Tom Petty wrote Free Fallin' to make Jeff Lynne laugh

In this 2016 interview with Billboard, Tom Petty shares the story behind his hit "Free Fallin'":

Jeff Lynne and I were sitting around with the idea of writing a song and I was playing the keyboard and I just happened to hit on that main riff, the intro of the song, and I think Jeff said something like, Thats a really good riff but theres one chord too many, so I think I cut it back a chord and then, really just to amuse Jeff, honestly, I just sang that first verse. Then he starts laughing. Honestly, I thought I was just amusing Jeff but then I got to the chorus of the song and he leaned over to me and said the word, freefalling. And I went to sing that and he said, No, take your voice up and see how that feels. So I took my voice up an octave or two, but I couldnt get the whole word in. So I sang freeee, then free falling. And we both knew at that moment that Id hit on something pretty good. It was that fast. He had to go somewhere, and I wrote the last verse and kind of just polished the rest of the song and when I saw him the next day I played him the song and he was like, Wow, you did that last night? And I was like, Yeah. And he said. Weve got to go cut this, and we just took off to Mike Campbells studio where we knew we could get in and get it done that day. So we went in and made the record that day.

You may remember that Jeff Lynne played in the supergroup Traveling Wilburys with Petty, as well as George Harrison, Bob Dylan, and Roy Orbison.

Previously: Tom Petty, RIP