Stevie Nicks' Biggest Songs Outside Of Fleetwood Mac Expose Her Complicated Relationships And Career

June 07, 2024

Highlights

Nicks' hit songs expose her complex relationships, emotional turmoil, and cathartic songwriting procedure.
"How Still My Love" and "The Circle Dance" divulge insights into Nicks' relationships and private connections.
"Rooms on Fire" and "Nightbird" shed light on Nicks' profound grief and willpower to these she has misplaced.

Stevie Nicks is one of the greatest songwriters of all time. Her ability to take her personal stories and her tumultuous relationships and cause them to relatable to audiences each many years ago and these days in her music is a testomony to her talent.

While Nicks shot to reputation with her time in Fleetwood Mac, she additionally noticed good fortune as a solo artist and sooner or later refused to make music with Fleetwood Mac due to financial loss. Nicks' fame was because of using the similar formulation she used to write down with the band when releasing her debut album. As a end result, Nicks had large hits after she branched out on her own that stay as relevant then as they do now.

We will take a look at how Stevie Nicks' biggest songs outside of Fleetwood Mac expose her complicated relationships and career. Additionally, there will probably be insight as to how these songs had been from time to time cathartic and how that helped Nicks to transport on from not most effective heartache but grief that plagued Nicks for a portion of her career.

7 How Still My Love

Subject of Song: Lindsey Buckingham

Artist	Stevie Nicks
Album	Bella Donna
Released	July 27, 1981

"How Still My Love" is one of the "sexiest" songs that Nicks admitted to ever writing. The track is ready any individual that Nicks was having a romantic courting with at the time that was once very passionate however in the end, didn't work out.

"I really wrote that about…I was feeling really romantic at the time."

Many people believed that the track used to be in part about Lindsey Buckingham when it was first released. But in truth, the song was inspired by way of two books that Nicks noticed in her lodge room together with the individual she was once having a tryst with. Those books were How Still My Love and In the Still of the Night, neither of which Nicks ever read.

6 The Circle Dance

Subject of Song: Bonnie Raitt's father

Artist	Stevie Nicks
Album	The Soundstage Sessions
Released	March 31, 2009

While Nicks had a hit with "The Circle Dance", she did not write it. The song was penned via Bonnie Raitt.

The meaning at the back of the tune was one who Nicks connected with because of themes of love and loss. Raitt wrote the music about how her father used to be not there when she was younger but that she forgave him over the years. Nicks saw how the lyrics may well be interpreted from a kid and father viewpoint but in addition sought after to interpret it about love later in life.

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"I’ll be home soon, that’s what you’d say, and a little kid believes/After a while I learned that love must be a thing that leaves," used to be written from the perspective of a kid to her father. However, for those in relationships that proceed to fail, Nicks saw there's that means in the lyrics about how the failed relationships will also be tied again to the primary male role fashion in a child's existence.

Given that Nicks has now not been a success in love, it was once from this view that she hooked up with the music.

5 Beauty And The Beast

Subject of Song: Mick Fleetwood

Artist	Stevie Nicks
Album	The Wild Heart
Released	June 10, 1983

"Beauty and the Beast" was a tune that Nicks admitted to writing about Mick Fleetwood. Her relationship with Fleetwood and the 1946 film, Beauty and the Beast by Jean Cocteau were all the inspiration that Nicks had to write a track about how the 2 may just by no means be together, a theme that is reminiscent in "Storms" that Nicks wrote about the secret affair while in Fleetwood Mac and ultimately slammed Fleetwood in it.

In the TimeSpace liner notes, Nicks explained whether or not she had ever recognized who was the beauty and who was once the beast within the courting.

"Who is the beauty, and who is the beast.? Which one of you? Have you ever really been able to answer that? I have, it took a long time, but I did finally find the answer."

In conventional Nicks model, she remained coy about who was who within the relationship. But, as a result of Nicks believed that people might be both the wonder and the beast at any given moment, most likely both she and Fleetwood took on each and every persona throughout their time together.

4 Edge Of Seventeen

Subject of Song: John Lennon and Stevie's Nicks' uncle, Jon

Artist	Stevie Nicks
Album	Bella Donna
Released	February 4, 1982

The "Edge of Seventeen" had several sources of inspiration that got here to lend a hand Nicks write one of her most iconic songs as a solo artist.

