Songfacts®:

• Tom Petty closed out the '80s with "Yer So Bad," a song that skewers the indulgent nature of the decade. In the song, Petty's sister marries a rich guy and makes off with his money in the divorce. He ends up a broken man, dog-faced and hurt. It's a bit of levity and satire on Full Moon Fever, Petty's first solo album.
  
  "I wanted this album to have a sense of humor," he told BAM. "But I wanted it to be where the humor illuminated some important things. That was the idea."
• In case you didn't live through the '80s, we'll explain the word "yuppie," as heard in the first line:
  
  My sister got lucky, married a yuppie
  
  A yuppie is a "Young Urban Professional," often working in the financial industry and focused on wealth and stutus. There was even a handbook. As you can tell, Tom Petty didn't think much of these types, who came to symbolize greed and self-centeredness.
• Petty wrote this song with Jeff Lynne, who along with Heartbreakers guitarist Mike Campbell was a primary collaborator on the Full Moon Fever album, co-produced by the three of them. Lynne and Petty were also working together in the Traveling Wilburys at this time, teaming with Bob Dylan, Roy Orbison and George Harrison. Petty was taking a break from Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, but he enlisted Campbell and also brought in Heartbreakers Benmont Tench and Howie Epstein to contribute. The group released their next album, Into The Great Wide Open, in 1991.
• By using "Yer" instead of "Your," Petty keeps it folksy and sets the narrator apart from the hoity-toity, grammatically impeccable yuppie in the song. The Beatles used it in their 1968 song "Yer Blues."
• The music video, directed by Julien Temple, plays out the story of the song, adding a few details. The ex-husband ends up in a motel room with a plastic lover he grows quite attached to. He's played by Charles Rocket, who later appeared in the movies Dances With Wolves and Dumb And Dumber.
  
  Those shiny platters in some scenes are LaserDiscs, a format for home movies that was supposed to replace VCRs. They were very expensive and mostly owned by dudes like the guy in this song. By 1989, the format was pretty much dead - too pricey and fragile. Also, you had to flip the discs over in the middle of the movie.
• According to Jeff Lynne, this was the first song he and Petty wrote for the album. They went on to write "I Won't Back Down," "Free Fallin'," "Runnin' Down A Dream" and "A Face In The Crowd," which were all released as singles before "Yer So Bad." The album went on to sell over 5 million copies just in America.