It was 1983, and Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers weren’t just off touring their fifth album, Long After Dark. The album was a success for the band, charting at No. 9 on the Billboard 200, and Petty had already moved on to the next project and began writing with Eurythmics‘ Dave Stewart.
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Going Solo
At first, Southern Accents was going to be a solo double album for Petty but transitioned into a Heartbreakers project. On Southern Accents, Stewart co-wrote three tracks with Petty, including “It Ain’t Nothing to Me” and a song Petty was never keen on “Make It Better (Forget About Me).”
Co-produced by Stewart, Robbie Robertson, Jimmy Iovine, Petty and Heartbreaker Mike Campbell, Southern Accents shot to No. 7 on the Billboard 200.
Stewart also helped write “Don’t Come Around Here No More,” which ended up peaking at No. 13 on the Billboard Hot 100 and No. 2 on the Album Rock Tracks chart.
Stevie Nicks
Initially, Stewart wrote “Don’t Come Around Here No More” for Nicks’ third solo album Rock a Little, but after she heard Petty’s recording of the song, she passed it off it him.
“Dave Stewart actually wrote that for me and sent to me the track with one line ‘Don’t Come Around Here No More,” said Nicks. “We all went in the studio with me and David and Tom Petty and the next day I came in and Tom had done a vocal on it. And because I was extremely selfish and spoiled rotten, I got very angry and fired everybody and stormed out. I told Tom to keep the song, and I lost the song. I gave the song up.”
Several years prior to Southern Accents, Petty and Campbell co-wrote “Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around” for Stevie Nicks‘ 1981 debut Bella Donna.
The Meaning
The song was inspired by something Stewart heard Nicks telling her then-lover Joe Walsh when she was kicking him out of her house: “Don’t come around here no more.”
Don’t come around here no more
Stop walking down my street
Don’t come around here no more
Who you expect to meet?
Don’t come around here no more
And whatever you’re looking for
Hey don’t come around here no more
Hey
Honey please (honey please) don’t come around here no more
Whatever you’re looking for
Don’t come around here no more
[RELATED: The Tom Petty Song That Tom Petty Hated]
Stewart and Nicks also shared a night of passion one night after a party at her home in Los Angeles, California. “I remember making love once, but she later told me we made love twice,” said Stewart in his 2016 memoir Sweet Dreams Are Made of This. “And then she said I remember clearly because I was wide awake, wired on cocaine.’ It was all very good-humored and sweet, but also romantic in a rock-and-roll kind of way. It was all very good-humored and sweet, but also romantic in a rock ‘n’ roll kind of way.”
The Mad Hatter
In the music video for “Don’t Come Around Here No More,” Petty introduced the Alice in Wonderland theme of videos with him as the Mad Hatter. Stewart, who is also seen playing guitar on a giant mushroom, gives Alice a “special” cup of tea.
“He is the Mad Hatter,” said Nicks. “If you know him as well as I do, he fits into that whole ‘Alice in Wonderland’ thing.”
Photo by Michael Kovac/WireImage
