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.
