Stop Draggin' My Heart Around (with Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers)

Tom Petty met Stevie Nicks while he was recording his group's album Damn The Torpedoes. She asked him half-jokingly if he could write her a song that she could record for her first solo album. Petty didn't take her request seriously at first, but Nicks reiterated her request a year later as Petty was putting together his Hard Promises album. Petty wrote a ballad called "Insider" at his home, played it to the Heartbreakers (to their approval), recorded a demo with his band, and sent the demo to Nicks. After listening to the demo of "Insider," Nicks visited Petty at his studio, taped the song with Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, then gave the tape to Petty, saying, "You love this so much... YOU take the song." He did, and included it on Hard Promises. Shortly after "Insider" was finished, Petty and company recorded a song that he and guitarist Mike Campbell composed about a year earlier - "Stop Draggin' My Heart Around" - and sent that demo to Nicks' producer, Jimmy Iovine. She loved it, saying, "That's what I wanted all along." Nicks and Petty ended up doing it as a duet.

This song is about a couple with a complicated relationship. She wants to get rid of him, but he has a hold on her heart. When she tells him to stop dragging that heart around, he explains that he's just trying to protect her, as "you need someone looking after you." Many of the songs Nicks has sung over the years involve hearts in different states of breaking, and many are about her intimate relationships, written either by her or her Fleetwood Mac bandmate/soulmate, Lindsey Buckingham. This song is one of the few she could sing without dealing with the emotional baggage behind it, as it has nothing to do with her personally.

Nicks wanted Petty to produce Bella Donna. He gave it a shot, but it didn't work out and Jimmy Iovine was brought in. This created an interesting dynamic as Iovine and Nicks began living together while they were making the album.