Thomas Earl.

I've been having a Tom Petty tunes kind of morning- not exactly sure why.

I've mentioned several times that Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers are my mother's favorite.

I've always considered myself extremely lucky that my parents listened to good music when I was a child.

In fact, I sometimes refer to my childhood tunes as the trifecta of music.

Bob Dylan was always a constant in my dad's CD player, while my mom blasted Tom Petty throughout the house on a daily basis (as proof of this, there are several home video tapes of me dancing as a toddler to "Into the Great Wide Open" and "You Don't Know How it Feels").

And then together, there was of course, their love for The Beatles, which resulted as A Hard Day's Night becoming my very first CD that I ever owned. (However, this was quickly followed by the Macarena single and Britney Spears' ...Baby One More Time.)

One childhood memory always sticks out to me though, and it is something that I haven't thought of in quite some time until this morning.

I have a very specific recollection of vacationing at the beach and seeing TP&THB's video for "Don't Come Around Here No More." It has an Alice and Wonderland theme, which is great...but at the end of the video, Alice becomes a cake and Petty is slicing her into pieces.

As a 5 year old, I was absolutely horrified.

It's amazing how music can bring back all sorts of memories that we've subconsciously suppressed.