Who came up with the title for Stevie Nicks’ song ‘Edge of Seventeen’?
Stevie Nicks’ ‘Edge Of Seventeen’ is one of those songs that says everything and then again nothing at all. It manages to be both fiercely emotional and utterly defiant of understanding as the meaning of the track, buried under metaphors and images, can be different from person to person. It’s apt then that the title of the song came about through a misunderstanding, perfectly capturing the song’s elusive heart.
Even Stevie Nicks herself has never quite decided what ‘Edge Of Seventeen’ means. There is no one answer to that question, even to the song’s creator. Instead, the track captures an amalgamation of feelings floating around several events. Part of the track’s inspiration is deeply personal. “My uncle Bill got cancer, got very sick very fast, and died in a couple of weeks,” Nicks said of the song and it’s role in remembering her family.
She continued, “My cousin John Nicks and I were in the room when he died. There was just John and I there. That was part of the song when I went running down the hallways looking for somebody – I thought, where’s my mom? Where’s his wife and the rest of the family?” making sense of the lyrics, “Suddenly there was no one / Left standing in the hall.”
But another part of the song captures a more collective grief. Written in December 1980, the song was in part inspired by the assassination of John Lennon, a death which rocked Nicks and the wider music community. “That was a very scary and sad moment for all of us in the rock and roll business, it scared us all to death that some idiot could be so deranged that he would wait outside your apartment building, never having known you, and shoot you dead,” Nicks said. To her, the “white-winged dove” represents him, stating, “The white dove was John Lennon and peace”.
But while the song honours these two men, who both died within weeks of each other, its meaning remains somewhat ambiguous, allowing listeners to form their own connection with the track for decades now. So much of that open interpretation comes down to the song’s title, as the lyrics “on the edge of seventeen” bring in a new contemplation of youth, age, rebellion, and innocence.
Only she could answer the questions of why that line is in there or why Nicks decided to title the track after it. But the answer of where she got the name from is well known.
Who came up with the title for ‘Edge of Seventeen’?
Technically, the answer to the question of who titled ‘Edge Of Seventeen’ is Stevie Nicks, but the phrase came from a misunderstanding. One day, while hanging out with Tom Petty’s wife, Jane, Nicks misheard her. When telling the Fleetwood Mac singer the story of how the couple met, Jane said it was “at the age of seventeen”. But Nicks misheard it as “the edge of seventeen”, being taken aback by the poetry and power of such a simple phrase.
In a 1981 interview with Los Angeles disc jockey Robert W Morgan, Nicks said she told Jane, “It’s got to be ‘edge.’ ‘The Edge of Seventeen’ is perfect. I’m going to write a song.” Originally, that song was intended to be about the Petty couple and their love story, but after being struck by grief with the passing of her Uncle and John Lennon, the song found a new focus but kept the title.
