“Just bring it, freaks”: Why Stevie Nicks initially hated being called a witch
The White Witch – That was the nickname Stevie Nicks was granted. From the first moment she emerged on stage for her first-ever gig with Fleetwood Mac on May 15th, 1975, the world became instantly magnetised by her spinning, almost spiritual presence. Adorned in lace and velvet and shawls draped over her shoulder, she was a vision. But when people fumbled for a way to describe her unique on-stage presence, landing on “witchy”, the singer was left wholly dissatisfied.
I could go deeper on this, and, for a moment, I will. In Elizabeth Sankey’s 2024 documentary Witches, it is declared, “Every woman is a witch.” Unpacking the legacy of witches in media, folklore, pop culture and politics, she’s making the point that witches are utterly inseparable from women and, therefore, from feminism. Sankey argues that from the days of the witch trial, the world has failed to find any other explanation for describing or understanding women’s spirit, uniqueness or bouts of madness before declaring them a witch.
So when Nicks first emerged as this new and powerful force in the male-dominated rock world, owning the stage as she twirled around as if possessed by the music, glaring out into her crowd and captivating them as she roared the breakdown in ‘Rhiannon’ – the world labelling her as a witch was simply because they could find no other words to explain a presence as impactful as hers.
But, on a more surface level, the label stuck because of her outfits. Wearing luxurious robes and shawls that moved as she moved, Nicks’ vintage style caught attention. For the singer herself, it was the costume she loved as she dreamed about bringing “a little fairy tale to people.” But as the witch comments first started happening, she hated it.
“In the beginning of my career, the whole idea that some wacky, creepy people were writing, ‘You’re a witch, you’re a witch!’ was so arresting. And there I am like, ‘No, I’m not! I just wear black because it makes me look thinner, you idiots’”, she said, joking that her outfit picks were purely for vanity reasons.
However, as those comments got louder and louder, they made her so self-conscious that she retired her favourite garments for a while and banned herself from wearing black. That lasted a year before she snapped, “OK, just bring it, freaks. I’m not going to wear apricot. You think whatever you want because I’m going to wear my beautiful, long black dress. Get out of my face.”
From then on, Nicks leaned into it. On the cover of Rumours, she’s a vision in black with her shawl spread out like a wing. On her solo debut, Bella Donna, she epitomises the White Witch with a bird in hand and an ethereal dress. Even still today, on stage at her live shows, Nicks is wrapped in beautiful, decorative shawls.
“With my clothes and the things that I wear, I have so much fun with them,” she said. Learning not to care about the witchy label, she reclaimed it as her own, taking some of that powerful spirit and putting it into her lyrics for songs like ‘Sisters Of The Moon’ and ‘Gold Dust Woman’.
