In case you’re curious, Highway Companion, the new Tom Petty album that came out yesterday, is pretty good. I’m an old Petty fan — in high school, I once participated in one of those national call-in shows (maybe the King Biscuit Flower Hour) to ask him and the Heartbreakers a question. (I asked each to name a favorite song in their own repertoire; Petty and a couple of the others said “Let Me Up,” the title track to what was then the latest album, then-drummer Stan Lynch went for the ultra-deep cut “No Second Thoughts.”) It’s hard to judge an album on just a few listens, I haven’t absorbed it lyrically yet, and maybe my opinion will change, but as of now this sounds like his best set of songs in quite a while.