An article looks at how the influential songwriter Tom Petty regarded Bob Dylan as the standard he measured himself and his songwriting against. Despite fronting his own successful band, the Heartbreakers, and later playing alongside Dylan in the Traveling Wilburys, Petty repeatedly credited Dylan's fingerprints on much of his own work and said he "marvelled" at Dylan's natural songwriting ability, calling him "so much better than all of us".

The piece draws on Petty's comments, including recollections shared with producer Rick Rubin, about learning the discipline of songwriting and admitting he didn't always know what his own songs meant, only that they felt right. It notes Petty's admiration deepened after touring with Dylan and seeing his onstage command firsthand, while also observing that Dylan himself never viewed songwriting as a competition, considered his 1960s peak unrepeatable, and remained on a lifelong search for "the next great song" — a pursuit Petty said he shared until his death.