The song that Stevie Nicks claimed defined “rock and roll”
Stevie Nicks has always had her own lane cut out for her in rock and roll.
No one looks at her the same way they would look at other female legends like Janis Joplin, but her brand of rock and roll was always about setting up a scene every time she sang rather than relying on the pure power of her voice. But when she wanted to make a statement on any of her records, most people knew to stand the hell back when she got behind the microphone.
Because once you get Nicks in the right emotional state, she can be equal parts comforting and dangerous depending on what she’s feeling. ‘Dreams’ will forever be one of her best tracks in response to Lindsey Buckingham, but it’s hard not to feel a sense of danger listening to her sing ‘Silver Springs’ live and having to look her ex-lover right in the eye as she’s singing about her being treated terribly.
But by the time the band had found their footing after Rumours, relationship issues were the least of its problems. That romantic tension was still there, no doubt, but the bigger issue was making sure Buckingham didn’t completely take over the band when he began working on Tusk. He wanted to make a record that no one had heard before, but it’s not like everyone needed to be on board every time he had a crazy idea.
And since Nicks relied on Buckingham a handful of times to finish her songs, the fact that she was only given a little bit to work with at a time was no longer going to work for her. She needed something bigger than a couple of decent songs on every record, and her announcement about going on a solo tour was one of the most gutsy things that she could have pulled off when the 1980s started.
This could have easily been a back-stabbing moment for the rest of the group, but listening to Bella Donna, you’re not hearing someone who wants all the fame for themselves. She had been kept down by the band for too long, and in the same way that All Things Must Pass was George Harrison’s way of letting his ideas out, hearing Nicks go out on her own felt like she was musically liberated for the first time in her life.
She needed to come out swinging, but the title track felt like the perfect way for her to establish herself as a force to be reckoned with, saying, “The song ‘Bella Donna’, which says, ‘come in out of the darkness,’ is what rock ‘n roll is, or was. Sometimes women who are with a man, you know, end up depending on him and not being very dependent. It doesn’t allow you to be that very much, rock n roll doesn’t.”
It definitely wasn’t the kind of aggressive rock and roll you’d find out of bands like Led Zeppelin or something, but it had the same passion that every rock record needed. She always fashioned herself as a female answer to someone like Tom Petty, and the sense of atmosphere on the record felt like her shaking off the shackles of Buckingham and carving out a path forward on her own.
The fact that it sold in droves may have pissed Buckingham off to no end, but at this point, none of that mattered. Nicks had become one of the biggest stars in the world two times over, and even if she wasn’t the most tuneful singer in the world, it was a lot easier to hear her sing about her personal struggles without having to worry about a retort coming on the same record.
