“You Wreck Me” is one of Tom Petty’s many classic songs, a fan favorite that also was a rock-radio hit. Petty co-wrote the tune with founding Heartbreakers lead guitarist Mike Campbell, and it appeared on Tom’s acclaimed 1994 solo album, Wildflowers.
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Surprisingly, Campbell revealed that the late Petty wasn’t initially a fan of the song. Mike shared some interesting background details about “You Wreck Me” in an extended outtake from the 2021 documentary Somewhere You Feel Free: The Making of Wildflowers that’s just been posted on Petty’s social media pages.
The scene features Campbell chatting with Heartbreakers keyboardist Benmont Tench and Wildflowers producer Rick Rubin. At the beginning of the clip, he recalls how Rubin had an important hand in “You Wreck Me” being written.
“I had given the demo [of the music for ‘You Wreck Me’] to Tom a year before,” Mike said. “And I gave him so much stuff. He kind of went, ‘Yeah, it’s kind of cool.’ [And I asked him,] ‘Did you write that one yet.’ [He said,] ‘Nah, nah. I think I forgot it. I don’t know where it is.’”
Campbell then recalled, “Somehow I played it for [Rick,] and he went back to Tom and said, ‘You should write to this thing of Mike’s. Maybe give another listen.’ And then he came up with the song. So if Rick hadn’t been there, that probably [would] still be sitting on a shelf somewhere.”
Petty Didn’t Like His Original Lyrics for “You Wreck Me”
When Petty first wrote words to the song, he initially called it “You Rock Me,” but, as Campbell explained, Tom thought that lyric was cliché.
“[T]he whole lyric thing, Tom … didn’t really like it that much,” Mike noted. “I loved it, and I loved the exuberance of the music, and the lyrics were funny, but he never seemed to be too enamored with it. And he kept going, ‘The chorus is f—ed. … “You rock me, baby,” I just stuck that in there till I come up with something better.’”
Campbell then recalled when Petty told him he’d improved the song by changing one little word.
“Eventually, he came up [to me and said], ‘I got it. Let’s change “rock” to “wreck.”’” Mike pointed out. “[As Benmont] would say, that’s a songwriter’s genius. Just change one word and the whole song opens up.”
Campbell also recalled the moment when Petty admitted to him that he’d changed his opinion of “You Wreck Me.”
“[F]lash forward to a couple months after the record came out,” Mike said. “We’re on tour and we’re playing that song, and … we finished it and the crowd went crazy. And Tom leaned over to me on the stage. Quietly, he goes, ‘I get it now. That is a really good song.’”
New “You Wreck Me” Performance Video
A newly created music video featuring Petty and the Heartbreakers performing “You Wreck Me” during a rehearsal for their 1995 Dogs with Wings tour debuted recently on Petty’s YouTube channel. The clip is the latest installment of a series of videos featuring previously unseen footage from the Wildflowers era that Tom’s estate has been sharing in celebration of the album’s 30th anniversary.
The video, which was directed by Justin Kreutzmann, features recently discovered archival footage shot by Martyn Atkins in 1995.
More About “You Wreck Me”
“You Wreck Me” was released as the second single from Wildflowers, which came out in November 1994 and was Petty’s second solo album. The song failed to chart on the Billboard Hot 100, but reached No. 2 on Billboard’s Album Rock Tracks tally.
“You Wreck Me” went on to become a concert staple for Petty and the Heartbreakers, who played the tune hundreds of times live.
More About Somewhere You Feel Free: The Making of Wildflowers
Somewhere You Feel Free: The Making of Wildflowers premiered in 2021. It followed the November 2020 release of an expanded reissue of the Wildflowers album, titled Wildflowers and All the Rest.
Somewhere You Feel Free includes unseen footage discovered in 2020 in Petty’s archives that was shot during the making of Wildflowers. The documentary also features new interviews with Campbell, Tench, Rubin, and Tom’s daughter Adria.
In September 2025, a Blu-ray version of Somewhere You Feel Free was released. The disc also includes 30 minutes of bonus content, including outtakes from the movie, plus four promotional videos from 2020.
(Photo by Jim Steinfeldt/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images)
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