Watch Billy Ray Cyrus And Miley Cyrus Pay Tribute To Tom Petty With “Wildflowers” Cover

A Moving Rendition

Miley Cyrus and Billy Ray Cyrus appeared on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon in 2017 and performed a tribute to Tom Petty with a twangy take on the 1994 classic “Wildflowers.” Tom Petty died just a few days earlier on October 2. The father and daughter duo delivered the goods especially with Miley’s soulful vocals. Billy Ray played the acoustic guitar and provided harmony vocals.

Prior to this episode, Miley Cyrus covered the same song on The Howard Stern Show where she said, “It’s just really hard for me, watching those people that I grew up with leaving. The reason why I chose this song is because it’s hopeful. It’s hopeful rather than mourning.”

“Wildflowers” is the title track to Tom Petty’s second solo studio album released in 1994. It’s one of the most popular songs in his catalog and he once revealed it was easy to write.

He said, “I just took a deep breath and it came out. The whole song. Stream of consciousness: words, music, chords. Finished it. I mean, I just played it into a tape recorder and I played the whole song and I never played it again. I actually only spent three and a half minutes on that whole song. So I’d come back for days playing that tape, thinking there must be something wrong here because this just came too easy. And then I realized that there’s probably nothing wrong at all.”