The Waiting (song)

"The Waiting"
Single by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
from the album Hard Promises
B-side"Nightwatchman"
ReleasedApril 20, 1981
RecordedEarly 1981
Genre
Length4:01
LabelBackstreet
Songwriter(s)Tom Petty
Producer(s)
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers singles chronology
"Even the Losers"
(1980)
"The Waiting"
(1981)
"A Woman in Love (It's Not Me)"
(1981)
Music video
"The Waiting" on YouTube

"The Waiting" is the lead single from Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers' album Hard Promises, released in 1981. The song peaked at #19 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart and #1 on the magazine's new Rock Tracks chart, where it remained for six consecutive weeks during the summer of 1981.[3]

The song was later reissued as the b-side to the single-only release of "Mary Jane's Last Dance" in 1993.

  1. ^ Pollock, Bruce (18 March 2014). Rock Song Index: The 7500 Most Important Songs for the Rock and Roll Era. Taylor & Francis. p. 1757. ISBN 978-1-135-46303-8.
  2. ^ Elbel, Jeff (June 30, 2017). "Not even the rain can steal Tom Petty's thunder in Wrigley Field". Chicago Sun-Times. Retrieved December 21, 2019.
  3. ^ Whitburn, Joel (2004). The Billboard Book of Top 40 Hits, 8th Edition (Billboard Publications), page 490.