In 1981, Stevie Nicks kickstarted her solo career by collaborating with Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers on “Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around.” The song peaked at No. 3 in the United States and set her up for the strongest solo career of any of her Fleetwood Mac bandmates. It was also a success for Petty and the Heartbreakers, but he didn’t initially see it this way. It sounded completely different from his initial vision of it.
Tom Petty was surprised to hear the end result of a collaboration with Stevie Nicks
When Nicks began working on her debut solo album, Bella Donna, she knew she wanted Petty’s help. She was a huge fan of his music — she would have quit Fleetwood Mac to join the Heartbreakers — and wanted him to produce the record. He admitted he couldn’t do this for her, but he offered to write her a song.
Petty initially wrote the song “Insider” for Nicks, but he ultimately decided he couldn’t give it up. Instead, he let her pick from outtakes. Nicks discovered “Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around,” and she and producer Jimmy Iovine fashioned it into a duet. When Petty first heard her version, he felt “duped.”
“He plays me ‘Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around,’ the same track, with her singing. I go: ‘Jimmy, you just took the song . . .’ His comeback was like: ‘This is gonna buy you a house,’” Petty said, per the book Mirror in the Sky: The Life and Music of Stevie Nicks by Simon Morrison. “But it pissed me off because it came out at the same time as our single [‘A Woman in Love’], and I think ours suffered.”
The version Iovine showed Petty sounded markedly different from what the Heartbreakers initially recorded. Iovine had manufactured the duet in the studio, which sound assistant Brian Hart described as “both funny and horrible, but I didn’t say anything because I didn’t want to lose my job.”
Heartbreakers keyboardist Benmont Tench expressed disappointment that the song they wrote and recorded never truly saw the light of day.
“Why couldn’t ‘Insider’ and ‘Stop Draggin’ have been on both Hard Promises and Bella Donna?” Tench said, per Louder Sound. “I guess back then that’s not the way it worked. I wish the song was more recognized as Tom Petty And The Heartbreakers with Stevie Nicks. But they sang so great together.”
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Tom Petty’s fears about Stevie Nicks and Jimmy Iovine might have been right
When Petty told Nicks he couldn’t produce her album, he recommended his own producer, Iovine, to her. Nicks and Iovine quickly began dating, knowing they had to keep the relationship from Petty. He would be concerned that Iovine’s relationship with Nicks would cause him to neglect his responsibilities to the Heartbreakers.
The Heartbreakers’ album, Hard Promises, was a success, but Petty’s fears might have had some truth to them. Seeing the potential of “Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around,” Iovine switched up the song and gave it to Nicks without consulting Petty.
“We’d already cut it as a Heartbreakers song, with Tom singing the whole thing,” Tench said. “At the same time, Jimmy Iovine was dating Stevie, though he was keeping it clandestine. And I think Jimmy thought the song could be a hit for her.”
Even though Petty felt a bit betrayed, the money the song brought him likely assuaged any anger.
Tom Petty’s ‘Insider’ is a better song, but it didn’t perform as well
“Insider,” the song Petty initially planned to give Nicks, is a better song than “Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around.” It is bittersweet, beautifully written, and a perfect example of how well Nicks and Petty’s voices fit together. Despite this, it didn’t perform nearly as well as “Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around.”
“Insider” didn’t chart, but “Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around” spent six weeks at No. 3.
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