None of us are immune to the rule of Murphy’s Law, which is something Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers learned the hard way when making their 1985 record, Southern Accents. A string of misfortunes throughout the production process almost makes it seem like the album was cursed from the jump, pushing all the musicians to their emotional and physical limits.
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Even the album’s lead single, “Don’t Come Around Here No More,” had tumultuous roots involving two other notable rock ‘n’ rollers, Fleetwood Mac’s Stevie Nicks and the Eagles’ Joe Walsh.
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers Struggled Through ‘Southern Accents’
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers were riding high in the late 1970s after the monumental success of Damn the Torpedoes. But multiple years on the road left the musicians susceptible to the seedier allures of the rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle. The effects of the road became more tangible during the recording of their 1985 album Southern Accents. The musicians made multiple trips to the hospital, including when guitarist Mike Campbell inadvertently snorted s**** after thinking it was c******. “It shut my stomach down, and it was kind of a wake-up call for me,” Campbell told People in 2025. “There’s a lesson: be careful because your body will shut down on you if you ever do it.”
Petty ended up in the ER, too. After toiling over the same song for hours, Petty decided to listen back to the band’s earlier, pared-back demo arrangement. He realized that they should have stuck with the demo all along. Frustrated at their waste of time, Petty punched the wall as hard as he could. And as it turns out, that meant pretty hard. The rhythm guitarist severely broke his hand, even damaging tendons in the process.
“All of a sudden, I got Mickey Mouse’s hand,” he recalled in the 2007 documentary Runnin’ Down a Dream. I get to the hospital. And it’s so bad that other doctors are being called in like, ‘Hey, get a load of this.’ I had to be given electroshock therapy. The electrodes would force my hand to shut because the hand didn’t want to close because it hurt so bad.” For a brief moment, Petty wasn’t sure he would ever be able to play the guitar again. As history would show, that fortunately wasn’t the case.
The Album’s Biggest Hit Was Born Of Emotional Turmoil, Too
Even the album’s biggest wins were hard-fought. The lead single off Southern Accents, “Don’t Come Around Here No More,” only made the record after a contentious day in the studio with Tom Petty, Stevie Nicks, producer Jimmy Iovine, and Eurythmics’ Dave Stewart. Petty had originally written the track for Nicks after overhearing her yelling at her then-boyfriend, the Eagles’ Joe Walsh, to get out of her house. (Don’t come around here no more being her actual words, not just a catchy rock ‘n’ roll refrain.)
One night in the studio, Nicks turned in early, leaving the rest of the musicians and producers to work on the song overnight. When Nicks came back the next day, Petty had already laid a vocal track. Nicks thought Petty’s take was so great that there was no way she could make a better version, so she ultimately decided to pass on it altogether. “Because I was extremely selfish and spoiled rotten, I got very angry and fired everybody and stormed out,” Nicks later recalled. “I told Tom to keep the song, and I lost the song.”
Awkward studio moments aside, Nicks’ decision worked in Petty’s favor. “Don’t Come Around Here No More” is not only one of the most popular songs off Southern Accents but also in his entire catalogue. It peaked at No. 2 on the U.S. Billboard Album Rock Tracks chart and No. 13 on the Hot 100.
Photo by Ian Dickson/Shutterstock
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