Since 1975, Stevie Nicks has been twirling, flowing, and dancing across the stage, immortalizing her place in pop and rock culture. From singing about Welsh mythology to struggles with love and drugs, Nicks has produced a diverse discography and cemented her standing as one of the queens of rock and roll. Though no longer in the blues and pop-rock band Fleetwood Mac, Nicks has remained a phenomenon among older and younger generations as a result of her empowering music and mystical fashion.
Nicks’s career did not launch until she joined Fleetwood Mac in 1974. Previously, she had been pursuing a career with her former boyfriend, Lindsey Buckingham—the soon-to-be guitarist of Fleetwood Mac—and working as a waitress and cleaner. The two had released the album Buckingham Nicks, which was poorly received by the public. After Buckingham caught the attention of Fleetwood Mac drummer Mick Fleetwood, the two joined the band, and it soon transformed from an English blues band to an American pop-rock sensation. The band was mainly comprised of Mick Fleetwood, Christine McVie, John McVie, Stevie Nicks, and Lindsey Buckingham.
Nicks started off strong with Fleetwood Mac’s self-titled album. At merely twenty-seven years old, she wrote “Landslide,” a song that still resonates today with listeners of all ages. “Landslide” details the challenges and changes that come with life, based on her pursuit of musical success prior to Fleetwood Mac. “Well, I’ve been afraid of changing / ‘Cause I’ve built my life around you,” sings Nicks. The lyrics of “Landslide” are timeless and relatable to any listener, no matter if they are chasing the exact ambitions that Nicks had at the time or dealing with other life struggles. In recent concerts, Nicks has dedicated the song to her late Fleetwood Mac bandmate and friend, Christine McVie, illustrating the adaptability of the song to the many hardships humans encounter, like the loss of a dear friend. The lyrics prove malleable to challenges in life at any point.
Another song on the Fleetwood Mac album by Nicks is “Rhiannon.” Nicks wrote the song in only ten minutes after reading Triad: A Novel of the Supernatural, by Mary Leader, in which she discovered and was captivated by the name “Rhiannon.” At the time, Nicks was unaware of the Welsh legend of Rhiannon, the goddess of forgiveness, yet still managed to capture the elegance and mystical charm of the witch.
The song starts off with the lyric, “Rhiannon rings like a bell through the night / And wouldn’t you love to love her?” The song continues with similarly structured lyrics: similes and then questions. Throughout the song, the keyboard mimics a bell’s ring, evoking a sense in the listeners that Rhiannon is there with them.
Comparing Rhiannon to “a cat in the dark” and “taken by the sky,” Nicks portrays the goddess as dark and otherworldly. But the questions Nicks asks in the song indicate a sort of arcane allure that Rhiannon also possesses. For example, Nicks asks, “Would you stay if she promised you heaven? / Will you ever win?” Rhiannon is a touch of magic to Nicks’s music catalog, contrasting her more realistic but equally as good songs.
On stage, Nicks effortlessly manifests Rhiannon’s energy through her iconic all-black outfit, a color that she’s made her trademark. Her signature look contains a black drapey dress, a black translucent wing-like shawl, and a pair of black platformed boots. In a time of psychedelic colors, Nicks’s fashion was unique to the point that it even raised rumors of her being an actual witch.
The iconic outfit graced the cover of Fleetwood Mac’s most famous record, the 1977 Rumours album, where Nicks struck a butterfly-like pose alongside Fleetwood. Her voice—delicate yet uniquely raspy—seamlessly complements her outfit, which captures the nightly essence of Rhiannon. The shadowy and bewitching figure she portrays tempts even the skeptics to believe in Rhiannon attending a concert. In her live renditions of “Rhiannon,” her stage presence is undeniable. She changes the ending of the song from a calm fade-out to a hardcore burst of energy, becoming Rhiannon herself.
