“Wildflowers” by Tom Petty, Wednesday, June 28, 2023

It wasn't until last Fall that I listened to Tom Petty's second solo record, Wildflowers. To be fair, I actually hadn't listened to his first solo record Full Moon Fever or any of his albums with The Heartbreakers. But in high school, I'm pretty sure that my sister and I wore the band's Greatest Hits record out in my car CD player. Songs like "Refugee," "Mary Jane's Last Dance," and "You Got Lucky" eventually skipped from all the bumps we must have hit in my '91 Toyota Corolla and its awful suspension.I think that's the way that most of us experience a classic rock band, not through their definitive albums but on a compilation. 

RUN AWAY; GO FIND A LOVER. Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers released their Greatest Hits record in 1993. The Greatest Hits record included two new tracks, a cover of Thunderclap Newman's "Something in the Air" and "Mary Jane's Last Dance," the former becoming a hit for the band. "Mary Jane's Last Dance" was recorded during the Wildflowers sessions but landed on Greatest Hits. Whether intentional or not, a band or artist often puts out their greatest hits record as their career is winding down. There are definitely exceptions--U2's The Best of 1980-1990 and The Best of 1990-2000 are two seminal greatest hits collections that don't even cover half of the band's now 44-year career. And singer-songwriter P!nk's Greatest Hits...So Far!! was not a capstone on the talented Alecia Beth Moore's hit-making. But I wonder if as many casual Tom Petty listeners also think of the band's greatest hits album as the end of the band and Petty's career? We of course missed out on Wildflowers and the 1999 Heartbreakers and Petty reunion album Echo and a few after until the band started doing anniversary tours until Petty's death in 2017. 

YOU BELONG IN THAT HOME BY AND BY. Around the time of Tom Petty's career starting to wind down was when he and Jane Benyo Petty separated. Tom and Jane had been together since before the Heartbreaker's frontman was famous. Recall from last fall, Jane recounting her love story to Stevie Nicks inspired the song "Edge of Seventeen." Because of Jane's thick southern accent, Nicks misheard that Jane had met Tom not at the "age of seventeen," but at the "edge of seventeen." After 22 years of marriage, the divorce was finalized, and Petty began spiraling in a heroin addiction, which he blamed on the stress of the divorce. However, three years later, Petty sought help and treated his addiction, and began the last leg of his career, which included a Super Bowl halftime performance in 2008, a kind of capstone on Petty's career. Today's song "Wildflowers" is about letting a loved one go if the relationship has run its course. The elegy-like lyrics mirror the death of the relationship, perhaps Petty as a songwriter is reflecting on the end of his own marriage. Is the song somehow a satire, or is Petty really happy to part ways? The answer is up to the listener's interpretation. 
 

Read “Wildflowers” by Tom Petty on Genius.