Explaining Stevie Nicks’ “velvet underground” lyric in ‘Gypsy’
Fleetwood Mac’s ‘Gypsy’ served as the second single for their 1982 album Mirage. Written by Stevie Nicks, the track reflects on a time before Fleetwood Mac over soft rock instrumentation. The single remains one of the band’s most celebrated, and Nicks even re-recorded an acoustic version in 2017 for the Netflix show of the same name.
When Fleetwood Mac played Manchester Arena in 2015, Nicks preceded a performance of the track with a speech about its origins, looking back on a time she was living in San Francisco with Lindsey Buckingham in the late 1960s. She recalls supporting artists like Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Santana and Creedence Clearwater Revival. She states that they were “living the dream. We were young, and it was fantastic.”
Nicks continues, sharing the story of a time that she visited The Velvet Underground, a store in downtown San Francisco “where all the rock and rock girls got their clothes once they could afford it… And this store was called The Velvet Underground – I know, intriguing just the name.”
Though Nicks recalls being unable to afford any of the “beautiful things” in the “beautiful store”, the visit instead had a spiritual effect on her. She recalls “standing where I absolutely knew that Janis Joplin stood, and I was feeling the love.”
She continues, “And I thought, you know what, I’m having a little bit of a premonition here, and I’m feeling something, I’m feeling psychic, I’m feeling like I’m seeing the future. And I know that sounds ridiculous but I was seeing the future… ” She gestures to the band on stage and the crowd watching them before continuing, “and what I was seeing obviously was this, was Fleetwood Mac.”
Nicks concludes, “And when I left that store, without anything, I was a different person because I knew at that point that my dream was going to come true.” Before she begins the song, she encourages her audience to follow their own dreams: “If you have a dream and you have something to do that you love, and you have a passion for it, don’t let all the jaded people that surround you get in your way and tell you ‘You can’t do it, you’re not pretty enough, you’re not smart enough, you’re not talented enough. You’ll never make it.’”
“That’s not true, you can and you will. You just have to reach up into those stars and grab one and bring it down to you and take it to The Velvet Underground and stay there.”
Nicks launches into the opening lines to ‘Gypsy’, beginning with “So, I’m back to The Velvet Underground, back to the floor that I love, to a room with some lace and flowers, back to the gypsy that I was.” With it, she adds a layer of nostalgia and pride to the dreamy track, as well as hope and promise of the star she’ll become.
Watch Stevie Nicks’ full intro to ‘Gypsy’ below.
