The bizarre night Stevie Nicks invaded Harry Styles’ house with a troupe of witches: “Shall we have some more wine?”
There was something different in the air on May 15th, 1975. With lace and velvet and a magnetism you had no choice but to bathe in, the White Witch stepped out for the first time. Stevie Nicks had never planned on taking on such a label at the time.
In fact, she was pretty put out by it, later saying the entire discourse was “arresting” and that she only wore black because “it makes me look thinner”. We joke about it now, even focusing on it as one of the more iconic parts of Nicks’ personality.
‘Silver Springs’ is as iconic as it is because it’s effectively her cursing Lindsey Buckingham for all time. Her attire is stuff we all scramble to replicate, as is her take-no-shit attitude. But back then, it wasn’t so fun. Especially not for her, caught in the crossfire of a male-dominated world where she was seen by some as nothing more than an off-putting image curated on purpose.
It’s easy to forget now, in the loud chatter about everything impossibly perfect about Nicks, that it also made her grow a complicated relationship with her appearance. For a whole year, she changed what she wore, though she went back eventually when she realised others’ opinions were nothing more than meaningless rubble. “OK, just bring it, freaks,” she said. “I’m not going to wear apricot. You think whatever you want because I’m going to wear my beautiful, long black dress. Get out of my face.”
Now, it’s a badge of honour. And no one knows that more than the people around her. All of those bizarre criticisms fade to black, and Nicks’ image is one of the most legendary things about her. Her good friend Harry Styles pointed this out when he inducted her into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2019, calling her “the magical gypsy godmother who occupies the in-between”.
He also went into how her art flies timelessly through all eras, and how she “sees all the romance and the drama in the world and she celebrates it”.
He went on, “She will stand on stage introducing a song, telling you how she wrote them, honestly like you’re the only other person in the world.” Few have put it as eloquently as this, even if her induction came a little late.
The soft spot goes both ways, and Nicks is far more than just a musical influence on Styles, becoming one of his close friends who even listens to his material before it’s out. Speaking to Howard Stern, Styles recalled playing Fine Line to her in full one night when she came to his house with her coven of witches.
“I’d just finished the record, and she said, ‘I want to come and hear the album,’” he said.
Continuing, “She was with all her ladies, her little witches’ coven, and then they all came back to [my] house. I played them the album, and they’re so used to living nocturnally, they wake up really late and live through the night because they’re, you know, witches. It’s getting to 3am, playing the album, and I’m like, ‘I’m kind of tired!’ And they’re right in their prime. They left at, like, six. And I was like, ‘I’m exhausted’. They were like ‘Shall we have some more wine?’ And I’m like, ‘OK!’”
It’s entirely likely Nicks was simply excited to hang out with her friends and the “son I never had”, but she also sees in him something she went through in the 1970s, when all the rage was about whether or not she actually put spells on people or not. She took risks, as did Styles. And she knows, better than anybody, the perils of a mixed-up public perception.
As she told Vogue, “Harry could’ve lost a lot of fans, but he didn’t. I’m so proud of him because he took a risk.”
