The singer who broke Stevie Nicks’ heart: “A tragedy”
Stevie Nicks has had to go through a fair share of turmoil to get to where she is today.
Not every single rock and roll story has to be sunshine and roses, but even if we get over the relationship troubles that she went through back in the day, none of the heartache ever truly goes away when looking back on her career. It’s all about being able to move on from the rough times in the past, but Nicks felt that some of the biggest names in music were almost too heartbreaking for her to let go.
After all, she had seen what had happened to people like Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix when she was a kid, and she wanted to make sure that she wasn’t going to become one of those casualties. She did like to party like everyone else when she first joined Fleetwood Mac, but her redemption story throughout her career is the stuff of legend if you know what she had been up against for so long.
Aside from her affairs with everyone from Lindsey Buckingham to Don Henley to Joe Walsh, Nicks was already struggling with her own demons when battling cocaine addiction. It was a matter of losing her voice entirely or even dying when she decided to kick the booger sugar, but when you look at her career over the next few years after that, she ended up choosing one vice for another when she ended up hooked on Klonopin.
She remembered being like a walking zombie when she made her way through the next era of her life, so by the time she made it to Trouble in Shangrila, it was like the clouds had parted and she could be herself again. But even though she saw the light at the end of that dark tunnel, she felt terrible for some of her fellow vocalists who never bothered to try a cure for all of their ailments.
Others may have fallen victim to it later in life, but seeing Whitney Houston succumb to her addictions was like watching a Greek tragedy play out in the modern age. She was one of the greatest singers on Earth and an even better person underneath it all, but given her relationships with others and with drugs, she ended up going into a place that was really dark by the end of her life.
And while many people remembered her for her tremendous singing voice, Nicks still felt heartbroken after hearing about how Houston passed away, saying, “I was very much of a fan of her music, and of her as a singer. The first couple of records, where it was more simple, were my favorites. It was hard to watch [her struggle with addiction], and very hard to watch that show [Being Bobby Brown]. I didn’t want that to be her. I think she was very aware of where she was going. And yeah, it’s a tragedy. But I also think sometimes when real big love gets in the way, there’s no turning back.”
Although Nicks knew that there was nothing she could do to help Houston, she knew that her music would live on forever. There isn’t a single person on this Earth who hasn’t been somewhat moved by one of her songs, and as long as there are still dance floors that exist in the world, ‘I Wanna Dance With Somebody’ will still be one of the greatest pop songs that the 1980s ever spat out.
Sometimes you can’t stop people from going down that dark path, but even if you find yourself with your heart broken, Nicks at least took comfort in knowing that her voice will still be around long after she’s gone. Because when someone has been blessed with that kind of voice, it’s the rest of our jobs to share it with the world once they can no longer sing for themselves.
