The moment Stevie Nicks knew her “destiny”
Someone who feels inherently close to the signs of the universe should always know the moment they feel their true calling. For Stevie Nicks, who might be the most whimsical and otherworldly musical figure that ever existed, knowing what path lies ahead was never all that clear. However, one specific turning point in her career signified the moment the stars aligned, and it all came together.
Wherever the current Fleetwood Mac resurgence came from, whether it emerged recently or was always simmering beneath the surface, it’s no doubt a sign of the timelessness of their music. Moreover, Nicks has fully earned her enduring appeal, as not only did she remain dedicated during significant hardships, but she always knew her destiny fell with creative expression as if etched in her soul from birth.
Some of her hardest moments occurred during the Buckingham Nicks days when she fell to a low point upon realising that her dream might be slipping away. As Lindsey Buckingham went to earn a living for the pair, she stayed at home, writing, wondering if anything would ever change. Incidentally, she wrote some of her best music during this time, but therein lies the beauty of hindsight.
Still, as the words to ‘Landslide’ poured out of her like a yearning prophecy, she tried to reframe her sense of loss in a way that promised new chapters, ones that came with new perspectives from emerging on the other side. As she sings: “I took my love, I took it down / I climbed a mountain and I turned around / And I saw my reflection in the snow-covered hills / ‘Til the landslide brought me down.”
For a while, she thought her destiny would reveal itself the moment she faced reality until, one day, a life-changing call came. During a 2009 interview with Jimmy Fallon, Nicks revealed that everything changed when she and Buckingham were presented with an offer to join Fleetwood Mac. Although uncertainty crept in initially, she knew they had to go down that road, as it was fate.
“Like the day that Mick [Fleetwood] called Lindsey [Buckinghm] and I and said, ‘do you want to join Fleetwood Mac?’ And [he was] like, ‘Oh, well, I don’t know.’ And I’m like to Lindsey, ‘No. We’re joining this band.’ It was a moment of destiny,” she said. Clearly, Nicks knew that this was her “moment of destiny” because of her otherworldly nature and ability to pinpoint when things feel too magical or miraculous to be coincidence.
Moreover, her instincts were right. From the moment Nicks joined the band, she helped to push them into new territories, establishing a sound that became synonymous with 1970s rock in ways that they wouldn’t have been able to achieve without her. Nicks might have made it without Fleetwood Mac, but they certainly wouldn’t be as resonant and memorable today had they charged on without her.
