Love is a Long Road: What does Tom Petty's song in the GTA 6 trailer tell us about Rockstar's new game?
Dec. 5, 2023Not just an 80s anthem, Love is a Long Road actually paints an interesting picture of Rockstar and how it views GTA 6
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TheGTA 6 traileris here, and it’s underscored by Tom Petty’s 1989 anthem Love is a Long Road - so what does that let us glean about what to expect from Rockstar’s new game?
To take a look at the lyrics, there are also several ways that Love is a Long Road relates to the mood of theGTA 6trailer. “There was a girl I knew,” Petty opens, pointing to theBonnie and Clyde-style relationship of the GTA 6 characters, one of which is the series' first female protagonist, a Latin American woman, Lucia. Lucia’s relationship with her male counterpart is clearly romantic, and if it’s anything like her real-world inspiration, probably doomed - Petty sings in the past tense about this love, and the desperation he mentions in the chorus is somewhat echoed by the shots of Lucia and her partner together.
To take those ideas further, there’s certainly an idea of an attempt at redemption - an obvious theme of Rockstar’s given the Red Dead games, but also one found throughout GTA. Characters like Franklin, Niko, Vince, and many more are often, at least partly, using crime as a means to separate themselves from more crime.
Ending on a simple note, this is a song about cars and driving, and living hard in a somewhat apathetic world. There’s certainly a depth to Rockstar’s choice here, but there’s also a beautifully obvious reason to draw on Petty, and it’ll be fascinating to see what else the game’s music has to say over the next couple of years.
AGTA 6 PCrelease is in doubt, as Rockstar confirms the game for PS5 and Xbox Series X, but nothing else.
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I’m GamesRadar’s news editor, working with the team to deliver breaking news from across the industry. I started my journalistic career while getting my degree in English Literature at the University of Warwick, where I also worked as Games Editor on the student newspaper, The Boar. Since then, I’ve run the news sections at PCGamesN and Kotaku UK, and also regularly contributed to PC Gamer. As you might be able to tell, PC is my platform of choice, so you can regularly find me playing League of Legends or Steam’s latest indie hit.
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