The one tragedy Stevie Nicks said America wouldn’t be forgiven for: “I was horrified”
Every single emotion that Stevie Nicks ever had didn’t take long to find itself on vinyl.
Even though a lot of people listened to some of the juiciest pieces of Rumours to look in on the drama that she and Lindsey Buckingham were going through, it was much more about her trying to make sense of her own heart and mind whenever she was making some of her masterpieces. Some of them may have been more heartfelt than others, but even after years away from Buckingham and even the rest of Fleetwood Mac, Nicks knew that nothing served the song better than heartache.
After all, some of the greatest songwriters of all time have tried their hand at writing the kind of breakup songs that could tear someone’s heart out of their chest. Ever since the days of The Beatles, people have been trying to crack the code of what makes the perfect melancholy tune, but Nicks knew that the only way to touch people’s hearts was to touch on something that was much more real.
Anyone could see through an artist who wasn’t being authentic in no time flat, and judging by how little Nicks was actually there for Street Angel, there’s a reason why she doesn’t hold the record in high regard. That was an album where she seemed to be asleep at the wheel, and while Trouble in Shangrila set everything up nicely all over again, In Your Dreams was the first time in a while where she was making music because she wanted to again.
Say You Will did have a fair bit of compromise from every member of Fleetwood Mac, but now that she was working with Dave Stewart of Eurythmics, she finally had someone she could bounce ideas off of. And considering all of the shakeups that had been going on in the country over the past few years, Nicks wanted to say her piece about some of the more tragic things that were happening on the ground floor.
Buckingham had already spent time lashing out at people all across Say You Will, but Nicks was devastated when she heard about the effects of Hurricane Katrina. She had already tried to offer some bit of peace after 9/11 with the song ‘Illume’, but when she looked at the people who had been left without a home and not given a bit of help from the rest of the country, she felt that she needed to call out the injustice happening in the world.
She understood that the country still needed to function, but she made sure to include lines about not being able to forgive the bigwigs in Washington who turned a blind eye when they saw devastated families withering away, saying, “I was horrified. So, I immediately started writing my poem. I had to be very careful as a songwriter. I was conflicted on how much I could say. Yes, you have to say, ‘We may never forgive you, Government of the United States, for not coming to our aid. But we are a flamboyant city, and we are a city of music, so we will come back’”
And while musicians did everything they could to try to bring some aid with charity singles, Nicks could only speak her mind whenever she sang the song. New Orleans was never going to be the same after that kind of hurricane, but even if her tune didn’t resonate with everyone, all that she could hope to do was inspire someone to do something greater than themselves for those in need.
Since Nicks has also continued working on new music like ‘The Lighthouse’ in recent years, she seems to show no signs of slowing down when it comes to speaking her mind. Her songs may be her children, but they are also vehicles for her to get her ideas out into the world, and even if she didn’t touch everyone’s hearts, she was always willing to fight for what she loved no matter the cost.
