“I am movin’ past you”: Stevie Nicks’ favourite song from her comeback album
In the liner notes to Stevie Nicks‘ 2001 album, Trouble In Shangri-La, Nicks wrote, “These songs are dedicated to – the poets – the priests of nothing… and the legends.”
The seeds for Trouble In Shangri-La were first planted in 1994, in the aftermath of Nicks’ writer’s block caused by her dependency on Klonopin, which affected the sound of her previous album, 1994’s Street Angel. The slow-but-sure creation of the album became a salvation for Nicks, as she regained her footing and found her voice, as both singer and songwriter, once again.
Standouts from the album include ‘Sorcerer’, which dates back to her Buckingham-Nicks era with her one-time partner and occasional bandmate, Lindsey Buckingham; ‘Planets of the Universe’, which came from a demo during Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours sessions; and ‘That Made Me Stronger’, written after a dinner Nicks shared with Tom Petty when, after asking for his help to craft her next album, he refused, instead instilling his faith in her abilities. But, of an album packed with some of Nicks’ most beautiful poetry, one stands out as her favourite.
“My personal favourite [from Trouble In Shangri-La] is ‘Bombay Sapphires’,” Nicks enthused to VH1 in 2001, quoting her favourite line as “the whole reason” behind the song: “I can see past you to the white sand.”
“It means that I’m really trying to get over something,” Nicks continued to explain, “and though I’m freaked out about it, I’m looking to the green ocean and can see past all of these problems to the incredibly beautiful white sand and the ocean beyond it. I’m gonna be OK because I am movin’ past you.”
Nicks expanded on the song’s origins to Borders.com in 2001, explaining that, coming off of the release of her box set, Enchanted, in 1998 and her continued work with Fleetwood Mac, including the release of their live CD, The Dance, in 1997, she needed to separate herself from the chaos and physically travel elsewhere – this time, she would find herself in Hawaii.
“Hawaii was very different than any place I’d ever been,” Nicks described. “Very green, jade green, very calm, very Zen. And I realised that if you take yourself to a great environment, you can just about get over anything.”
From a medley of Spanish-style guitars in ‘Bombay Sapphires’ opening, the song recounts a tale of ill-fated devotion. “Can I go on without you?” Nicks asks, lamenting a torturous cycle that is comforted only by her surroundings in Hawaii, a beautiful, clean slate where she can start anew. “The sea never changes, not really,” she sings, “It is the constant in my life / I always return here to the flash of those colours.” The colours that Nicks finds solace in, visions of green, aquamarine, white and purple, are the inspiration behind the song’s title – not to be confused with the brand of gin.
“I got the idea many, many years ago when we were talking about jewellery and stones, about tile and rubies, Bombay sapphires,” Nicks explained to In News Weekly in 2001. “It’s like a blue-grey kind of star sapphire thing, it’s the colour of the ocean, and that’s what I wrote it about.”
To Borders.com, Nicks described the image of her looking out over the ocean, reflecting on her past and striving to release what she hoped to leave behind her, for a time. In the vast openness of the sand and sea, Nicks felt welcomed to begin again. “I thought, I can see past you to the white sand and a message back to me that you are moving on now, you really are moving on,” she said. “You are letting go of all that stuff that bothered you, and you are moving forward. So, for me, it was very important that the song be on the record.”
‘Bombay Sapphires’ struck so deeply within her that, when its place on the album was threatened, Nicks re-recorded it three times to achieve perfection, signifying its integral place not just on the story of Trouble In Shangri-La, but within the relationship between Nicks and her audience. This is, after all, one of the most beguiling facets of Nicks’ artistry: her continual resonance and encouragement to look inward and honour one’s emotions, however complex.
“It’s really important for me to tell people,” Nicks explained to VH1, “that if they’re in an unhappy situation, they should not stay forever and be miserable.”
As ‘Bombay Sapphires’ fades out with the lines, “I can mend your heart… Whatever you desire,” both Nicks and the listener are saved by the attraction of what may lie ahead.
