Day: August 27, 2020

RebelsRebels

0 Comments 8:38 pm


by Tom Petty

~ Remember when Tom had a confederate flag on stage ~

This album is famous for the Alice in Wonderland-themed “Don’t Come Around Here No More” video. And while the video gives a sly wink and a nod to the underlying theme, Tom’s Southern roots definitely show through on this album more than any other. There was a time when much of the country was either unaware of or didn’t care about how Southern pride made a good chunk of the Southern population feel, and Tom tapped into it with this album, and this song, both of which he seemed to later repudiate with his disavowal of the Confederate flag and multiple references to social justice.

At the time though, the songs and themes he was singing about were less racially-tinged and more socially-tinged. Tom wasn’t telling African-Americans not to come around here, he was telling other white folks who were trying to boss around the Southern states. All of this seems horribly naive and light of the past 35 years, but at the time it really didn’t stick out as anything overly-remarkable. The fact that something like this could never be recorded today is definitely a sign of a societal shift