The name of the tune came from Tom Petty's spouse, Jane, who had a thick accent. When she used to be speaking about when she and Petty had met, she mentioned, "at the age of seventeen" however it gave the impression of "edge of seventeen." This was a phrase that stuck with Nicks and later turned into the identify of the track.

There were two people who inspired the tune and the ones folks have been John Lennon, who was once Nicks' boyfriend, Jimmy Iovine's easiest buddy, and Nicks' uncle, Jon. The two gave up the ghost round the similar time, with Lennon being murdered and Jon loss of life from cancer.

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The ache felt from the deaths was palpable. But as a substitute of wallowing in grief, Nicks wrote about it instead. In doing so, it became one of the most well liked songs from Bella Donna.

3 Nightbird

Subject of Song: Robin Snyder Anderson

Artist	Stevie Nicks
Album	The Wild Heart
Released	November 30, 1983

Unlike other songs written through Nicks being about her romantic relationships, "Nightbird" is about her good friend Robin Snyder Anderson who passed on to the great beyond after a fight with leukemia. Anderson had identified Nicks longer than any person in her lifestyles, so the death was earth-shattering for Nicks.

Additionally, Anderson was once pregnant when she got sick. Her son, Matthew was born in advance. Two days after his birth, Anderson died.

During this era, Nicks and Anderson's widow have been so misplaced that they decided the most productive thing to do was once get married. The marriage most effective lasted 3 months after Nicks received a "sign" from Anderson that there was once no love within the courting but simply two other folks coming together in grief.

"One day when I walked into Matthew's room, the cradle was not rocking. I know that sounds crazy, but it was always rocking whenever I'd walk in, and I knew Robin was there.

Nicks went on to explain that when she saw the cradle still she took that as her friend making it loud and clear that Nicks needed to get out of the relationship. Nicks said the message of "Robin needs this to end – now" was received loud and clear, and was "felt as strongly as though she'd put her hand on my shoulder."

Nicks no longer most effective wrote the music "Nightbird" about Anderson but dedicated the entire album, The Wild Hearts, to her friend, as was reflected in the liner notes of the album.

"This tune is devoted to Robin. For her courageous, wild middle and the gypsies that remain."

More interesting still, "Nightbird" continues the song from "Edge of Seventeen" from where it was mentioned along with the white-winged dove. Both songs are about losing important people in Nicks' life, which makes sense that the two would share a theme recurring throughout the songs.

2 Blue Denim

Subject of Song: Lindsey Buckingham

Artist

Stevie Nicks

Album

Street Angel

Released

May 23, 1994

The song "Blue Denim" is a song about a person that Nicks was in a relationship with. The song explains how the "denim blue eyes" that the person had were capable of making Nicks do anything he wanted her to do.

While the relationship was exciting at the time, Nicks realized that it could never last. Because of this, Nicks ended the relationship. After it was over, Nicks had regret about calling things quits but did not see a way to make things work by getting back together. As a result, the person in the song never knew how devastated Nicks truly was when the relationship came to an end.

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Fans have speculated over the years that "Blue Denim" was about Buckingham, who blamed Fleetwood Mac for destroying his relationship with Nicks. This was later confirmed by Nicks , according to Stevie Nicks Info, who said that the song "used to be more than likely written about Lindsey’s blue eyes as a result of he’s the only individual I know that’s got the real blue denim eyes. So it should have been for Lindsey."

1 Rooms On Fire

Subject of Song: Rupert Hine

Artist	Stevie Nicks
Album	The Other Side of the Mirror
Released	April 24, 1989

"Rooms on Fire" has two different meanings to it, according to what Nicks wrote in the TimeSpace liner notes. The first is about a life that Nicks never believed she would have with the husband that she loves more than anything and a child that she desperately wanted when younger. Nicks and this mystery man meet at a party and fall instantly in love. They are together for decades and he dies before she does. Because of this, Nicks is left longing for him for the rest of her life.

The other explanation for the song is that it is about Rupert Hine. Nicks and Hine had an instant connection. They lived in an old castle for months and then moved outside of London to record the album. It was during this time that Nicks said something happened to Hine and she had to leave him. What that was, was never disclosed. However, it changed Nicks from that relationship. But what it did not steal was her desire to find love.

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