“I don’t think anybody’s made a single like that”: The single Tom Petty wanted to sound completely original
Some artists are content with churning out the same crowd-pleaser tracks over and over again, finding something that works and sticking to it rigorously. Throughout musical history, however, the most enduring artists have been those who pursued innovation and experimentation. Tom Petty, for instance, embraced a wide range of different sounds and songwriting themes over the course of his long and illustrious career, often striving to create something entirely new regardless of whether it would go on to have commercial success or not.
Petty had always harboured an incredibly broad music taste, going back to his childhood spent watching performances by The Beatles and Elvis Presley. Nevertheless, when he made his first steps into the music industry, performing with Mudcrutch, his sound was almost entirely limited to southern and country rock. Inspired by his upbringing in Florida, Petty carried those influences through to his work with The Heartbreakers, which would see him arrive on the mainstream music scene for the very first time.
Although this sound remained within the repertoire of The Heartbreakers for the vast majority of their time together, Petty also expanded his songwriting style to incorporate various different styles. During the 1980s, this expanding sound was spurred along by various collaborators and new influences that inspired Petty. For instance, his lasting friendship with Fleetwood Mac vocalist Stevie Nicks provided Petty with a wealth of songwriting inspiration.
Towards the beginning of the decade, Nicks starred on ‘Insider’, Petty’s first-ever duet. Over the next few decades, the pair would continue to support each other through thick and thin, particularly with regard to their respective drug addictions. However, one of Petty’s most inventive and successful songs would be inspired by Nicks, albeit unknowingly.
The story goes that Dave Stewart, of Eurythmics fame, spent a night with Nicks after the Fleetwood Mac vocalist split up with Joe Walsh. During that night, Nicks reportedly told the Eagles songwriter, “Don’t come around here no more,” which Stewart used as a jumping-off point to write a new song. The resulting track was intended to be sung by Nick, but it was Tom Petty who helped Stewart finish the writing of the song.
By the time Nicks arrived at the studio to work on the song, Petty and Stewart had nearly finished ‘Don’t Come Around Here No More’ and had even started recording some vocals for the track. Nicks, feeling as if she could not live up to the quality of Petty’s performance, rejected any involvement in the song, and it became a bonafide Tom Petty track.
Perhaps as a result of its messy origin story, the final song sounded unlike anything Petty had recorded prior. Reportedly, this was by design, with the songwriter later sharing, “I wanted to make a single that sounded like nothing anybody had ever done, and to this day, I don’t know that anybody’s ever made a single like that.”
Expanding upon the experimentation behind the song, Petty continued, “We worked very hard on that song–maybe a month–and we were doing things like, right in the middle, there’s a big piano note, a grand piano and we literally grabbed the tape and pulled it across the heads [of the recorder] so it makes this kind of ‘whoooooo’.”
The originality and experimentation at the heart of ‘Don’t Come Around Here No More’, along with its obvious quality in terms of songwriting, made the track one of Petty’s most successful. Upon its release in February 1985, the single reached number 13 in the US singles charts and 50 in the UK. Clearly, the southern rock titan’s quest for something entirely different paid off.
