The Stevie Nicks song that “completely ripped off” The Police: “Don’t ever do that again!”
While ‘Dreams’ may very well epitomise a Fleetwood Mac era Stevie Nicks, there’s simply only one song that defines her in her post-band, fiercely independent era.
With an opening guitar riff that sets a dramatic scene for the icon to walk into, and a chorus line that forever rings in your ears, ‘Edge Of Seventeen’ feels like Stevie Nicks at her most unfiltered. It has all the heavy sensibilities fitting of a rock queen like Nicks, but laced with the sort of hypnotising mythology that she prided her persona on. And let’s not forget, hinging all of that together is a truly iconic vocal performance.
With the deaths of both John Lennon and her uncle as inspiration, she delved into the spiritual worlds of the afterlife, asking important existential questions through the hopeful symbol of a white winged dove. In fact, that symbol became such a central theme of the song, that the “woo’s” in the chorus line helped cement their presence in the song.
“It does make a sound like whooo, whooo, whooo,” Nicks explained of the dove’s call and how that became part of the song’s hook. “I read that somewhere in Phoenix and thought I would use that in this song.”
In the spirit of all these ideas, the song felt inherently linked to Nicks and her voice. But when the arrangement was presented to her by the song’s collaborator Waddy Wachtel, who was tasked with bringing it to life, it quickly became apparent that it wasn’t quite the original it had been painted out to be. Later down the line, when the song was tightly woven into the fabric of culture, Wachtel realised the essential idea of the track wasn’t hers.
No fans quickly drew similarities between the chugging riff of Nicks’ ‘Edge Of Seventeen’ and The Police’s ‘Bring On The Night’, released two years prior. “I had never heard ‘Bring On the Night’ and at that session they told me they were going to do this song based on this feel,” Wachtel explained, justifying his contribution to the replica.
He continued, “I had heard something about the Police, but I didn’t know what they were talking about. Then about two years ago, I had the radio on, and on comes what sounds like ‘Edge of Seventeen’ – and all of a sudden, there’s Sting’s voice! I thought, ‘We ripped them off completely!’ I called Stevie that night and said, ‘Listen to me, don’t ever do that again!'”
The introduction of The Police’s hit is far more muted, but the similarities are plainly obvious. But as ‘Bring On The Night’ descends into its verse and chorus structure, it packages it into a completely different soundscape, one more inspired by their brand of reggae-rock and so completely diverges it from the realms of Nicks’ number.
Nicks’ song steers into a heavier sound, particularly in the chorus where it stands a different idea altogether. There are certainly worse cases of pastiche and copyright in music, and I don’t believe this one is strong enough to undercut the truly iconic presence of Nicks’ track.
