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Behind The Song: Classic Rock Chronicles
The curious tale of Tom Petty's "Don't Come Around Here No More"
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97.1Fm the drive presents the behind the Song podcast, taking you deeper into classic rock's most timeless tunes. Here's your host, Janda.
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One of Tom Petty and the Heartbreaker's most psychedelic sounding songs, don't Come Around Here no More involves quite a cast of characters. Joe Walsh, who's the root subject of the song Stevie Nicks, who yelled the title line late one night at Walsh after a lover's spat Dave Stewart of the Eurythmics, who happened to overhear it all and mention it to Tom Petty and Jimmy Iovine, the producer who collaborated with Petty on so many of his classics, including this one. It was a hit, of course, complete with a trippy Alice in Wonderland themed video that was in heavy rotation on MTV in 1985 when it was released as the lead single on the Southern Accents album. And to think, Stevie Nicks passed on recording this song herself. Let's go down the musical rabbit hole in this episode of the behind the Song podcast and if you like it, give it a thumbs up and hit. Subscribe and let us know in the comments. Southern Accents was intended to be a Tom Petty solo release. It was a concept album about his Florida roots, and he began writing songs for it while still touring behind 1982's Long After Dark album. The years between Long After Dark and Southern Accents was a time in which Petty and the Heartbreakers kind of went on a hiatus, the longest they'd ever been apart, as Petty said in later interviews. Slowly it transformed back into a Heartbreakers project, but with five co producers Robbie Robertson of the band, Iovine, Petty and the ever present Mike Campbell of the Heartbreakers and Dave Stewart. Now, having that many cooks in the kitchen is more commonplace these days, but back then it was not the norm and was a sign of a period of internal dysfunction in the studio and out of the studio. Nonetheless, Southern Accents went to number seven on the Billboard 200 chart, driven largely by the success of Don't Come Around Here no More. It was one of three songs on the album co written by Dave Stewart, who at first blush might seem to have been an unlikely partner for a rocker like Tom Petty because the sound of the Eurythmics was so very different from much of what you think of when you think of rockin Tom Petty songs earlier in the Heartbreakers catalog. Yet Petty had already shown a liking for synth sounds and they had a hit using synthesizers and drum loops on you Got Lucky by this point, so he was into incorporating all the tools of the day that were at their disposal, plus Stewart bought a house right next to Tom Petty's in Los Angeles, and so they were both neighbors and collaborators. To borrow a lyric from another Tom Petty song, the making of Don't Come Around Here no More was a long, long road. Here's how it went down. Stevie Nicks invited Dave Stewart over to her house for a party one night a few years earlier after he played an LA gig with the Eurythmics. He eventually ducked out of the party and headed to bed upstairs in Nicks guest room, but woke up early the next morning to hear Stevie Nicks loudly kicking her boyfriend at the time, Joe Walsh of the Eagles, out of her house. While doing this, she told him, don't come around here no more. That phrase, overheard in the early dawn hours, stayed in Stewart's mind, planted like a seed for the hit song that would evolve from it later. Nicks and Walsh were involved from about 1983-86, and Nicks has said that Walsh was the love of her life. But it all ended in part due to both of their struggles with drugs in the wild, wild 80s. Anyway, Stewart just couldn't forget the line he overheard like a fly on the wall that night, and initially he wrote don't come around here no more for Stevie Nicks, which would have been on her third solo album, Rock A Little, if she had recorded it. But according to Nicks, she gave the song up to Tom Petty after hearing his vocal on a demo that came out of a late night session that she, Iovine, Stewart and Petty had been working on together for her album, a guide vocal separate from the one that she had been struggling with on earlier takes. According to Nicks, after she heard Petty's mournful yet resolute vocal, which was recorded after she left the studio, she told them all that she couldn't do any better than that, got mad, stormed out, but then told Tom Petty to keep the song and record it himself. It was kind of a full circle moment in a way, since Nicks had been able to keep Tom Petty's Stop Draggin My Heart around for her Belladonna album back in 1981, which of course was a huge hit. So she gave her blessing for Petty to record and Don't Come Around Here no More. Was it a case of the song finding the singer? Maybe so the lyrics go like this. Hey you don't come around here no more Whatever you're looking for don't come around here no more I've given up on waiting any longer I've given up on this love getting Stronger. It was mostly verbatim what Stevie Nicks told Joe