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Miley Cyrus Torches Tom Petty’s ‘Wildflowers’ In Tribute To The Late Singer

(Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images for iHeartMedia)

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Tributes are usually a home run, but every now and then someone just can’t get it right.

Miley Cyrus was that someone when she covered Tom Petty’s “Wildflowers” with her father Billy Ray Cyrus on “The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon” on Thursday night.

You can do whatever you want with a cover–change up the rhythm, add a few instruments, make it your own–that’s fine. But a tribute is different and should be treated as such.

Miley Cyrus and her dad performed a tribute to the rock and roll legend with one of his more folksy songs on Thursday night, and the music itself and the instrumentation was actually amazing. They threw a violin in there that went beautifully with the laid back track, but Miley ruined everything good they had going on with her singing.

I grew up on Tom Petty and was lucky enough to see him live three times and I don’t think he would have been happy with what the pop star did with one of his more mellow hits.

It’s too soon to do too much, Miley. Tributes are for the artist we lost – not you.