While reviewing the music left by her father Tom Petty, Adria Petty was stunned by one recording in particular: a homemade demo of “You Don’t Know How It Feels” from her 1994 album wild flowers.
“I thought, ‘What a strange song to choose as the single, of all those songs,'” she says. Rolling Stone. “They had an album of incredible songs. But there is something about it that makes you feel comfortable, like you belong. The idea of ’you don’t know how it feels to be me’: people can identify with that feeling. And ‘roll another joint’ says: ‘Turn off the noise for a second because there’s a lot of that.’ And that felt appropriate now.
As a gift to Petty fans, and a sneak preview of an upcoming wild flowersRelated to the project: The Petty family will release that free demo on Friday, along with a newly commissioned animated video.
In addition to the unexpected punctuality of the lyrics, the recording – cut in Petty’s home studio before wild flowers Sessions – Provides insight into your record preparation work. (Petty plays all the instruments). The arrangement is close to the final version of the album; Even the main guitar heard in the final version is played here by Petty.
“My father’s demonstrations were always really amazing,” says Adria. “They were a good guiding light in the wild flowers sessions And this one has a direct factory feeling ”.
There is also a revealing change in the lyrics. Here, the second verse is “I am so tired of being tired / The night will surely follow the day / Most of the things that worry me / Never happen anyway” instead of what ended in the final version: “The people come, people leave / Some grow young, others grow cold / I woke up in the middle / A memory and a dream. ” The verse “I’m so tired” was finally used in the penultimate song on the album, “Crawling Back to You”.
“I know it was one of his favorite lyrics that he had written,” says Adria. “When we did the Running for a dream book, he wanted to put in some quotes and I mentioned that and he said, ‘That’s one of my favorites, yes let’s do it.’ My father was a great storyteller and just as good at being economic with words: he saw more potential in that vein than the climax of the album. “
The rarity “You Don’t Know How It Feels” is also the first taste of a continuation of Petty’s love work project. Rick Rubin’s production wild flowers It was originally conceived and released as a double CD until Petty’s label Warner Brothers convinced him to cut it.
“Lenny [Waronker, then head of Warner] he heard it and said, ‘It’s great, but I think it’s too long, you should shorten it,’ “Petty said. Rolling Stone in 2013. “We thought, ‘Oh man, we wanted a double album.’ And he said, ‘Well, that it is a double album: the first CD is longer than two vinyl records. “
After rediscovering the largely unreleased second album, Petty planned to release it all as Wild flowers: everything else. His death derailed the project, as did some family tensions that arose last year. But Petty’s daughters, Adria and Annakim, and her widow, Dana Petty, have settled their differences and are proceeding with a project that appears to be even more expansive than Petty had planned.
Details of the track have yet to be announced, but the project, which will be released later this year, appears to be a comprehensive chronicle of the creation of one of Petty’s longest-running albums. “The family and all of our engineers and Heartbreakers have been going around this project and making it as charming and complete as possible,” says Adria. “We are very happy to be able to share the second half of wild flowers double album But there are also complete versions of how the sessions evolved. My father was prolific at the time and there was a lot of recording done. Coming out of the ‘Last Dance with Mary Jane’ session, it was a competitive evolution of how Dad recorded and how he made room for his own feelings. wild flowers It was very personal to him. He was not hiding behind anything.
In that way, Adria sees the “You Don’t Know How It Feels” demo as a revelation of the bigger project. “As we were going through things, it took your breath away a little,” he says. “It’s very familiar to everyone, but it has that raw sketch feeling. It is a good window to the project. “
“I have to be in the right frame of mind to do it,” he says of hearing his father’s voice on the tape. “It is like seeing photos of a loved one. It can be emotional. But I feel as a family that we have crossed that Rubicon, of feeling so stunned that it left. Now there is real warmth in what she left behind. We are touched and honored to carry the torch. There will be an extraordinary amount of rad stuff for Tom Petty fans in 2020. It bothers me that he couldn’t get it out himself. “
