“We wanted it to be great,” he told me about this album, which still stands as remarkable evidence of a songwriter overflowing with songs, and song of every kind.
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“I think we succeeded on that level,” he said, “because it’s a piece of music I think will be around. I think that people will continue to buy it and listen to it. And that’s a really good feeling. That’s the best feeling that I can get. That I made something that has a timeless quality to it.”
The Heartbreakers’ keyboard genius Benmont Tench said, “There’s this kind of longing in the song, in the way that he wrote the chord structure, the melody and the lyrics,” said Heartbreaker/keyboard genius Benmont Tench about , “You Saw Me Comin'”. “It’s wistful, and it would have been the perfect way to end the disc.”
Finding Wildflowers (Alternate Versions)—the latest offering of Tom Petty music, curated with help from his loving family, bandmates and collaborators—will be released on April 16 via Warner Records.
The tracks, which were previously released on the limited-edition Super Deluxe 9-LP version of 2020’s Wildflowers & All The Rest, will now be available on limited edition gold vinyl for the Tom Petty website, as well as indie retail, CDs, and on all digital streaming platforms for the first time. A black vinyl release will follow on May 7.
Now “You Saw Me Comin’,” a previously unreleased song and recording from 1992 and the final track on the collection, is premiering alongside a video directed by Joel Kazuo Knoernschild and Katie Malia.
Finding Wildflowers (Alternate Versions) follows Wildflowers & All The Rest, which was hailed by Rolling Stone as “the definitive artistic statement that newly illuminates one of the most fruitful, inspired periods of the American legend’s career,” and by Variety, who called it “the best and most justified boxed set of this kind since the Beatles’ White Album compendium.”
In fact, the songs on Finding Wildflowers (Alternate Versions) first initiated the estate’s discovery and curation process for the larger project. Finding Wildflowers (Alternate Versions) features 16 studio recordings of alternate takes, long cuts and jam versions of Wildflowers songs as Tom, band members and co-producer Rick Rubin worked to finalize the album in 1994.
The release offers fans further deep access into the writing and recording of Wildflowers, as well as realizing the full vision of the project as Tom had always intended.
The collection was produced by Tom’s longtime engineer and co-producer Ryan Ulyate, who listened to 245 reels of 24-track tape, revealing Tom and his collaborators’ evolutionary process and finding that the group was willing to do whatever it took to discover the essence and magic in the material.
Finding Wildflowers (Alternate Versions) is available for pre-order now.
FINDING WILDFLOWERS (ALTERNATE VERSIONS)
1. A Higher Place
2. Hard on Me
3. Cabin Down Below
4. Crawling Back to You
5. Only a Broken Heart
6. Drivin’ Down to Georgia
7. You Wreck Me
8. It’s Good to Be King
9. House in the Woods
10. Honey Bee
11. Girl on LSD
12. Cabin Down Below (Acoustic Version)
13. Wildflowers
14. Don’t Fade on Me
15. Wake Up Time
16. You Saw Me Comin’
