Featured Conversation: Arthur of phoneswithchords on Tom Petty's "Wildflowers"

Published on Dec 28, 2024

My kids are in high school now, and being able to play specifically that song, “Wildflowers,” I played it for them and they really liked it. And then one of my one of my daughters drew some wildflowers. She framed it, and it says, you belong among the wildflowers. And she made these little drawings of flowers, sketched them and gave it to me, and so I’ve got it up on the wall. So, yeah, there’s a lot of connections.

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So would you like to introduce yourself first?

I’m Arthur from phoneswithchords.

Hi, Arthur. Today we’re going to talk about your connection with the Tom Petty album Wildflowers.

So yeah, it was an important record for me in high school, freshman year of high school. I think that may have been my first at the time, it was on CD, but first, like, a record that I purchased with my own money. I wasn’t really big into music until I got into high school, which is weird. I was into sports and stuff, so it wasn’t really my thing. 

Tell me about when you first listened to the album.

So I had an off brand disc player I specifically remember because I was playing basketball, and you know, you’re going to games, everybody’s got headphones in and they’re listening. Nowadays it would be like you’re listening to stuff on your phone. But this was the early 90s, so we all had little disc players or whatever, and I had mine. I just got that record, and I remember somebody on the team made fun of me for it. Don’t make fun of Tom Petty. Everybody was listening to Weezer’s blue album and stuff like that. Yeah, Tom Petty, leave him alone. So I just remember riding back in the van, or having one of those, like, 12 passenger vans that you would ride the games in. And I remember just listening to it and it being my soundtrack for that point of my life.

So let’s fast forward to the box set. That came out in 2020.

My wife knows I’m a huge fan of Tom Petty, and so she had been kind of hinting that I was going to love my Christmas gift or whatever. She was like, yeah, this is going to be your favorite gift ever. And I was like, what is she getting? How does she have me pinned this way?

 So a buddy of mine came over. It was Christmas Eve. My wife just asked me to sit on the couch, close my eyes, the whole surprise thing, and then put it in my lap. And I’m like, Oh, yeah!

My buddy is a big Tom Petty fan. That was a bonding thing when we first met. So we’re going through the jacket and the really cool artwork that they did with the box set. That night, we watched the documentary, the Wildflowers doc, the making of and so it was just a really special night for me. Discovering music back in the day, in high school, and then like that coming out later, I don’t know, it just felt very full circle.

So you had a connection before the box set came out and this reconnected you with the album. 

Yeah. I think Tom Petty has just been somebody for me that I didn’t know why I liked him so much back in the day, you know, in high school, but I realized watching the documentary and getting the box set, it’s just the songwriting. I think it’s the way that he’s so concise, and he is able to write these seemingly very simple type songs. But then there’s this undercurrent of meaning that on repeated listens, you’re like, Oh man, like, there’s something going on here that I can’t really explain, you know, but it still reaches me. 

My kids are in high school now, and being able to play specifically that song, “Wildflowers,” I played it for them and they really liked it. And then one of my one of my daughters drew some like wildflowers. She framed it, and it says, you belong among the wildflowers. And she made these little drawings of flowers, sketched them and gave it to me, and so I’ve got it up on the wall. So, yeah, there’s a lot of connections.

Tell me a little bit about the box set. What came in it? Because I know there were different variants.

So watching the documentary, I didn’t realize in high school that they originally thought they were doing a double album. The album was already long but they thought they were going to do it originally with Rick Rubin, they thought they were going to do this double album, and then they were like, no this is too much. I think there were 30 plus songs or so recorded. And so they just decided to basically release it all. So there’s demos on there, and then there’s completely unreleased stuff. And then like I said before, for the artwork, they went through all the songs and did specific artwork for just like a single lyric. So there’s “Good to be King,” there’s a specific piece of art just for that. And there’s also a booklet. It’s really neat how they did it.

From what I understand his daughters and his wife helped curate the set.

I think they were very much a part of the process. It feels very personal, it feels like a fan’s type box set where they’re really speaking to those that have been fans for years, you know? So, yeah, pairing that with the documentary, it’s pretty great.

Are there particular songs from this album that you really connect with, besides “Wildflowers”

That’s a good question. There’s ones that before, maybe in high school, I was just kind of like, this is corny. But now I love those, like “Honey Bee”  , which is such a straight, bar band rocker of a song. And I think maybe I was like, oh I don’t know if I like this. But it’s so good. I was more of a, go to hits on that record, you know, like “You Wreck Me” and “You Don’t Know How It Feels” and those songs and “Wildflowers” I would just kind of listen to those often. But listening to the whole box set when I got it really brought me back to it. 

phoneswithchords exists somewhere in the vast chasm between a run-down Tascam 4-track tape machine and the expansive sonic soundscapes crafted by studio alchemists in the late 60s and early 70s. Over the past few years, phones has been quietly assembling a back catalog of gorgeous, introspective indie rock that fundamentally resists definition. These self-recorded artifacts represent a life lived, dreams dreamed, and a constant effort to find a balance between creativity and function.

editor’s note: phoneswithchords’ latest album is a triumph