The song Stevie Nicks said was too bitter to record: “Even though it’s a wonderful song”
Despite the protestations, ill-feeling and general disgruntlement, it is hard to separate the lives of Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham. The two met at a tender age and would, for better or worse, grow up alongside one another as part of one of the most successful groups of all time. But to limit Nicks to just that relationship is to ignore her impressive talent as a songwriter.
The singer is a double Rock and Roll Hall of Famer for a reason, and, pure and simple, that reason is unbridled talent. Whether it is her commanding stage presence, crystalline voice, or powerful songwriting, skill and craft are what made Nicks an icon. It is talent that earned her the position in Fleetwood Mac, not the leg-up from Buckingham that people think; it was devoted energy that meant she enacted one of the most successful female rock solo careers of all time, having left the band and her wildly creative songwriting that would see her begged to come back.
However, with that said, Nicks and Buckingham remain incredibly important chapters in each other’s stories. The two creatives are impossibly connected and there is no chance that now, after all these decades things will ever change, especially when their relationship has been so neatly put down in song.
Over the years, Nicks and Buckingham have written many songs about one another. ‘Go Your Own Way’ is perhaps the most famous, with the Buckingham-penned track becoming a symbol of the absurdity of having an ex sing about themselves in your band. ‘Silver Springs’ is one of the more brutal attacks that Nicks ever delivered. But, with the tunes ringing in our ears, it is hard to imagine any that didn’t make the cut, or, even more unlikely, any that were deemed too harsh to record.
But, when speaking to BAM in 1981, Nicks shared that in fact there was one song she deemed, for a while at least, too bitter to get down on tape. When asked about her upcoming tracks for a new Fleetwood Mac album, Nicks showcased her prowess: “I have three songs as it stands now, but I think we may replace one of them with another song.”
She continued to flex her muscles, having just enjoyed a break from the band to release her stand-out solo LP Bella Donna: “I wrote one of the songs a long, long time ago, even before Lindsey and I moved to LA. It’s called ‘It’s Alright.’ It’s very simple: Lindsey just plays some really nice guitar behind me. There’s another song called ‘If You Were My Love’ that I wrote about a year ago after I’d recorded ‘Outside the Rain’ with Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers. I spent a week recording with them and I had so much fun that I was really bummed out when it was over. That’s when I wrote that song.”
However, one tune seemed too tough to record: “There was also a song called ‘Smile at You’ that I don’t think we’ll put on,” explained Nicks when looking forward to a new Fleetwood Mac album. “I think Lindsey wants me to record another one, and so do I. It’s kind of a bitter song, and that’s really not where any of us are at right now, even though it’s a wonderful song. My songs don’t take long to record, so it shouldn’t be a problem.”
Penned by Nicks at the time of her ascension to more than a lead singer in a band, ‘Smile At You’ stands as one of Fleetwood Mac’s most venomous cuts. “My first mistake was to smile at you,” she hisses, before biting down harder with “I won’t be staying” and the fatalistic “I should just turn around and run, fly.” Though it eventually found its place on Say You Will, the song’s origins trace back to the more turbulent recording sessions of the band’s earlier records, with Nicks and Buckingham at the centre.
It’s hard to shake the sense that the decision to sideline the track had less to do with timing and more to do with tone. The so-called “angry version” of the song paints Nicks not as the mystic romantic but as something far more raw. But what is perhaps most telling is that, even though there is a high chance the song was aimed at Buckingham, his presence in the studio, in helping Nicks add the track to her canon, was never in doubt.
