AND ONE MORE THING: If Tom Petty’s...

AND ONE MORE THING: If Tom Petty’s new single sounds awfully familiar, there’s a reason.

The MCA release is “American Girl,” one of the best-known tunes in Petty’s rock repertoire for almost 20 years.

The song was included in Petty’s 1976 debut album and released as a single at the time, but it failed to break into the Top 100. It was “Breakdown,” a bluesy rocker from the same album, that subsequently introduced Petty to the pop charts.

MCA is turning now to “American Girl”--which is part of Petty’s recent greatest-hits album--in hopes of following up the Top 10 success of “Mary Jane’s Last Dance,” according to Randy Miller, the company’s senior vice president of marketing. “We think it’s a timeless single. It sounds as good now as it did (in the ‘70s).”*