“One of the most special love songs”: the Don Henley-inspired classic Stevie Nicks wrote at the request of Waylon Jennings
When it comes to crafting heartfelt odes to the trials and tribulations of love and romance, no one feels better equipped to take on the task than Stevie Nicks. As an integral part of Fleetwood Mac, her penchant for transforming the more authentic aspects of tumultuous partnerships resulted in the band taking on a more fairytale-like quality, with many of her compositions becoming some of their most career-defining tracks.
Some of Nicks’ best songs were the ones that she wrote about her relationships, including ‘Dreams’ and ‘Silver Springs’, which took her innate ability to craft poetic narratives and hit back at her subjects where it hurt – while Lindsey Buckingham was busy delivering more obvious lines, like asking Nicks why she felt like she was the one, Nicks would hit back with: “You’ll never get away from the sound of the woman that loved you.”
Sensing her unmatched ability to sing about the experience of dating someone in the industry, Nicks was once approached by Waylon Jennings with a special request to craft a song called ‘Leather and Lace’. The song would be a duet for Jennings and his wife, Jessi Colter, and would go into detail about what it was like to fall for someone who also knew what it was like to be in the brutal setting of the business.
Recalling the writing process, Nicks explained pouring her heart and soul into the song so that it would accurately capture the difficulties she encountered getting into romantic liaisons with people in the industry, like Lindsey Buckingham and Don Henley. “It’s probably the hardest thing in the world to do,” she admitted, “because it falls out of your hands and into the hands of the world, which tends to want you to not be able to handle it.”
In order to tap into her most authentic feelings, her relationship with Henley became a significant source of inspiration. He also ensured that Nicks completed the song, which oftentimes felt like a substantial challenge. “I have to tell you now that Mr. Don Henley was pretty much responsible for this song,” she explained, “because he came over every day and told me to either start over or that I was on the right track, and he made me finish it.”
Nicks and Henley recorded a demo together, but when it finally reached Jennings and Colter, they were breaking up. While it may have seemed just as special for Jennings to take on the song solo, Nicks felt it only held power when it was a duet and insisted that it only be recorded if it was sung by Jennings and Colter or Nicks and Henley.
As a result, it became one of Nicks’ most personal songs on Bella Donna and a unique composition that represented her personal and musical partnership with Henley. “Don and I had been going out for quite a while, and, bless his heart, he did sing it with me,” she recalled. Adding: “As fate would have it, it became one of the most special love songs that I would ever write… and remains that, even today, after all these years. All in all, it was an unforgettable experience, as was he. Blame it on my wild heart.”