Walsh that night when they were overheard arguing by Dave Stewart, a resigned shove off put to music on the song. Tom Petty's very memorably joined by the powerhouse backing vocals of Marilyn Martin, Stephanie Spruill and Sharon Solani. Solani was the friend and longtime backing vocalist for Stevie Nicks. If her name sounds familiar. Spruill was an accomplished vocalist and songwriter who came up out of the jazz, funk and disco world. And Marilyn Martin was about to have a number one duet with Phil Collins when their song Separate Lives went to the top of the charts in the fall of 1985. Their contributions to this song were huge, and it was one of the only hits Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers released with backup singers like this. Different from the core of Petty's work, which by and large relied on his own or the Heartbreaker's vocals to deliver the songs, the next part of the song underlines the finality the end of the relationship. I've given up on waiting any longer I've given up on this love getting stronger don't come around here no more I don't feel you anymore you darken my door Whatever you're looking for don't come around here no more. And who could forget the end of the song when Petty sings, You've tangled my emotions I've given up Honey, please admit it's over Stop walking down my street who do you expect to meet? Whatever you're looking for don't come around here no more. Petty ends the song with his perfectly placed yips and yowls, some of the best in all of classic rock pop, punching up the intensity for an undeniable send off, almost as if he was running from the relationship while he was on fire. Stevie Nicks had the right instinct on this one. The singer had to be Tom Petty for this song. The music video for Don't Come Around Here no More was both far out and controversial at the time. It introduced Tom Petty as the Mad Hatter in an Alice in Wonderland theme and starred a young actress named Louise Foley as Alice. She was one of the first actresses to sign a contract to appear in a music video as opposed to being a model paid for an appearance. She was around 21 at the time and she ended up spending most of her 20s seeing lots of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers concerts. She dated Heartbreakers drummer Stan lynch for five years after meeting on the video set. But unlike George Harrison and Pattie Boyd, who met on the set of the Beatles Hard Days Night film Foley and lynch parted ways before tying the knot. She lives in Houston now, a mom of four, but she'll always be a part of the Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers timeline because of her wide eyed appearance in the trippy video for this song. The controversy over the Don't Come Around Here no More video came up when her Alice character was turned into a cake and eaten by Petty's Mad Hatter after Dave Stewart broke off some of the mushroom he was sitting on and gave it to her to eat while smoking a hookah pipe and playing the sitar, an instrument, by the way, that he really did play on the recording. The whole scene was too much for Tipper Gore, who saw the video and then partially launched the Parents Music resource center in 1985 because of it, which developed a whole rating system for music content deemed too sexual, druggy or violent for parents to use as a guide for what their children should be allowed to listen to or watch as a result. Foley was actually asked to comment on this in interviews at the time, to which she said, it's just a video, it doesn't have any deeper meaning. It's just a fantastical, funny, imaginative concept. She also made a second music video appearance with the band when she appeared in Make It Better Forget About Me, the third single released from Southern Accents, in which a tiny Tom Petty crawls into her ear to perform the song with the band. Don't Come Around Here no More peaked at number 13 on the Billboard Hot 102 on the album Rock Songs chart. In 2020, Rolling Stone ranked it number three on their list of the 50 greatest Tom Petty songs. Interestingly, Tom Petty said that the idea to get a little different in the recording of Don't Come Around Here no More and in the video for the song came to him by way of being inspired by Prince, who'd shown both towering talent and the ability to push boundaries and try new things musically when his Purple Rain album became nothing less than a musical sensation the year before Southern Accents was released. Particularly Prince's song When Doves Cry gave Petty the inspiration to chart new territory of his own with his approach to this song. It mystified his record label at first, but in the end, of course, Tom Petty was right to follow the rabbit down this particular hole, so to speak. So what other songs can you think of that really took off for a band or artist, even though they sounded different from much of what they'd done before? Something to think about until next time. I'm Janda and this has been behind the song. If you liked this episode, give it a like and subscribe to the channel. Special thanks as always to Christian Lane for the music you hear on these podcast episodes and on the way, much more classic rock and roll.