Everyone always assumes it was written in Florida, and that it had something to do with a UF girl who committed suicide, jumping from the Beatty Towers dorms at UF.

Petty calls that a “myth.”

McGuinn has been pals with TP forever, though, and has popped up for encores during Tampa Bay area shows. One of those was at the old Bayfront Center arena.

And I’m not just saying that because I’m a Florida native and I went to college in Petty’s hometown, or because I always thought of TP as my own personal Springsteen.

(Then again, there’s the geographical dilemma: Petty’s sound was born in north Florida, but he really grew up as a musician in SoCal, where he’s lived since forever).

For my $$, Skynyrd never wrote a song as perfect as Petty’s “American Girl” or “Refugee” or “The Waiting” or “Breakdown” (not to mention all the first-rate songs he relased after his first commercial crest).

Sorry, but “Free Bird” and “Sweet Home Alabama” don’t even come close, and I wouldn’t suffer the slightest if I never heard them again.

But in a jam-out showdown, I’d have to give the nod to the original Skynyrd – side by side, Skynyrd would have out-jammed the Heartbreakers.

If the Allmans fully counted as a Florida band, I, too, would place them tops. But I really think of them as a Georgia/Florida band.

So if the Allmans are a Georgia band, then what’s their ranking in that state’s best-rock-band competition (against R.E.M. and the Black Crowes and others I can’t think of at the moment)?

Best new Florida rock band? The Ditchflowers – they’re not young and trendy, but neither am I.