The Stevie Nicks hit that “killed” Tom Petty’s single
As Tom Petty entered the 1980s, he had already been through the biggest headaches any artist must suffer. Having to face a lawsuit for his time working with MCA Records, his follow-up album Hard Promises came with its equal share of issues, going to war against the industry for jacking up the price of records. Between the different suits, Petty did find time to make musical friends like Stevie Nicks along the way.
While making Hard Promises, Nicks started to become infatuated with Petty’s music, even preferring some of Petty’s songs to what she was working on in Fleetwood Mac. Between the different Mac projects, Nicks elected to make a solo album called Bella Donna, enlisting Petty’s producer Jimmy Iovine to produce it.
Looking for a song for her record, Nicks initially wanted Petty to write her a song. Though Petty had written the song ‘Insider’ for Nicks’ range, his love for the song led to him cutting the track himself, with Nicks singing a harmony vocal.
As Petty recalls, Nicks had told him she was looking for a rocker instead of a ballad, telling Runnin’ Down a Dream, “Often when someone asks you to write a song for them, you normally know what area to go in. You’ll usually write right in their style. But the problem is, if an artist wants a song, they’re usually looking for something that sounds like you”.
Going through his archives, Petty offered up ‘Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around’ to be her next single. Though Nicks was initially hesitant to go through with it once presented with the song, Petty assured her that it would do well, with Nicks telling Rolling Stone, “When they showed it to me, I was like, ‘Is this the right thing to do? I only get 11 songs, and one won’t be mine?’ And both Tom and Jimmy told me in a brutally honest way, ‘You don’t have a single on this record, and here’s a single for you’”.
With Nicks tapping into a bluesy register, ‘Draggin’ would become her first solo smash, to the detriment of Petty. Once Nicks’s single started to gain traction, Petty’s track ‘A Woman in Love (It’s Not Me)’ began falling off the charts, with Petty explaining, “Radio wasn’t going to play two Heartbreakers songs, and the single was listed as ‘Stevie Nicks and Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers’”.
Heartbreakers guitarist Mike Campbell remembered jokingly fighting with Nicks about it in a hotel on tour, recalling, “She came up to me and said, ‘Did you hear? Our single’s doing really well’. And the first thing out of my mouth was, ‘Yeah, it killed our single dead,’ and she went cold. I was like, ‘No, I didn’t mean it in a bad way’”.
While Nicks may have stalled any chances for Petty’s new single, their collaboration blossomed into a beautiful friendship, with Nicks contributing vocals to future Petty classics like ‘Don’t Come Around Here No More’ and even performing ‘Insider’ whenever their paths crossed on the road. Nicks also repaid the favour for Campbell years later, drafting him into Fleetwood Mac after having to lose Lindsey Buckingham in the 2010s. Nicks may have been an essential part of Fleetwood Mac, but for this one single, she became an unofficial member of The Heartbreakers.
