Originally, the Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers album Southern
Accents was to be a concept album that focused on Southern life. But after
inter-band disagreements and Petty breaking his hand when he punched the wall, work
on the album was stunted.
Dave Stewart of the Eurythmics was invited to take part,
and he co-wrote and played on three new tracks: “Don’t Come Around Here No More,”
“It Ain’t Nothing to Me” and “Make It Better (Forget About Me).” To make room
for the new songs, five songs were cut: "Trailer," "Big Boss Man," "Crackin' Up," "The Image of Me" and "The Apartment Song." This resulted in the concept of the
concept album to basically disappear. Band members later admitted their
disappointment that the album had changed so drastically.
SIDE A
1. Rebels
2. Trailer
3. The Image of Me
4. Crackin’ Up
5. Southern Accents
SIDE B
1. The Apartment Song
2. Big Boss Man
3. Spike
4. Dogs on the Run
5. Mary’s New Car
6. The Best of Everything
While we don’t know what the final tracklist order was supposed to be, we can take the album that was released, remove the Stewart tracks, and fill in the blanks. "Trailer" was later rerecorded by Petty with his original band Mudcrutch, and he also rerecorded "The Apartment Song" for his solo album, Full Moon Fever. I stick with the originals for Southern Accents, even though "The Apartment Song" is a demo (with Stevie Nicks on backup vocals).
The result is a much better album, in my opinion, although it admittedly does not have a real pop hit like “Don’t Come Around Here No More.” Perhaps the three Stewart co-penned songs could have been released later as non-album singles (or an EP), placed on a soundtrack or expanded to be another full album. But we got what we got.
All the “missing” tracks can be found on the box set Playback.
The result is a much better album, in my opinion, although it admittedly does not have a real pop hit like “Don’t Come Around Here No More.” Perhaps the three Stewart co-penned songs could have been released later as non-album singles (or an EP), placed on a soundtrack or expanded to be another full album. But we got what we got.
All the “missing” tracks can be found on the box set Playback.
Just given this reconstruction a try, after the Count Five one, which turned out to be a fine little 60's garage album. For anyone who wants to listen to your efforts, I've found a great Russian site that lets you download individual tracks from hundreds of thousands of albums, so that you can piece these together yourself. Try if here http://musicmp3spb.org/404.php, and you click the grey box on the selected track which brings up a download link. I've used it over the years to listen to loads of these reconstructions, and also to make quite a few myself, so give it a try.
ReplyDeleteThanks PJ. I'll check out the site, but I'm a little wary of downloading anything from a Russian website. :)
DeleteI like it. Much more of a fluid record.
ReplyDeleteYeah, in retrospect those Stewart songs kind of having a jarring effect on my ears when included with the other tracks.
DeleteI've been playing with this since I saw your comment on Sonic's blog. I ended up dropping The Apartment Song simply because I prefer the Full Moon Fever version and I would rather leave that album as it is. Still shuffling the songs around to maximize the flow. The album covers a lot of styles.
ReplyDeleteYeah, some also want to drop the Apt. Song simply because it was a demo.
DeleteI think the album flows very well as you have it sequenced. No need to change it, and the Apt. Song demo fits in perfectly.
ReplyDeleteThanks. I thought so. HNY
DeleteIt's a personal thing for me. The Apartment Song is a great tune, both the demo and the finished versions. I just have a hard time taking songs from albums that I feel are perfect the way they are.
DeleteI bought Full Moon Fever with two other albums when it came out. I was between buying vinyl and CDs at the time so I bought it on cassette. When I got home I put on FMF first and played it three times in a row. I listened to the other tapes I bought then listened to FMF another three times. I went to bed and when I woke up I played it another three times. This album just floored me. So FMF in my mind is untouchable.
I did the same thing on my Beatles timeline. I refused to take anything away from John's Imagine or Paul's Band On The Run. Both perfect albums and should not be played with. But of course, that's just me.
Of course it's not anything new for an artist to re-record a song. For example, both Johnny Cash and Chuck Berry redid several of their songs over the years. So I don't think it's out of the realm of possibilities that Petty would record a Heartbreakers version with Nicks on "Southern Accents" and then record a different version on his solo album.
DeleteAll true but I never could see Tom doing that. He always seemed to be a "Let's move on, we did that already" kind of guy that didn't like repeating himself. As for Cash, Berry and others, that was a different time and artists were often at the mercy of their labels and producers.
ReplyDeleteI can't comment on Cash but as a huge Chuck Berry fan with everything I can scrape up by him he did rerecord some covers and did rerecord all of his hits for a best of album while he was briefly on Mercury Records (to get around licensing from Chess) but he never repeated any original songs on later albums. Yea he reused musical arrangements, guitar licks and such but it always had new lyrics. If you asked Chuck he always said that the words were his focus and the music was a vehicle to get the words across. He was one of the first singer/songwriters.
My reasoning behind dropping the song, along with all of the above, is simply that it didn't feel needed and by dropping it we can now arrange the 10 remaining songs to be more evenly distributed between the two vinyl sides. Mine clocks in at about 18:30 seconds per side. Again, that's just me. I like things concise. (Sorry for the short essays. I get carried away sometimes.)