Tom Petty Recalls How He and Stevie Nicks Ended Up Working Together in Resurfaced Interview: 'She Was a Fan of the Band' 

03/17/2025 05:01 PM

Tom Petty and Stevie Nicks collaborated on the 1981 songs "Stop Draggin' My Heart Around" and "Insider"

• A new documentary from Cameron Crowe details how Tom Petty and Stevie Nicks ended up collaborating
• The film, titled Tom Petty: Heartbreak Beach Party, reveals how Petty and Nicks ended up collaborating on "Stop Draggin' My Heart Around" and "Insider" in 1981
• The documentary is available to stream on Paramount+

Tom Petty and Stevie Nicks are an underrated musical combination.

In Cameron Crowe's new documentary Tom Petty: Heartbreak Beach Party, the band's late frontman recalled how he and the Fleetwood Mac singer collaborated on "Stop Draggin' My Heart Around" and "Insider" in 1981.

"Stevie's a fan of the band and she just had been for a long time and wanted to come and hang out and sing some," Petty, who died in 2017 after cardiac arrest, said in the resurfaced interview.

"So she was asking me one night at dinner for a song, and 'Would you write a song?' She'd asked me a couple times, but one night, she got real adamant about, you know, 'I really want a song.' So I said, 'Okay, I'll write the song.' "

Related: Tom Petty Recalls Getting 'Beat Up' by Fans in Resurfaced Film: They 'Thought They Could Just Take a Finger Home'

"And I went home and the next afternoon, I wrote this… 'Insider,' " Petty continued, referring to another song he and Nicks, 76, worked together on for his 1981 Hard Promises album. "It's where I got the whole 'hard promises' line, the whole thing just hit me in the head all at once."

"I'm an insider, I've been burned by the fire/Oh, and I've had to live with some hard promises," Petty sings in the chorus. "I've crawled through the briars/I'm an insider."

"She said, 'You know what? I can't take this from you because I know, I can see how bad you want it, and you just keep it and write me another song and we're even.' "

Related: Stevie Nicks Rocks SNL with 'Edge of Seventeen' and 'The Lighthouse' Despite Brief Technical Hitch

Petty and Nicks then collaborated on a second song, "Stop Draggin' My Heart Around," which Nicks put on her album Bella Donna. "I think it took us a few hours. We went down and learned it and sang it and the rest is history," Petty quipped.

"And it's still a big thrill, anytime you create a piece of music to me, it's just a real kick," the "American Girl" singer concluded. "It's like… it's fun. It's fun for four people to play and tape rolls and then you can play it back. I'm still fascinated by that."

Petty and Nicks also sang "I Need to Know" together in 2009 on the From Gainesville – The 30th Anniversary Concert movie, where the "Dreams" musician makes an appearance to perform.

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This clip is one of many tidbits from the Tom Petty: Heartbreak Beach Party, which aired only once on MTV in 1983 and resurfaced over 40 years later.

The documentary is a "fun, candid, fast-paced and musically rich ride with America's greatest rock & roll band, a time capsule of the dawn of the MTV era and a rare, shining glimpse into Tom Petty's lasting creative genius," per an official synopsis.

It follows the band as they "finish, promote and tour the groundbreaking Long After Dark album, the band's third and final project with legendary producer Jimmy Iovine."

Tom Petty: Heartbreakers Beach Party is available to stream on Paramount+.