Songfacts®:

• Tom Petty never dove into the meaning of this one, but he said it was a "really sweet song" with "a nice sentiment." It tells the story of a girl who comes out nowhere to win his heart "before all of this ever went down." If there was a real-life inspiration, it would probably be his first wife, Jane, whom he married in 1974 before he was famous. They were still married when Petty released this song on his 1989 Full Moon Fever album (they divorced in 1996).
• Petty wrote this song with Jeff Lynne, best known as the leader of Electric Light Orchestra but a man of many hats. In the late '80s, he and Petty were part of the supergroup the Traveling Wilburys, and Petty wrangled him to co-produce Full Moon Fever. This was time when Petty was putting a little distance between himself and his band, Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, but not too much. Heartbreakers guitarist Mike Campbell played on it and also worked on the songwriting and production. According to Campbell, Lynne was a wizard in the studio, and they were happy to let him do his sorcery.
  
  The album did very well, outselling any Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers album, but Tom had no interest in remaining a solo artist. He pulled the band back together for their 1991 album Into The Great Wide Open.
• Jesse Dylan directed the music video, which looks like he commandeered an art gallery to shoot it. Jesse is the son of Bob Dylan, one of Tom Petty and Jeff Lynne's bandmates in the Traveling Wilburys.
• "A Face In The Crowd" was the fourth single from Full Moon Fever, following "I Won't Back Down," "Runnin' Down A Dream" and "Free Fallin'." It hit the charts in March 1990, almost a year after the album was released.