The song Stevie Nicks called her most romantic: “I fell in love”
Every great Stevie Nicks is normally driven by some sort of deep emotion.
Even though countless artists have tried to make perfect tunes whenever they go into the studio, Nicks always concerned herself with making tracks that have a certain passion in the performance rather than hitting every single note right on the money. For her to give her approval, she had to sound like she meant it, and after all the trauma that came with Fleetwood Mac, it was a relief when she could write a simple love song.
Then again, most of ‘The Mac’s songs had to love; it’s just that they were being used as weapons in their prime. Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham were indeed the shot in the arm that the band needed to get to the top of the charts, but it’s not like everyone was cordial behind the scenes making Rumours. That kind of tension could be cut with a knife, and you could see them getting more and more agitated as the sessions wore on.
So when Nicks finally moved on to her solo career, she had a completely different outlook on what she was doing. No more did she have to wait and see what Buckingham could do with her ideas and discard half of the great tunes in her catalogue. She was calling her own shots, but after her own whirlwind albums, the 2010s saw her in a much different place with both her band and her solo career.
Say You Will helped give the band the comeback that they rightfully deserved, and while Trouble in Shangrila put her on level ground in her solo career, In My Dreams was a bit of a departure for her. After all, she had a collaborator in Dave Stewart this time around, and while the Eurythmics frontman could work his magic when working with artists like Tom Petty, Nicks was able to open up a lot more with her songwriting. The music was practically writing itself, so it was much easier to picture the scene of ‘Italian Summer’ whenever it came on.
Compared to the other character portraits that Nicks painted on a song like ‘Landslide’, this is like looking at a period piece from decades gone by. Since she was also getting into series such as American Horror Story, it’s not that far off the mark, but out of all the songs about loves both sour and sweet, Nicks felt that ‘Italian Summer’ was one of the few tunes that she singled out as her most romantic.
Even if she wrote her fair share of tunes about her friends, lovers, and fellow collaborators, Nicks knew ‘Italian Summer’ was the purest tale she ever wrote, saying, “I feel that ‘Italian Summer’ is probably the most romantic song I’ve ever written. It’s like what John Steinbeck wrote about Italy is that you don’t realize how much you love it until you leave it and think about it and that’s when all the richness and amazingness of it comes back to you. I’d like to live [there]. I’d like to be there in their world because I’m so affected by them. I hope that the Italians love [it]. I just hope that Italy falls in love with it since I fell in love with Italy.”
But when looking at her previous tunes, there’s nothing all that different separating this song from some of her more lovestruck tracks. She may have had a specific person in mind like when writing ‘Has Anyone Written Anything For You’ for Joe Walsh, but without needing any authentic Italian-style instrumentation, the whole song evokes the feeling of walking through Italy on a sunny day without a care in the world.
Everyone in Fleetwood Mac has run the gamut of playing every kind of song having to do with romance, but this isn’t a song that’s supposed to evoke puppy love or anything. This is the love that gives someone comfort knowing that they’ve found peace in a place that they are proud to call their home.
