucket.
The song was a classic long before the Grand Theft Auto series used it to elevate their game to soaring new heights. It is being rediscovered all over again by a new audience who have come to it after learning of Tom Petty's recent passing. It is cemented as both a classic video game track and a classic rock track and seems like the perfect song to kick off our own new adventure with the Music to Play Video Games playlist.
