| Southern Accents | |
| Type: | studio |
| Artist: | Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers |
| Cover: | TomPetty-SouthernAccents.jpg |
| Recorded: | 1983–1985 |
| Studio: |
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| Genre: | |
| Length: | 39:54 |
| Label: | MCA |
| Producer: |
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| Prev Title: | Long After Dark |
| Prev Year: | 1982 |
| Next Year: | 1985 |
Southern Accents is the sixth studio album by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, released on March 26, 1985, through MCA Records. The album's lead single, "Don't Come Around Here No More", co-written by Dave Stewart of Eurythmics, peaked at number 13 on the Billboard Hot 100. The song "Southern Accents" was later covered by Johnny Cash for his Unchained album in 1996.
Originally conceived as a concept album, the theme of Southern Accents became somewhat murky with the inclusion of three songs co-written by Stewart, and several others originally planned for the album left off. Songs cut from the track list include "Trailer", "Crackin' Up" (a Nick Lowe cover), "Big Boss Man" (a Jimmy Reed cover), "The Image of Me" (a Conway Twitty cover), "Walkin' from the Fire", and "The Apartment Song". The first two were released as B-sides, while the two remaining covers (and a demo version of "The Apartment Song") were later released on the Playback box set. A studio version of "The Apartment Song" appeared on Petty's first solo album, Full Moon Fever, released in 1989. "Trailer" was later re-recorded and released in May 2016 by Petty's other band Mudcrutch, on its second studio album, 2.[1] "Walkin' from the Fire" was eventually released on the posthumous box set An American Treasure in 2018. The song "My Life/Your World" from Let Me Up (I've Had Enough) included several of the song's lyrics rewritten.
While mixing the album's opening track, "Rebels", Petty became frustrated and punched a wall, severely breaking his left hand. Subsequent surgery on his hand left him with several pins, wires and screws holding his hand together.
The album cover features an 1865 painting by Winslow Homer titled The Veteran in a New Field.
The album would prove to be the last album to have any involvement of bassist Ron Blair until 2002.
In a three-out-of-five star retrospective review, Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic commented that while "occasionally, the songs work" and "Don't Come Around Here No More" and "Make It Better (Forget About Me)" expand [the band's] sound nicely", the record was too often "weighed down by its own ambitions".[2]
In the Los Angeles Review of Books, Connor Goodwin said the album is "deeply embedded in nostalgia for the Lost Cause."[3]
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
Additional musicians
Production