The 1985 song Stevie Nicks strugged to sing: “One of my unforgettable moments”
Fleetwood Mac vocalist and songwriter Stevie Nicks is the mind behind some of the most memorable moments in rock music.
From the soft rock classic ‘Dreams’ to the sprawling ‘The Chain’, she has penned countless hits that have remained well-loved for decades.
This remains true when it comes to her solo efforts – the unique John Lennon-inspired ‘Edge of Seventeen’ is just as iconic and memorable as it was upon its first release over four decades ago. The track was sampled by Destiny’s Child on ‘Bootylicious’ in the early 2000s and retains relevance now – only a few years ago, Miley Cyrus even adapted the song alongside Nicks on ‘Edge of Midnight’.
Perhaps a contributing factor to the enduring relevance of Nicks’ songwriting comes from the unforgettable moments that inspired them. The stories behind Rumours are just as famous as the songs they spawned. The band’s magnum opus was recorded during one of their most turbulent periods, with every member of the band experiencing a breakup at the time.
The internal relationships between Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham, as well as between John and Christine McVie, were falling apart. Meanwhile, Mick Fleetwood was also on the verge of divorce from his wife, Jenny Boyd. This background to the record has become as unforgettable as ‘Dreams’ or ‘Go Your Own Way’, if not even more so, earning Rumours the widely accepted title of the ultimate breakup album.
Rumours definitely remains the most iconic story behind Nicks’ songwriting, but the Fleetwood Mac frontwoman’s own most unforgettable studio moment is much more subdued. She once deemed the recording of ‘Talk To Me’, the lead single from her 1985 LP Rock a Little, as one of her “unforgettable moments”.
That contrast says a lot about how Nicks views her own creative process. While the outside world tends to gravitate towards the chaos and mythology surrounding albums like Rumours, the moments that seem to matter most to her are often the quieter, more personal breakthroughs that happen behind closed studio doors.
In many ways, those are the instances where the real work gets done. Stripped of the interpersonal drama and larger-than-life narratives, it becomes about the connection between the artist and the song, finding the exact emotional register needed to bring it to life. For Nicks, capturing that elusive “right feeling” wasn’t always immediate, but when it finally clicked, it carried just as much weight as any of Fleetwood Mac’s more headline-grabbing moments.
Explaining the process behind the song in the liner notes in TimeSpace, she recalled her initial difficulty with the vocals: “This was a hard song to sing, but I had loved ‘Missing You’ (co-written by Chas with John Waite), and I loved the words to ‘Talk To Me’. It took a long time to finish it though, because I couldn’t quite get the right feeling on it”.
Nicks only managed to fulfil her vision when Jim Keltner came into the studio to assist her. The session musician came into the studio to do some drum overdubs, but, finding Nicks struggling, he offered his presence to help her. She explains: “He stayed to be an audience to push me a little, to make me get a great vocal. So I had someone to sing to, and I got the vocal. I put some tambourine on it, and it was finished forevermore. That was one of my unforgettable moments.”
It certainly doesn’t contain the drama or turmoil that surrounded Rumours, rather, it was an unforgettable and intimate moment of artistic collaboration. All it took was Keltner watching, and Nicks was finally able to get the “right feeling” on ‘Talk To Me’, spawning an unforgettable studio experience and another memorable track.
