![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/The-moment-Stevie-Nicks-made-Tom-Petty-feel-22dumb22-Far-Out-Magazine-1140x855.jpg\")
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(Credits: Far Out \/ Album Cover \/ Public Domain)<\/p>\n
Mon 19 January 2026 19:30, UK <\/p>\n
By the early 1980s, both Tom Petty<\/a> and Stevie Nicks were perched on the chart pedestals of easy pop appeal, married with a rootsy anchorage pleasing fans of the emerging classic rock.<\/p>\n It was an impressive feat. While Petty\u2019s Heartbreakers band loosely orbited the new wave with a similar power pop as The Cars or Blondie, Petty and Nicks owed nothing to punk or its resulting second British invasion.<\/p>\n The pair still dominated MTV as much as Billy Idol or Duran Duran, however. Both gaining parallel fame in the mid to late 1970s, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers dropped in 1976 while Nicks was on the cusp of global conquest with Fleetwood Mac<\/a>\u2019s Rumours on the horizon, equally closing the decade respectively with some of their biggest hits from Tango in the Night to \u2018Free Fallin\u2019\u2019.<\/p>\n Yet, in the aftermath of Rumours\u2018 blockbuster success, Nicks had fantasised about leaving her Fleetwood Mac juggernaut to join the Heartbreakers, approaching the band around 1978 with her proposition. While politely declining the offer, Nicks instead pressed for an original song from the Heartbreakers leader.<\/p>\n \u201cI knew Stevie, but not real well,\u201d Petty confessed to Musician in 1981. \u201cShe\u2019d been asking me for a long time for a song. I thought that \u2018Insider\u2019 would be the thing for her because it\u2019s acoustic. It has that kind of feel. So, we went to do the vocal, and she started to sing harmony every time. When it was over, I just sat there in awe. She walked back in and said, \u2018How was it?\u2019 I said, \u2018It\u2019s amazing.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n However, Nicks knew Petty perhaps was a little jealous of such a prized cut. \u201cShe said, \u2018I can tell by the look on your face, you don\u2019t wanna give me this song. I\u2019m giving it back to you right now.\u2019 I really thought a lot of her for that.\u201d<\/p>\n In light of such creative generosity, Petty felt a song trade was in order. It turned out that Heartbreakers guitarist Mike Campbell was working on a lick inspired by The Rolling Stones, packed with skulking energy and a stolid backbeat groove. Nicks dug it, having heard the demo after some negotiations with the pair\u2019s producer Jimmy Iovine<\/a>, who was working on both Hard Promises and Bella Donna respectively across 1980-\u201981.<\/p>\n \u201cWow!\u201d Nicks reportedly exclaimed. \u201cThat\u2019s why I wanted you to write me a song. It\u2019s rock \u2018n\u2019 roll. That\u2019s what you do. \u2018Insider\u2019 sounds like what I do.\u201d Petty agreed, in retrospect, astonished by his own creative blind spot, \u201cI thought, \u2018How dumb of me, to think that she\u2019d want me to write like her.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Nicks got what she wanted: a momentary de facto membership of The Heartbreakers she\u2019d previously pined for, everybody from the band involved in cutting Bella Donna\u2019s lead single \u2018Stop Draggin\u2019 My Heart Around\u2019. It would prove a smash, peaking at number three on the Hot 100 and helping push Nicks\u2019 solo debut to the very top of the US albums chart in September 1981.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Related Topics<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(Credits: Far Out \/ Album Cover \/ Public Domain) Mon 19 January 2026 19:30, UK By the early…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":379556,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[96,128,3298,13576,55535,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-379555","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-music","10":"tag-stevie-nicks","11":"tag-tom-petty","12":"tag-tom-petty-and-the-heartbreakers","13":"tag-uk","14":"tag-united-kingdom","15":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/379555","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=379555"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/379555\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/379556"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=379555"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=379555"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=379555"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}