"Don't Do Me Like That" is the title of a song written by Tom Petty

Tom Petty

Thomas Earl "Tom" Petty is an American singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. He is the frontman of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers and was a founding member of the late 1980s supergroup Traveling Wilburys and Mudcrutch. He has also performed under the pseudonyms of Charlie T...

 and recorded by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers

Tom Petty

Thomas Earl "Tom" Petty is an American singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. He is the frontman of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers and was a founding member of the late 1980s supergroup Traveling Wilburys and Mudcrutch. He has also performed under the pseudonyms of Charlie T...

. It was released in November 1979 as the first single from the album Damn the Torpedoes

Damn the Torpedoes (album)

Damn the Torpedoes is the third album by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers released in 1979. This was the first of three Petty albums originally released by the Backstreet Records label, distributed by MCA Records. It built on the commercial success and critical acclaim of his two previous albums...

(1979). It reached #10 on the Billboard Hot 100

Billboard Hot 100

The Billboard Hot 100 is the United States music industry standard singles popularity chart issued weekly by Billboard magazine. Chart rankings are based on radio play and sales; the tracking-week for sales begins on Monday and ends on Sunday, while the radio play tracking-week runs from Wednesday...

, becoming the band's first Top 10 hit and peaked at #3 in Canada.

Content

The song is about a friend of the narrator who gets hurt by a girl and the narrator goes on to tell his significant other that he doesn't want it to happen to him. However, the title lyric is a double entendre

Double entendre

A double entendre or adianoeta is a figure of speech in which a spoken phrase is devised to be understood in either of two ways. Often the first meaning is straightforward, while the second meaning is less so: often risqué or ironic....

, as "doing" someone is common slang for sexual intercourse

Sexual intercourse

Sexual intercourse, also known as copulation or coitus, commonly refers to the act in which a male's penis enters a female's vagina for the purposes of sexual pleasure or reproduction. The entities may be of opposite sexes, or they may be hermaphroditic, as is the case with snails...

.

In film

The song appeared in the 2009 romantic comedy It's Complicated

It's Complicated (film)

It's Complicated is a 2009 American romantic comedy film written and directed by Nancy Meyers, starring Meryl Streep, Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin.-Plot:...

starring Meryl Streep

Meryl Streep

Mary Louise "Meryl" Streep is an American actress who has worked in theatre, television and film.Streep made her professional stage debut in 1971's The Playboy of Seville, before her screen debut in the television movie The Deadliest Season in 1977. In that same year, she made her film debut with...

 and Alec Baldwin

Alec Baldwin

Alexander Rae "Alec" Baldwin III is an American actor who has appeared on film, stage, and television.Baldwin first gained recognition through television for his work in the soap opera Knots Landing in the role of Joshua Rush. He was a cast member for two seasons before his character was killed off...

. Streep and Baldwin's character dance to the song in a bar.

Single track listings

• "Don't Do Me Like That" b/w "Casa Dega"
  Backstreet 41138 (US)

• "Don't Do Me Like That" b/w "Century City"
  "Something Else" (Live) b/w "Stories We Could Tell" (Live)
  Backstreet MCA 596 (UK 2x7" single)

Charts

Chart (1979-1980)	Peak position
U.S. Billboard Hot 100	10
Canadian RPM Top Singles	3
New Zealand Singles Chart	17