Similar to the mysterious energy “Rhiannon” radiates, the last Rumours song, “Gold Dust Woman,” takes on a more serious approach as Nicks reflects on her experience with cocaine and the effects of the rock and roll life on her relationships. In classic Nicks fashion, she compares her cocaine usage to a black widow and her anger to a dragon: “Ooh, black widow / Ooh, pale shadow, she’s a dragon.”
Concurrently, in the background of the post-chorus, eerie howls echo, chilling the listener. “Gold Dust Woman” serves as a balance between Nicks’s enchanting spiritual persona and her intimate human side, with her vulnerability masked by metaphors and symbolism.
As a result of her endless songwriting, Nicks had a surplus of songs. This prompted her to launch her solo career in 1981 and release projects that she was unable to promote in Fleetwood Mac.
Nicks had faced the downside to being in a band as successful as Fleetwood Mac: competing with other gifted bandmates to get one’s songs on a record. Only being able to release two or three of her own songs on a record, Nicks tucked away many songs that did not make the cut. But Nicks’s enduring desire to share her creations with fans would lead her to begin her own independent career, while still producing music with Fleetwood Mac.
As expected, Nicks’s popularity reached new heights with her debut album, Bella Donna. Bella Donna demonstrates the versatility of Nicks’s work with the energetic, sharp “Edge of Seventeen” and the tender-hearted love ballad “Leather and Lace.”
Rigorously balancing solo tours and Fleetwood Mac production, Nicks continued her successful solo career in the nine years that led up to her departure from Fleetwood Mac. During that time, she released acclaimed solo albums like The Wild Heart and Fleetwood Mac records like Tango in the Night.
However, with Nicks’s growing solo career, Christine looking to settle down, and Buckingham having already left in 1987, the bandmates slowly began to go their own ways. Nicks finally left Fleetwood Mac in 1990 when Fleetwood refused to let her put her unused song “Silver Springs,” meant for the Rumours album, on her 1991 Timespace compilation.
During the notoriously messy recording sessions of Rumours—heated arguments, the split of Nicks and Buckingham, and the divorce of Christine and John McVie—Nicks had written “Silver Springs” based on a sign that captured her attention while driving. The song is about Nicks and Buckingham’s tumultuous relationship and what Nicks believed could have been between them. Accordingly, the first line of the song is, “You could be my silver springs / Blue-green, colors flashing.” Unfortunately for Nicks, the band chose to put her other song, “I Don’t Want to Know,” instead of “Silver Springs” on Rumours, shattering Nicks.
“I never thought that ‘Silver Springs’ would be heard of again,” explained Nicks in a 1997 MTV interview while recalling her past. “My beautiful song just disappeared.”
After leaving in 1990, Nicks continued to release music and perform on her own. However, she reunited with Fleetwood Mac on The Dance tour in 1997 after collaborating with Buckingham and Fleetwood on a track for a movie.
In May of The Dance tour, Nicks’s treasured song made it on the setlist for a concert at Warner Bros. Studios in Burbank, California. The chorus of “Silver Springs” paved the way for one of the most iconic performances in rock and roll history.
On stage, Nicks channeled all her unresolved tensions and turmoils of Rumours and the 1979 album Tusk towards Buckingham. As Buckingham sang backing vocals, Nicks stared directly into his eyes and hexed the guitarist, chanting, “I’ll follow you down till the sound of my voice will haunt you / Was I just a fool? / You’ll never get away from the sound of the woman that loves you.” Impactful at the time, the performance proved its everlasting effect when it recently regained traction, receiving over 2.5 million likes on TikTok.
Now seventy-six years old, Nicks still dresses in all black, moves with grace around her stages and continues to release music with no plans of stopping anytime soon. With her mystical and intimate songs, witchy fashion, and unwavering confidence both live and in the studio, Nicks has earned her throne in rock and roll history. Nicks’s reign as an aspiring feminine icon has lasted five decades with no end in sight.
