In 1994, Tom Petty made a song in three minutes. Now, it’s been played over 200,000,000 times

Tom Petty wrote “Wildflowers”, the title track of his 1994 solo album, in a single burst that took about three and a half minutes. The article presents the song as an unusually effortless moment in a career built on capturing musical ideas as they arrived, and says its lasting appeal helped make it a classic.

Petty recalled recording the complete song to a tape recorder, then wondering for days whether something so quickly written could be right. The finished arrangement, made with producer Rick Rubin, combines acoustic songwriting with layered musical parts. The article’s headline says the song has been played more than 200 million times, though the text does not specify a platform or date for that figure.