“We had plenty of time”: the song that broke Stevie Nicks’ heart
Many artists don’t see their songs as the simple little ditties that play on the radio like the rest of us. There are often a lot of confessional pieces that never see the light of day, and when a songwriter finally puts their record out, what you’re hearing is their innermost thoughts that they somehow found the courage to share with the public. It’s never easy for someone to open up like that, but it’s even more tragic when someone like Stevie Nicks has one of her best musical moments get lost in time.
Then again, Nicks has had more than a few iconic moments on her own. Although there’s a lot that ties back to the world of Fleetwood Mac, Nicks was determined to be her own solo artist no matter what, and by the time she finished work on Tusk, Bella Donna was the perfect outlet for her to make her own statement. Something like ‘Leather and Lace’ and ‘After The Glitter Fades’ could have worked fine as tunes for her old band, but having her sing on her own was a great way for her to break free from her typical style with Lindsey Buckingham by her side.
But at that point, no one was expecting the album to do all-star numbers. Anything with Nicks’ name on it would have drummed up some interest, but by the time ‘Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around’ and ‘The Edge of Seventeen’ became two of the biggest hits of her career, it was becoming clear that Nicks could easily outgrow Fleetwood Mac if she wanted to.
While she was always determined to return to her old band, The Wild Heart was proof her first album wasn’t a fluke. A tune like ‘Beauty and the Beast’ was far more grand in scope than anything she had done on her first record, and while she had gone through a lot more heartache in between those records, ‘Stand Back’ was a way for her to introduce her to the 1980s properly, complete with the chant vocals on the chorus.
Tom Petty helped her figure out what she wanted to sound like on Bella Donna, but ‘Stand Back’ got a major boost thanks to Prince. ‘The Purple One’ was already spitting out hits faster than he could make them, but if Morris Day and the Time were becoming a significant power player out of Minneapolis, working with Nicks was his excuse to ascend to rock god status, with Nicks getting the idea for the song after hearing Prince’s ‘Little Red Corvette’ on the radio.
Prince was always proud to have inspired something so lovely, but Nicks felt that there was a hole in her artistic soul knowing that she never got to perform the tune with him, saying, “The saddest thing of all is Prince, and I never played that song onstage together. And that just breaks my heart. I guess we all think we’re immortal — I always thought we had plenty of time. I should have told Prince ten years ago or 15 years ago, ‘We should do this song onstage together — some night, some city, call me.’”
If anything, that would have at least given Nicks a bit of closure surrounding the tune. The whole track might not been a copy of Prince by any means, but since she has often felt music on a much more visceral level than most, performing it alongside Prince may have been her chance to understand the kind of artist she had befriended, especially since the world had seen him become everyone’s favourite guitar hero at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
While it’s tragic to know that ‘The Purple One’ will never be able to play alongside ‘The Gold Dust Woman’, there shouldn’t be too much love lost in between either. Because when you think about it, his music will always reverberate throughout pop music, and even if he’s gone in his physical form from this plane of existence, heaven has earned another one of its white-winged doves.
