The Fleetwood Mac lyric Stevie Nicks will hate for the rest of her life: “He knew it wasn’t true”
Stevie Nicks has devoted her life to music, opting not to have children in order to fully commit to her creative pursuits, understanding that her true calling lay in art rather than motherhood. As part of this dedication, the Fleetwood Mac songwriter has drawn upon her personal experiences to craft some of her most cherished songs. This palpable emotional depth, combined with her unique creative flair, has rendered these works deeply resonant.
Although Nicks possesses many talents, one of her most vital attributes is her ability to delve into the deepest corners of her emotions and psyche, exposing her innermost thoughts through song. Her skill in crafting moving music, poetic lyrics, and complementing these compositions with her mellifluous, often wistful vocals has resulted in a collection of classics that have significantly influenced future songwriters. One of the most prominent examples is ‘Dreams’ from 1977’s Rumours.
Written in Sly Stone’s bed in early 1976 at the Record Plant in Sausalito, as the band were working on their follow-up to the previous year’s Fleetwood Mac, the track saw Nicks package the confusing mix of emotions she was experiencing into one of her definitive moments.
At the time, Fleetwood Mac was on the rocks. Nicks and her longtime partner, Lindsey Buckingham, with whom she had joined the group, had split up. In addition, bassist John McVie and keyboardist Christine had divorced. Drummer Mick Fleetwood was also having his own marital problems while struggling to keep the band afloat amid the toxic personal morass and the heavy use of drugs and alcohol.
Against all odds, the album became a global triumph and solidified Fleetwood Mac’s place in music history. It also emerged as the quintessential breakup record, with the songs predominantly reflecting the romantic struggles of its members. Skillfully capturing the wide range of emotions involved in a breakup, the album balances sadness with tracks laced with anger or lines meant to provoke and unsettle former partners.
One of these is ‘Go Your Own Way’. Written in a stream of consciousness by Buckingham, it is one of the most ill-meaning songs on the record, containing a series of acrimonious lines directed at Nicks. After hearing this number, fans were in no doubt that things were over between the pair. The most apparent potshot he takes at her is the line, “Packing up / Shacking up is all you want to do. Elsewhere, the songwriter states that he cannot change the way that he felt, and that Nicks can “go your own way” and “call it another lonely day”.
The song was always a majorly uncomfortable one for Nicks, with her having to sing Buckingham’s feelings a real hammer blow. Yet, it was the line seemingly pointing to her promiscuous ways that has always been the one that leaves a really bitter taste. She has made no bones about the fact that she will hate it until the end.
“I very, very much resented him telling the world that ‘packing up, shacking up’ with different men was all I wanted to do,” Nicks told Rolling Stone in a 1997 interview. “He knew it wasn’t true. It was just an angry thing that he said. Every time those words would come out onstage, I wanted to go over and k*** him. He knew it, so he really pushed my buttons through that. It was like, ‘I’ll make you suffer for leaving me.’ And I did.”
Luckily for Nicks, though, she would choose to be the bigger person. Her composition ‘I Don’t Want to Know’ would prompt a conciliatory spirit about the end of their relationship. With the lines, “I don’t want to know the reasons why / Love keeps right on walking on down the line”, starkly answering the loving lyrics of ‘Monday Morning’, she stood firm, accepted their fate, and moved into the next chapter of her life.
