Tom Petty’s 1994 lead single from Wildflowers, “You Don’t Know How It Feels,” is among the most recognizable hits in the rock ‘n’ roll icon’s catalogue. With its laid-back groove and catchy hooks, Let’s get to the point, let’s roll another joint…, the song easily climbed to the top of the charts, peaking at No. 1 on the Billboard Mainstream Rock chart, No. 8 on Pop Airplay, and No. 13 on the Hot 100.
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Interestingly, the Grammy Award-winning track was missing one musical element that most rock bands would consider non-negotiable. Producer Rick Rubin explained why they opted not to include this instrument in the final version. (And we explain why Mike Campbell’s go-to writing method likely helped this Petty track still feel natural and complete.)
Tom Petty’s “You Don’t Know How It Feels” Leaves Out This Common Musical Instrument
As far as stoner rock goes, it doesn’t get much more chill than the dragging 4/4 time of Tom Petty’s “You Don’t Know How It Feels.” The drums come out swinging from the first downbeat, along with an in-your-face harmonica that almost overshadows what Petty is doing on the acoustic guitar. While the record might feel complete, it’s missing one musical element that most rock bands wouldn’t dare exclude: cymbals. The kick and snare are incredibly present in the mix, but it’s lacking that shimmery high end typical of most rock music.
“We thought of it as a roomy drum sound,” producer Rick Rubin recalled in a 2024 interview with Rick Beato. “If you listen to the drum tracks, and if you put up your room sounds, the cymbals are always the loudest, splashiest thing. They end up taking over the track. So, it becomes a limitation in what you can do later. I remember asking Steve [Ferrone] when he played this to not hit the cymbals at all. If there were going to be cymbals, we would overdub them.”
Rubin said that although overdubbing cymbals had been in the original plan for “You Don’t Know How It Feels,” they never got around to doing it. “It just probably never seemed necessary,” he said. And of course, Rubin and the band were right. The song performed incredibly well, even sans cymbals, garnering Petty the Grammy Award for Best Male Rock Performance and the MTV Video Music Award for Best Male Video.
Mike Campbell’s Go-To Writing Technique Probably Helped, Too
Even subtle cymbals are a standard piece of any drum kit, particularly in rock ‘n’ roll. But Tom Petty’s “You Don’t Know How It Feels” was a masterclass in low-end subtlety. The cymbals didn’t carry that lazy groove; the kick and snare did. Thus, it never sounds like anything’s missing. We’d also posit that Mike Campbell’s go-to writing technique probably helped the song feel more natural to the band, too, given his extensive use of a drum machine when writing Heartbreakers tracks.
In a 2025 interview with Guitar Player, the Heartbreakers guitarist described using a LinnDrum drum machine to write. “I wrote “Refugee” to a drum loop I got off a record,” he said. “Here Comes My Girl” was another song that started with the drum machine. “I didn’t have a drummer in my demo studio at home,” Campbell explained, “so, I would make drum loops before there were drum machines. That was just business as usual. Now, I had this machine that will do the drum loop for me. But I could program it any way I wanted.”
The almost boxy, bass-heavy sound of a drum machine was standard demo material for Petty and the Heartbreakers, which might have made the lack of cymbals on “You Don’t Know How It Feels” less noticeable. And in any case, it was certainly the right choice.
Photo by Jan Jarecki/WWD/Penske Media via Getty Images
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