10 Classic Rock Songs That Were Written For Someone Else
3. Don't Do Me Like That - Tom Petty
In the early days of the Heartbreakers, Tom Petty learned a valuable lesson about his craft: never run out of songs. When he was first getting started in the business, he was read the riot act by his first producer Denny Cordell to always have something on the backburner to use whenever you come into the studio. At that point, his songwriting doubled, but that sometimes means you can't differentiate which songs are hits or not.
Granted, you can't really fault Petty for not seeing the power behind Don't Do Me Like That, since he also had to deal with the other songs on Damn the Torpedoes as well as the fallout of his label and not being paid any songwriting royalties. During the many hours at Sound City shuffling through demos, Jimmy Iovine was shellshocked when he heard this song, knowing that it could easily be a contender on the album.
As Iovine told it, Tom had originally considered this to be a song that he would one day give to the J Geils Band, since it had that same sticky groove that Peter Wolf would have worked off of pretty well. It's a good thing that he kept it though, with Don't Do Me Like That becoming one of the biggest hits of Petty's career at the time and becoming a fan favorite to everyone who saw them in their prime. Legend has it that Iovine would always call Tom whenever he heard it on the radio just because of how good it sounded. It may have been to celebrate, but there might be some vindication that Iovine managed to get this song on the record.