Tom Petty’s songs are among the most recognized and influential in rock music. One aspect of Petty’s songs that contributes to his popularity is his use of language in his lyrics. The current study performed two sets of analyses: (a) to examine linguistic features of Petty’s song lyrics over the course of his songwriting career; and (b) to investigate similarities and differences between Petty’s lyrics and the earlier and contemporaneous lyrics of an artist widely assumed to have influenced him, Bob Dylan. Results of analyses using a standard textual program, Linguistic Inquiry Word Count (LIWC), showed that Petty reduced his references to social relations and reduced his focus on future time orientations over his songwriting career. There were also rises and declines in expressions of authenticity as well as increases in analytical thinking. In analyses comparing Petty to Dylan using a time-lagged approach, Petty’s songs remained shorter in number of words than Dylan’s songs and there was an increase in indicators of analytical thinking in Petty’s later work reaching levels that are characteristic of Dylan’s songs. Further research is needed to trace the influences on prolific songwriting and other aspects of music beyond lyrical expression.

中文翻译：

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“没有人比痛苦中的人更诚实”：汤姆·佩蒂歌词的语言

汤姆·佩蒂的歌曲是摇滚乐中最受认可和最有影响力的歌曲之一。佩蒂的歌曲之所以受欢迎的原因之一是他在歌词中对语言的使用。当前的研究进行了两组分析：（a）检查佩蒂在其歌曲创作生涯中歌词的语言特征； (b) 调查佩蒂的歌词与被广泛认为影响了他的艺术家鲍勃·迪伦 (Bob Dylan) 的早期和同时代歌词之间的异同。使用标准文本程序语言查询字数统计 (LIWC) 进行的分析结果表明，佩蒂在歌曲创作生涯中减少了对社会关系的提及，并减少了对未来时间取向的关注。真实性表达也有上升和下降，分析思维也有增加。在使用时滞方法对佩蒂和迪伦进行比较的分析中，佩蒂的歌曲在字数上仍然比迪伦的歌曲短，并且佩蒂后期作品中的分析思维指标有所增加，达到了迪伦歌曲的特征水平。需要进一步的研究来追踪对多产歌曲创作和抒情表达之外的音乐其他方面的影响。