Retro Video of the Week: "Don't Come Around Here No More" by Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers

As we continue our look at COVID-related songs and videos, this week's Retro Video of the Week brings us to Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers' 1985 hit "Don't Come Around Here No More."  The song has a pretty interesting back story.  It is co-written by Petty and Dave Stewart from the Eurythmics.  You might think that's an odd pairing, but the common bond was Stevie Nicks, with whom Petty and the Heartbreakers had recorded the duet "Stop Draggin' My Heart Around" for Nicks's 1981 debut solo album, Bella Donna.

As the story behind "Don't Come Around Here No More" goes, the Eurythmics were in LA during one of their early tours, which I'm guessing was around 1983.  Nicks apparently goes to the show and then invites Stewart back to her place for a party.  Oddly enough, Stewart didn't know who she was (had he never heard of Fleetwood Mac?!), but he takes her up on the invite, presumably because she was an attractive woman.  He goes to the party, and at some point, everyone else at the party gets up and files into a bathroom to do coke.  This was LA in the '80s.  It was snowing all time.  Why they couldn't just blow lines in the living room is a mystery.  Anyway, after a couple hours, Stewart must have gotten bored, since everyone else was in the bathroom, so he goes upstairs to bed.  At 5 a.m., he wakes up to find Nicks in the room trying on Victorian clothes -- as '80s chanteuses were wont to do after a coke binge -- and Stewart said it reminded him of Alice in Wonderland.  I suppose that's why the video has an Alice in Wonderland theme (Stewart is the hookah-smoking caterpillar in the video, by the way).  Then a little while later, Joe Walsh shows up.  Nicks had recently broken up with Walsh, and Nicks throws him out, saying, "Don't come around here no more."

For COVID purposes, the song is poignant now that we are seeing rates increasing (again) across the country.  I know it can be tough to turn away friends and family, but sometimes, for your own safety, you just have to say, "Don't come around here no more -- or at least until we've gotten this whole coronavirus thing under control."  Or, if you see someone on your block walking around without a mask, you can politely say, "Stop walking down my street."