Crawling Back to You A critical and personal breakdown of Tom Petty’s masterpiece, “Wildflowers” by Nick Tavares Static and Feedback editor Static and Feedback | www.staticandfeedback.com | September, 2012 1 September, 2012 Static and Feedback www.staticandfeedback.com ooking at the spine of the CD, it’s would resume, the music would begin, and clear that the color has mutated a I’d lie with my head on my pillow and my L bit through the years, trapped in hands over my stomach, eyes closed. sunbeams by windows and faded from it’s Sometimes, I’d be more alert and reading brown paper bag origins to a pale bluish the liner notes tucked away in the CD’s grey. The CD case itself is in excellent booklet in an effort to take in as much shape save for a few scratches, spared the information about this seemingly magic art cracks and malfunctioning hinges so many form as possible. other jewel boxes have suffered through The first time I listened to Wildflowers, I drops, moves and general carelessness. All was in high school, in bed, laying out in all, the disc holds up rather well. straight, reading along with the lyrics, More often than not, however, it sits inspecting the credits, the thanks and the on the shelf, tucked below a greatest hits photographs included with this Tom Petty collection and above a later album. Thanks solo record. One hour, two minutes and 41 to technology, the more frequent method seconds later, I felt an overwhelming rush, a of play is the simple mp3, broadcasting out warmth that covered my entire body from of a speaker the size of the head of a head to toe and reached back within my pencil’s eraser mounted above the skull to fill my insides. I reached back up, computer’s keyboard, or in a more intimate hit “play” once again, and listened to every setting, through headphones plugged into a CREDITS one of the 15 songs again, in sequence, small jack near the base of the laptop’s without moving. Tom Petty casing. I was never the same. Though modest, Wildflowers Perhaps I’m mobile, and that’s when I’ll as the album played, I first recognized how Warner Bros. 1994 have those same headphones, tightly snug much I was enjoying the songs. When it Producers: Rick Rubin, with Tom Petty against my ears, plugged into an iPod with ended, I was floored by an amazing sense of and Mike Campbell the record’s 15 songs carrying me on a satisfaction, a high that has never been subway car to my destination while I try topped. I had been swallowed whole by Tracklist: desperately not to accidentally make body 1. Wildflowers what was, I realized then as now, the most contact with any of the dozens of strangers 2. You Donʼt Know How it Feels beautiful piece of music I’d yet encountered. packed alongside. Or, those headphones and 3. Time to Move On These 15 songs spoke to me in a way no that iPod are helping me focus as I tap keys 4. You Wreck Me ☼ others had, and they had done it together, in and zip a mouse arrow across a screen while 5. Itʼs Good To Be King harmony and in order. ensconced within the walls of my cubicle at 6. Only a Broken Heart I hadn’t expected it, but Wildflowers the office, as varying tempos and chords 7. Honey Bee changed me. pace my serviceable output at work. 8. Donʼt Fade on Me ☼ I can also take that same iPod and plug 9. Hard on Me it into my car’s stereo system via an auxiliary 10. Cabin Down Below 11. To Find a Friend jack, transferring cold zeros and ones into Wildflowers came at something of a time 12. A Higher Place analog messages pulsed up the winding wire 13. House in the Woods of flux for Petty. Making a solo album from the cup holder where the device now 14. Crawling Back to You instead of a traditional rock record with the rests up to the main face of the stereo 15. Wake Up Time Heartbreakers, Petty drafted in Rick Rubin component. From there, it’s me, the to help capture a more natural, organic highway and the band as I wind my way to All words and music by Tom Petty, sound; Petty told Newsweek in 1994 that he and from home, traveling long distances, except ☼ by Tom Petty and Mike Campbell had been immersed in demos of the Beach often at night, often with few other cars on Boys recording their landmark Pet Sounds the road. It’s a solitary exercise, commuting my bed that I first heard this album, though. record, listening for hours as Brian Wilson the miles of Eisenhower’s Interstate Coming home from a trip to the mall with and company crafted each track. Highway System without a soul but the ones the CD in my hand, I carefully removed the The last few records by Petty, with and captured in the bits of music transmitted plastic and peeled off the nagging without his trusty Heartbreakers, had seen from speakers mounted in the doors of the Soundscan barcode sticker across the top. I growing use of synthesizers and studio desk vehicle. took the disc, thumb on the outside edge tricks. Southern Accents, despite being But none are quite as solitary as sitting and index finger in the center plastic hole, originally conceived as rustic ode to his at home, lights dimmed, shades drawn, placed it in the spindle of the player and Southern roots, has layers and layers of needle dropping on the copy pressed to pressed the lid of the portable system down, synthesizers and computerized drums, in vinyl, finding the groove and settling into instantly triggering the digital information to keeping with its 1985 setting. 1987’s Let Me that first song. Now, I’m in my bed, or my spin rapidly and display a crooked number Up (I’ve Had Enough) has its share of slick couch, or splayed out on the floor, eyes on its LCD screen out front. production, and his next two albums, 1989’s closed as the first notes begin to emanate I had a method for starting any CD in Full Moon Fever and 1991’s Into the Great Wide from my speakers while side one of the my teenage years. I came to rest horizontally Open, saw Petty recording his music with Jeff record patiently spins on the turntable. on my bed, my back below me, and I’d Lynne from the ground up, recording each It was lying out on the bed with a blindly reach up for the “play” button, piece track-by-track and building the songs boombox perched above the headboard of always waiting where I’d left it. The spinning in the studio later. 2 September, 2012 Static and Feedback www.staticandfeedback.com Robert Sebree | It’s not as if Petty had been unsuccessful, creatively or commercially, in these efforts, but from the first notes of the opening title track, “Wildflowers,” it’s clear that this approach has been abandoned. It Wildflowers opens with the bright strum of Petty on acoustic guitar with only the natural reverb of the room to accompany him. booklet Eventually, though, he’s joined by friends. Benmont Tench, the musical professor of the Heartbreakers, chimes in on the piano. Mike Campbell, partner-in- crime for every musical adventure Petty’s ever had, provides the bottom end of the song on bass. New friend Steve Ferrone provides light percussion alongside Lenny Castro. Michael Kaman expertly conducts the strings that add texture to the entire affair. Engineer George Drakoulias, the liner notes state, “must have played something.” Before the record is over, Heartbreakers bassist Howie Epstein will provide some soaring vocal harmonies. Campbell will man his traditional spot on lead guitar and add some searing solos and delicate acoustic playing. Tench will play some of the most beautiful piano of his life. All the Heartbreakers will back Petty on this record, billed solo or not. All except for Stan Lynch, drummer since 1976 when the Heartbreakers came together in the wake of Petty, Campbell and Most of Wildflowers was recorded at Sound City in Los Angeles, California. Tench’s previous band, Mudcrutch. He was having his own issues with Petty, and Petty with him. But rare is the great piece of art song for his daughter, to accompany her as was confusing and upsetting, that all that that comes without loss. she grew up and went off to experience all seemed so perfect and storybook could all the treasures and pitfalls that life has to come undone so quickly. Again, that was offer. then. Now, all resentment has long since But this story is a self-indulgent one, taken its leave, and what’s left is a mature, With this album, there is no skipping and until I’d come across that explanation, grateful understanding of the experience. around. There is no jumping past tracks or I’d never heard this opening song quite this There is no jumping back, no looking programming songs out of their way. Instead, I took this for a long-lost love, ahead. There is only this life, and we live it predetermined order. Whether or not it was one that came to the singer at a young age as it comes. Sometimes, there’s greatness, meant to be, this is one complete thought, a and left an indelible mark.