Stevie Nicks resurrects ‘Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around’ on Fallon
With the induction ceremony for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame set for this evening in Brooklyn, music nostalgia is in full swing this week. The good ol’ days of the ‘80s and ‘90s were celebrated Wednesday night on NBC’s “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon,” where surviving Nirvana members Dave Grohl and Kris Noveselic reminisced about the band’s sudden rise to fame and Stevie Nicks revived her smokey-cool duet with Tom Petty, “Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around.”
Petty was absent -- replaced here with Fallon doing his best attempt to strain and distort the original Petty verses. Yet the perforrmance, complete with an ‘80s soap opera sheen that recalled the original video, as well as Fallon’s consistently amusing music impersonations, was largely a simple reminder of the song’s darker-than-they-should-be undertones. With its relatively languid pacing, verses in the original felt like thinly veiled threats.
That wasn’t the emphasis Wednesday night, however, as Fallon’s Petty wasn’t as crisp as his Neil Young or Bruce Springsteen parodies, and a slightly quicker pace didn’t really give Nicks the opportunity to hover on a phrase. But this was a karaoke-like performance on a variety show and not the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, and a relatively entertaining few minutes -- and a clip to share on the Web the following morning -- is an unqualified success.
The performance is embedded below.
Moving forward a decade, Fallon invited Noveselic and Grohl to sit down for a short interview. With Nirvana being inducted into the Rock Hall this evening, there’s been increasing speculation as to whether or not Gorhl and Noveselic will perform, and who may sing in place of late vocalist Kurt Cobain, but Fallon kept the interview focused on light musings of the past.
Noveselic, for instance, was asked what Cobain was like in high school.
“He was this weird kid and I was a weird kid and we thought the world was weird, so we gravitated towards each other, and we loved punk rock music and everybody else hated punk rock music,” Noveselic said.
ALSO:
Coachella 2014: 10 rising acts you should know now
Coachella 2014: Fest to now offer fancy four-course meals
The biggest entertainment stories
Get our big stories about Hollywood, film, television, music, arts, culture and more right in your inbox as soon as they publish.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.
