The Joni Mitchell song that has stayed with Stevie Nicks forever
Joni Mitchell has a habit of finding her way into your heart through her music and carving a permanent place there forevermore. There’s something about her folky strums, her wavering vocal delivery, and her lyrics steeped in poetry and vulnerability that forges connection beyond sonic enjoyment and keeps you coming back to her catalogue for comfort or emotional devastation.
From her discussions of love and loss on her seminal record Blue to the jazzier stylings of Court and Spark, the folk songwriter has endeared herself to countless listeners over the years, her words and instrumentation transcending generations with ease. Amongst her admirers is one particularly big name: Fleetwood Mac frontwoman Stevie Nicks.
While Mitchell may have paved the way for women in folk to write about their thoughts and feelings, Nicks was a formidable force in the realm of rock. Pairing similarly raw songwriting with gorgeous harmonies and memorable riffs, she became an icon in her own right. Tracks like ‘Dreams’ and ‘Rhiannon’ have secured Nicks her own place in the hearts of millions and in music history.
Perhaps expectedly, Nicks seems to harbour a real admiration for Mitchell’s work, listening to it in her own time. During a conversation with The Guardian, the Fleetwood Mac singer picked out Mitchell’s 1972 track ‘Blonde in the Bleachers’ as the song she listens to before going out on stage. Though the song had been released almost almost four decades before, Nicks stated that she listens to it “to this day”.
Finding its place on Mitchell’s fifth record, For the Roses, ‘Blonde in the Bleachers’ paired gentle keys with the tale of its titular, fair-haired character. Her lyrics follow the story of a girl who falls in love with a rockstar and the difficulties that can develop from that kind of relationship, from commitment to time-keeping.
“You can’t hold the hand of a rock and roll man very long,” Mitchell sings over soft percussion and hopeful keys. Stunning harmonies join her to intensify her specification of “very long”, making the story all the more vivid and emotive. It’s a gorgeous track, both instrumentally and lyrically, and it’s easy to see why it endeared itself to Nicks in particular.
Many people connect with Mitchell’s work because they see themselves in her lyrics, in her tales of freedom and womanhood, but this wasn’t the case for Nicks. In fact, she specified that she did not relate to the character at the centre of ‘Blonde in the Bleachers’, who flips her hair above the loudspeakers and scrambles to hold the hand of a rock ‘n’ roll man.
“I never saw myself as the girl in the song,” Nicks stated, “I identified with the rock ‘n’ roll star.” While the Fleetwood Mac songwriter may have dated several rockstars throughout the years, from her bandmate Lindsey Buckingham to Eagles drummer Don Henley, she was, first and foremost, the performer. Really, it was Buckingham and Henley who were holding the hand of a rock star.
While Nicks was well aware of this, she still loved Mitchell’s song and the tale it told. It’s not far off the kind of song Nicks herself would pen, though perhaps from the other perspective. A beautiful tale of the risks that come with falling for a rockstar.
Listen to ‘Blonde in the Bleachers’, the Joni Mitchell song that has stayed with Stevie Nicks forever, below.
