The classic Tom Petty song that was “too easy” to write
Tom Petty wore his heart on his sleeve, which is the ingredient that made his work so relatable to millions of fans. An unflinching honesty ran through his DNA, and Petty had an innate ability to dip into the deepest areas of his soul, where most would be afraid to go, to mine beautiful lyrics.
Petty was the truest version of himself in his work. Songwriting was a sacred art form that allowed him to be unfiltered and deposit his most deeply held feelings into his life. He didn’t always need to spend countless days in the studio chasing the right words; instead, Petty preferred to let them flow out of him in a stream of consciousness. Nor did he need to forge a larger-than-life persona to hide behind while on stage like many peers, preferring to opt for a naked honesty approach.
The 1990s were a challenging decade for Petty, both personally and professionally. His creative high point was the solo record Wildflowers, produced by Rick Rubin, which was made while everything was crumbling down around him. After 20 years of marriage to Jane Benyo, the writing was on the wall for the end of their relationship as they both became consumed by their personal problems.
His whirlwind lifestyle had led to them drifting apart, and although their divorce wasn’t finalised for another two years after the release of Wildflowers, it was already broken beyond repair.
Tom Petty’s ‘Wildflowers’ and its hidden heartbreak…
When crafting the songs on the album, Petty didn’t know at the time what Wildflowers would become, and thoughts of divorce were yet to come to the forefront of his mind. Yet, the lyrics to the title track suggest Petty had subconsciously moved on – he just didn’t know it. Petty wrote ‘Wildflowers’ in minutes, and the unfiltered lyrics paint an honest picture of where his head was during the recording process. ‘Wildflowers’ is Petty heartbreakingly setting Benyo free and him realising he’s no longer capable of giving her what she deserves.
On the track, he heartbreakingly sings, “You belong with your love on your arm, You belong somewhere you feel free, Run away, go find a lover, Run away, let your heart be your guide, You deserve deepest of cover, You belong in that home by and by.”
Before writing these words on a scrap of paper while in the studio, Petty had kept these feelings boxed off and never previously verbalised them. However, the freedom of songwriting allowed him to acknowledge the reality of his marriage reaching its conclusion. Looking back on the song in 2014 with Performing Songwriter, Petty said of the quick writing process for ‘Wildflowers’: “I just took a deep breath and it came out. The whole song. Stream of consciousness: words, music, chords. Finished it. I mean, I just played it into a tape recorder, and I played the whole song, and I never played it again.”
The singer-songwriter continued: “I actually only spent three and a half minutes on that whole song. So I’d come back for days playing that tape, thinking there must be something wrong here because this just came too easy. And then I realised that there’s probably nothing wrong at all.”
When Petty sat down in the recording studio that day, he had no idea what words would splutter out of his mind and onto the page. However, within five minutes, he was forced to stare at an uncomfortable realisation about the breakdown of his marriage. Yet, despite the bleak nature of the song, it came freely to Petty, who had been unconsciously writing it without realising it.
