Every music making artist has their own creative process. One of my favorite things to hear as a music fan, is how a song evolves from its inception to what is released on the record and played on the radio.

The family of Tom Petty recently uncovered a demo version of his hit “You Don’t Know How It Feels,” and there are some distinct differences between this recording done in his home studio and the version we all know and love.

A re-release of Petty’s 1994 masterpiece album Wildflowers is the works and this track very well may be part of the expanded package.

Petty studio producer RIck Rubin stated in 2018, during the recording of Wildflowers, Petty recorded between 26 and 28 songs during their sessions. However, the record label only gave his 15 tracks on the album.

Rubin told the podcast Broken Record, Petty “knew that the second half of Wildflowers was an important statement. His issue was [that] he didn’t want to put it out as a new Tom Petty album, ‘cause it’s not a new Tom Petty album -- it was recorded 25 years ago -- and he didn’t want to release it as an old catalog album because he thought it deserved more than being a catalog album. He felt like it was too good to just put out and was sort of looking for the right story where it would have the exposure that it deserved. And he never came up with it.”

Below is the official video for “You Don’t Know How It Feels,” so you can compare it with the home recording.

The death of Tom Petty in October 2017 left an immediate void in the world of music. Here’s a photo gallery of him through the years.

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NEW YORK: Tom Petty from Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers posed in New York in 1976 (Photo by Richard E. Aaron/Redferns)

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