How Stevie Nicks’ love life inspired a classic Tom Petty hit
Stevie Nicks has often infused her songwriting with tales of romance. From the tumultuous relationships that inspired Fleetwood Mac’s 1977 magnum opus Rumours to an ever-growing collection of songs set to haunt Lindsey Buckingham to songs penned for her “great love” Eagles’ Joe Walsh, her music has charted all the anxieties and excitements of love.
More than just her own songwriting, Nicks’ romantic endeavours have provided a muse for many, including some of her lovers’ and friends’ biggest hits. Just as Nicks wrote about him, Buckingham never shied away from sharing his own perspective on their relationship through song. The Fleetwood Mac frontwoman’s love life even inspired a 1984 Tom Petty hit.
Though Nicks considers him to be her greatest love, her romance with Eagles guitarist Joe Walsh wasn’t always smooth sailing as the two grappled with drug addiction. One night, an argument between the two led to a break-up. The next night, Nicks found herself at a Eurythmics gig in Los Angeles, where she encountered Dave Stewart.
The two spent the night together at a party at Nicks’ place, but the Fleetwood Mac frontwoman quickly came to her senses the next morning and kicked him out. Reports seem to conflict on where the song’s titular phrase emerged from – whether Nicks said it Stewart or to a regretful, returning Walsh – but the Eurythmics producer picked up the phrase and penned a song after it.
“I really liked Stevie and she seemed vulnerable and fragile when I was leaving that morning. I was thinking about that and the situation she was in and I started singing, ‘Don’t come around here no more,’” he shared in The Dave Stewart Songbook.
The song eventually landed in Tom Petty’s lap, and he turned it into a hit, much to Nicks’ dismay. “David Stewart actually wrote that song for me and that made the track with one line on it, ‘Don’t come around here no more,’” she once recounted.
“We all went in the studio with me and David and Tom Petty,” she recalled, “And the next day I came in and Tom had done the vocal on it and because I was extremely selfish and spoiled rotten I got very angry and fired everybody and stormed out.” She then “told Tom to keep the song and ‘Thank you, David,’ and left and I lost the song. I gave the song up.”
Revolving around that central line, ‘Don’t Come Around Here No More’ formed the lead single for Petty’s 1985 record Southern Accents. Petty’s vocals are shrouded in synths and strings as he sings of lost love and tangled emotions. Though Nicks’ youthful stubbornness means we’ll never get to hear her take on it, it’s not difficult to imagine how her vocals might have even further elevated the track.
Revisit ‘Don’t Come Around Here No More’ by Tom Petty below.
