Can classic literature and popular music mix in video form? If you go by this week's installment of Retrovideo Friday, the answer is a definite yes.This Week's Pick: "Don't Come Around Here No More" by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers (Year: 1985)
Back in 1985, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers released the album Southern Accents, featuring the single "Don't Come Around Here No More." The song was a collaboration between Petty and the Eurythmics' Dave Stewart, partially inspired by the latter's encounter with Stevie Nicks after an Eurythmics show. Stewart and Nicks had a bit of a romantic episode, incidentally just the night or so after Nicks had broken up with Joe Walsh. The next morning, he heard Nicks telling Joe Walsh "Don't come around here no more."
It's an interesting little tale and multiple sources seem to confirm those basic details, though it's tough to say exactly what might have happened that night/the next morning.
Fast forward a bit -- Petty and Stewart collaborated with each other on the song, supplementing it with an Alice In Wonderland-inspired video featuring Petty as the Mad Hatter. Stewart also appeared in the beginning of the video, playing the sitar on a giant mushroom. The song, which features a psychedellic sound that hadn't really been heard in previous Tom Petty efforts, seemed to match the video's weirdness perfectly. The odd black and white tile background, Alice's alarm at finding herself at a wacky tea party, and the video's slightly creepy ending with Alice being eaten after turning into a cake of sorts... all seemed to come together with the song's trippy vibe. The video ended up becoming a huge hit on MTV, and once you watch it, you'll realize why.
Check out the video here.
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