Tom Petty ranked it among his 10 best songs. He thought radio overlooked it for no good reason

Tom Petty considered ‘Angel Dream’ one of his ten best songs, but felt radio overlooked it because it lacked a guitar solo. The song’s quiet, personal style stood apart from the more familiar sound expected by FM stations, and its later release as the opening track of a reworked album gave it renewed prominence.

Petty wrote ‘Angel Dream’ while working on the 1996 film soundtrack *She’s the One*, alongside ‘Walls’ and ‘Grew Up Fast’, in roughly 48 hours. He said the song reflected meeting his second wife, Dana, during a period of emotional turmoil. In 2021, engineer Ryan Ulyate remixed and reordered the soundtrack as *Angel Dream*, with the song placed first.