How Tom Petty found the beauty in change

“I need to hear some sounds that recognize the pain in me” is one of the most poignant lines in The Verves’ 1990s smash hit Bittersweet Symphony, and the line has never rung truer than when applied to Tom Petty and his most personal, successful, and best album in October of 1994.

When Tom Petty released Wildflowers in 1994, he was a different man than ever before.

This was a man on the cusp of a divorce, who just spent two years crafting dozens of songs that explored every emotion he was feeling about this change, who had just changed his band line up for the first time in 10 years, and a man who would sound find himself hiding away in a home he dubbed “the chicken shack”, sitting with those very creatures the day he found out he’d won a Grammy for his work on the album.

The album traces through his divorce in a complex way, each song twisting their lyrics around different aspects of change. Some are upsetting, others melancholy, another happy, but not a single one simple. Change is a lot of things, but simple is not one of them. Wildflowers is about the raw, often difficult, emotions brought about by one of the most complex experiences one can face. The album is often hailed as Petty’s best, not an easy feat when you look at the sheer amount of classics he put out, but the one it feels as though most people connect with.

Going track by track you can slowly see his healing process:

Track One:

Wildflowers

Run Away, let your heart be your guide.

Track Two:

You Don’t Know How It Feels

And turn the radio loud, I’m too alone to be proud

Track Three:

Time to Move On

Wasting the meaning and losing the rhyme

Track Five:

It’s Good to Be King

Excuse me if I / Have some place in my mind / Where I go time to time

Track Six:

Only a Broken Heart

I know your weakness, you’ve seen my dark side / The end of the rainbow is always a long ride / But don’t be afraid anymore / It’s only a broken heart

Track Eight:

Don’t Fade on Me

You were the one who made things different / You were the one thing I could count on / Above all you were my friend

Track Eleven:

To Find a Friend

And the days went by like paper in the wind / Everything changed, then changed again

Track Twelve:

A Higher Place

Yeah, when I add up what I’ve left behind / I don’t wanna lose no more

Track Thirteen:

House in the Woods

What could I do but love you?

Track Fourteen:

Crawling Back to You

I’m so tired of being tired / Sure as night will follow day / Most things I worry ‘bout / Never happen anyway

Track Fifteen:

Wake Up Time

You never dreamed you’d go down on one knee, but now / Who could’ve seen you’d be so hard to please, somehow?

Through the album we see Petty go through everything can throughout the relationship. Things he could have done [A Higher Place, House in the Woods], becoming defensive over his life and choices [Good to be King, Don’t Fade on Me], and even a realistic positivity over new possibilities [To Find a Friend, Crawling Back to You, Wildflowers, Only a Broken Heart]. For all the heartbreak that gave us the album, it is more overwhelmingly positive than anything else. Petty is more so accepting the loss and moving into better times, even if sometimes he’s spiteful and upset. Petty is human, Wildflowers is human. To look at Tom Petty´s career is to exist through decades with the greatest storyteller you could imagine as your guide through the confusing times and emotions people can feel. His work effortlessly laced so many emotions: confusion, anger, melancholy, happiness, fear, perseverance, redemption, humour, and, fittingly, heartbreak. Wildflowers somehow is the greatest display of all of these, his expression and explanation of emotions at their most potent here. You greet every emotion before the end of the journey Petty orchestrated throughout the album, and that's what makes Wildflowers so beautiful. It's Tom Petty as an album: it's sad, it has tough times, but it´s most defined by its air of hope and joy.

Petty had such a large creative output during these sessions that Wildflowers was originally planned to be a double album to fit all the songs he wrote and recorded into one cohesive album. While other Heartbreakers, notably guitarist and Petty´s right hand man Mike Campbell, and Rick Rubin [the album's producer] were in total support of a double, Petty was not. Being his normal, and quite stubborn self, he didn't want the album to be more expensive for fans, so he whittled the album down to 15 songs, cutting 10 from the original lot, but similar to what was released, you see this journey of change in the most raw sense.

Track Sixteen

Something Could Happen

Sometimes the woods get lost in the trees

Track Seventeen

Leave Virginia Alone

And she still finds good, where no one could

Track Eighteen

Climb that Hill Blues

You close one door and another opens / You hear the music and you wander in / You got to get up / And climb that hill again / You got to get up

Track Twenty-Two

Hope You Never

I hope you never give a damn / Hope you never get your heartbroken / I hope you never fall in love / With someone like you

Track Twenty-Three

Somewhere Under Heaven

In the eye of the hurricane / Little Jenny would dance in the rain

Through the cut tracks that would thankfully find life on the 2021 re-release Wildflowers and All the Rest, we hear Petty detailing the same emotions as what is left on the album though more resentful. Hope You Never is one of the bitterest songs one can listen to, let alone that Petty penned, yet most of the cut tracks are the token Petty. Somewhere Under Heaven, Climb that Hill Blues, and Leave Virginia Alone. Each of these is story songs as opposed to completely autobiographically written, and yet each you can see Petty shining through the characters he created. “Little Jenny” is in the same situation as him: they are both caught in a storm and both learning to dance in the rain. “Virginia” is Petty seeing the good in these changes, the man who despite having his whole life uprooted processed his emotions into what he even considered his finest work. The protagonist of Climb that Hill is never named, yet somewhere in this explorer you can see traces of Petty, allowing his music to carry him through the hard times and help him move on despite wanting to fail.

As stated. Wildflowers is human, and Wildflowers is Tom Petty. Every character he created, story he wove, poem he penned, and every heartbreak expressed is his own. They feel so real and are so easy to connect to because they were recorded by someone exposing every facet of their difficulties for the world to see, letting themself be so vulnerable everyone could understand by such a man would be the name in front of “The Heartbreakers”. He was heartbroken, he was grieving and in pain, and let people experience that with him.

Change is hard. Losing what you never thought would be lost is hard, yet it’s a fact of life, no matter now much everyone wishes it wasn’t. As hard as it is to deal with, it becomes easier when you don’t feel as alone. This idea is the subject of 1984’s Sad Songs (Say So Much) by Elton John. Bernie Taupin digs in like no one else, the song littered with lines that express the idea, but it’s the second verse that hits the nail completely on the head:

If someone else is suffering enough oh to write it down / When every single word makes sense / Then it's easier to have those songs around / The kick inside is in the line that finally gets to you / And it feels so good to hurt so bad / And suffer just enough to sing the blues

Tom Petty created one of the best albums of all time while at the absolute lowest in his life. He created a piece of art that not only helped him navigate through those feelings and emotions but also one that has proven that it connects with and eases the pain felt by others, which is something insane to think of, that one man was able to pen what would be become a bible of change and the emotions it entails.

Wildflowers will always be shrouded in more sadness than any other Petty release in his 40 year career, between the personal drama that plagued Petty’s life during its inception, or the fact he could never see the album how he originally intended to be released to the public. But, more importantly, no other release of Petty’s career is raw, emotional, or most reflective of him. Wildflowers is Tom Petty, for all his good and all his bad, his sadness and his mistakes, his joy and his heartbreak. This is the album that will forever define Tom Petty, and I don't think he'd want that any other way.