Europeans Heard 90,000 Americans Sing TOM PETTY — Then Learned He Was the GROUNDSKEEPER

Why do 90,000 Americans stop a football game to sing Tom Petty? A Swedish firefighter heard 90,000 Americans sing I Won’t Back Down at the Florida Gators’ stadium, and then learned the singer once cut the grass on that same campus. Erik, a firefighter from Gothenburg, came to Gainesville on an exchange with the local fire department. At the Swamp, at the end of the third quarter, he saw 90,000 phone lights rise for a hometown boy who was never a student there. Then a Gainesville firefighter told him what really happened on the day the tradition began in 2017, and the story of the fire that gave Tom Petty the song. This is Americana at its most stubborn and its most moving. Real Americana traditions and real history, seen through European eyes, in the town where Tom Petty was the groundskeeper long before he was a legend. Statesonic brings you Americana from the stands, the small towns and the back roads. Subscribe to Statesonic for more.