The Tom Petty video that was too shocking for MTV
Tom Petty seemed like the last rock star in the world that would ever cause a raucous in the music industry. Considering his pedigree for writing the most laid-back music of all time, the heartland rocker made a living by writing simple songs that always cut to the heart of every primary emotion in the book. Then again, there were moments when he could become a little bit of a nuisance in the music industry.
Coming up with producer Jimmy Iovine, Petty was locked in an industry battle for control of the copyright on his songs. While making the album Damn the Torpedoes, Petty filed a lawsuit against his record company to earn his master recordings back, winning in a knockdown drag-out fight over his music.
While he coaxed by on his traditional heartland rock sound for a while, things started to get hazy when working on the album Southern Accents. Considering how much time the band had spent off the road, the excesses of the rock star lifestyle began catching up with them, including an episode where Petty broke his hand during the recording sessions.
Though the album was intended to be an ode to the American south, the collaboration with Dave Stewart on ‘Don’t Come Around Here No More’ was too good to pass up. The tune was the polar opposite of what the band were expected to be, featuring an electric sitar and a processed drum machine. With the massive change of pace, they knew that an equally twisted music video was bound to follow.
Framing the storyline in an Alice in Wonderland set-up, the video featured Petty playing the role of The Mad Hatter, guiding this woman through a myriad of different off-the-wall visuals. While the song was a major hit all over the radio, Petty got into trouble when working on certain shots for the clip.
In the middle of production, the band played out a scene from The Mad Hatter’s tea party, where the woman was turned into the cake for the occasion. During the shot, the band can be seen cutting out specific chunks of the cake, which became too hot by MTV standards.
Although the video went off without a hitch, video director Jeff Stein remembered Tipper Gore, head of the Parents Music Resource Center, having a problem with the final product, telling Yahoo: “Apparently, Tipper’s daughter saw that scene and freaked out — and then Mom started taking notice of what was going on, on MTV. And I’m not kidding: I was cited for promoting cannibalism by a parents/teachers group. I thought, ‘Well, this has to be a career-high, if you can bring back cannibalism as a fad!’”
So what did Stein do to satisfy the censors? Not a goddamn thing. He continued: “I did not take anything out of the cut. After it started airing, and it was very popular and in major rotation… I noticed that they had taken [Petty’s] burp off at the end after he has a piece of cake, and Alice is on that piece, and she’s kind of screaming. He belches, and they had taken that off!”
Regardless of the video’s controversy, Petty still had a banner year, continuing with The Heartbreakers while also serving as the backing group for Bob Dylan later in the year. Anyone can try to take Petty to task, but no one can deny behind a song like this.
