The moment Bob Dylan left Stevie Nicks embarrassed: “You’re kidding!”
There are no two musicians as lauded as Bob Dylan and Stevie Nicks, especially when both were at the top of their game, with recognisable voices that can cut through any sonic terrain and a foothold in global popular culture that not even the strongest winds of change can undo.
The pair first met in 1986, when Nicks was invited to join Dylan and Tom Petty on stage during their True Confessions Tour, and Nicks stepped up for unforgettable, powerhouse joint performances, with the three rock icons creating myth right there, where they belonged, platformed for all to see.
Nicks has spoken previously about becoming a pseudo-student for the entirety of the tour, learning from the music moguls about strategy and egos: Making music is inevitably tied up with the self, and Nicks wanted to make sure she poured just the right amount of herself into her music. Not too much, not too little.
Eventually, after 32 days touring with Dylan, Nicks mustered up the courage to do something she’d never really had the appetite for: An official cover. And she did the impossible, roping in a tired Dylan to play on the track with her. No pressure there, then.
However, the most incredible of musicians are still human, though they defy the mortal toils of mere humanity, all aglow in the neon lights of the night. Nicks made one such human misstep when she got one of the lyrics wrong in front of the man himself, singing, “with her amphetamines and her pills,” though the official lyric was “pearls”. An easy mistake to make, but a crucial line nonetheless.
This became complicated when Dylan finally arrived to lay down some of his iconic harmonica to add texture to the cover. Nicks recalled, “When he heard the song, I had already done the final vocal because there was no way I was gonna play an unfinished track for Bob Dylan of one of his songs, so it was finished except for what he would add to it.”
Things went awry when it got to the verse on which Nicks mixed up the lyrics. Dylan, ever the gentleman, politely corrected her. Horrified, Nicks laughed, “You’re kidding!”
I can almost picture the ruddy blush covering her cheeks in the aftermath of the humble misunderstanding. She recalled, “I was so embarrassed [laughs]. And I told him that this was the take that I did with the original band, and I don’t think I can do the vocal like that again. I can’t match the sound of it. And he just said, ‘That’s okay’.”
Thankfully, Dylan still approved of the track, the changed word imbuing the original with a deeper meaning. And so goes the story of Nicks’ classic Dylan cover, on which her smooth voice takes on the inflexion and intonation of Dylan’s hearty, folky chatter. There are worse blunders the Fleetwood Mac star could’ve made, that’s for sure.
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