Eddie Murphy and Tom Petty Had A Bonkers Feud
Tom Petty was one of the unlikeliest stars of the MTV era. Neither a new wave pretty boy nor a lingerie-clad pop seductress, Petty still found himself racking up the spaceman statues at the MTV Video Music Awards throughout the channel’s first decade. The exposure was great for Petty, with videos for songs like 1987’s “Jammin’ Me” sending him to #1 on Billboard’s Rock Music charts.
Heartbreakers guitarist Mike Campbell wrote the music for “Jammin’ Me,” according to Far Out, but Petty didn’t do anything with the tune for a while. Then, while fiddling around with future Traveling Wilburys bandmate Bob Dylan, the two came up with lyrics for the song.
“Jammin’ Me” was a 1980s reaction to media overload, penned by two guys who had no idea how bad things were going to get. Still, they reacted to the cable news of the day — these Mac computers are everywhere! — with lyrics like:
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Take back your Iranian torture
And the apple in young Steve’s eye
Yeah, take back your losing streak
Check your front wheel drive
Steve Jobs apparently didn’t mind being name-checked in the song, but not everyone was so thick-skinned. The song took aim at other names in the news, while Petty grabbed handfuls of static from an animated television:
Take back Vanessa Redgrave
Take back Joe Piscopo
Take back Eddie Murphy
Give ’em all some place to go
The targets were pretty lame — Songfacts points out that neither Redgrave nor Piscopo was a big star in 1987. Piscopo hadn’t been on Saturday Night Live for three seasons, and Redgrave was mostly making weepy movies-of-the-week for TV. Murphy, on the other hand, was white-hot, kicking out #1 movies like Beverly Hills Cop 2 and recording pop hits like “Party All The Time.”
Take back Eddie Murphy? Hell no! When an interviewer asked the comedy star about his reaction to “Jammin’ Me,” the response was succinct: “Fuck Tom Petty.”
Fuck Tom Petty? Hell no! When asked about the lyrics, Petty pointed a finger in another direction. “That was all Bob,” Petty protested in his book Conversations with Tom Petty. “The verse about Eddie Murphy… I remember seeing Eddie Murphy on TV really pissed off about it. I had nothing against Eddie Murphy or Vanessa Redgrave. What Dylan was talking about was media overload and being slammed with so many things at once. And times were changing; there weren’t four television channels anymore.”
As for Piscopo? There’s no record of a public reaction, but here’s guessing the Johnny Dangerously star was thrilled to be included.
