Written in the midst of a painful divorce and on the cusp of an artistic renaissance that would continue for decades afterward, Tom Petty’s “Wildflowers” would become the fastest-selling album that he ever made as either a solo artist or the frontman of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers.
It was certified triple platinum only nine months after its initial 1994 release.
And yet despite its immediate success, Petty’s most personal and liberated LP was still a slow bloomer in some respects.Several of the songs flowed out faster than he could understand what they meant — the bucolic title track arrived in a single take as sharp and straight from the source as a glint of sunlight — and it wasn’t until years later that Petty realized he was actually singing an escape plan to himself (“You belong among the wildflowers / You belong in a boat out at sea”).
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