Top ten best deep cuts by Tom Petty

No. 1 - “WILDFLOWERS” (1994)

This is your bonus track. It is one of Petty’s most beloved songs and one of the most poignant and beautiful love songs of the pop music era. There is none of the anger or anxiety associated with early Petty love songs. It is pure bliss – with just Petty strumming a peppy acoustic guitar, Campbell on bass, and Tench sliding in romantic flourishes on his keyboards.

Four songs were released as singles from Wildflowers in 1994, but the title track was not among them. In 2020, when a more complete version of the original album was released (Wildflowers was initially intended to be a double album, but was put out in a shortened form in 1994), a home recording of “Wildflowers” was in fact released as a single. That version is a little softer and a little slower than the original album cut. The song is so perfect that it can stand up to a lot of interpretations, but that original non-single is definitive.

There you have it. Eleven awesome songs, none of which was deemed commercial enough to be released as a single. They would constitute a great career for many artists. For Tom Petty, they are just further testament to the remarkable breadth and scale of his talent.

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