In 2020, three years after Tom Petty died from an accidental pain medication overdose, “Wildflowers” was given a deluxe re-release as a box set, re-titled “Wildflowers & All The Rest.” Petty had originally wanted the 1994 release to be a double album. However, per Rolling Stone, the president of Warner Bros. at the time, Lenny Waronker, told Petty the record was too long as is, and asked him to trim it down to one disc.
Releasing “Wildflowers” in its intended entirety became a dream project of Petty’s. In 2012, while working on the album “Hypnotic Eye” with the Heartbreakers, Petty excitedly told Rolling Stone he planned on releasing the double album version. “We recorded quite a lot of songs and dug them out … songs are just so cool,” Petty said at the time.
As The Ringer reported in 2020, Petty was open about how easily lyrics for the song “Wildflower” came to him. While talking with writer Paul Zollo for his book “Conversations With Tom Petty,” the rockstar noted he had been in his background recording studio, sitting with some chords and thoughts about spring in the California countryside. He had entered the studio with nothing in mind songwriting-wise, but then a couplet immediately came to mind: “You belong among the wildflowers/You belong on a boat out at sea.” Per Petty, “Then [I] sat back and went, ‘Wow, what did I just do?’ And I listened to it. I didn’t change a word.”
