Tom Petty’s original recording of Leave Virginia Alone will finally be released on October 16th as part of the posthumous Wildflowers & All the Rest, an expanded version of his Wildflowers album that includes 10 songs from the sessions that were left off the album, five of which were previously unreleased.
Rod had a US Top 10 hit on the adult-contemporary chart in 1995 with his version, and also reached number one on the Canadian RPM Top Singles and Adult Contemporary charts in 1995. It also reached number 52 on the US Billboard Hot 100 and number 53 in Australia Rod later said that the song “absolutely went by me; it took me two or three good listens. I had to be persuaded to do it, in other words. But now I’m glad I did.”
Rod told Billboard in 1995 “It was for Tom Petty’s album,” adding “and he took it off because it was too close lyrically to something that was a hit beforehand, and his managers couldn’t persuade him to put it on the album. So, his manager, who’s a friend of my manager said, ‘Would Rod listen to the song?’”
He also admitted to Billboard he wasn’t a big Petty fan “Not really. I must admit, no, I’m not, I don’t mean that to sound disparaging. He’s a very good performer, though.”
And as we are now in October we thought we would show you these amazing pumpkin carvings of Rod and Tom by Tom Ziemann
