Stevie Nicks on ‘The Lighthouse’, her rallying cry for women’s rights

During a trip to New York City earlier this month to appear on “Saturday Night Live” for the first time since 1983, Stevie Nicks said she was terrified. She said her first reaction when she got the call to appear on “SNL” was, “Absolutely not. Because I was terrified to do it, because it’s going live!”

But she did appear on “SNL,” and her performance of “The Lighthouse” brought down the houses.

She says the inspiration for her latest song, a rallying cry for women’s rights, came a few months after Roe v. Wade was overturned, and it took her less than a day to write and record the song.

Smith wondered, “It takes some courage to wade into the waters of the abortion debate. Why take the risk?’

“Because everyone kept saying, ‘Well, somebody’s got to do something. Somebody’s got to say something,'” Nicks responded. “And I said, ‘Well, I have a platform. I tell a good story. So maybe I should try to do something.’ I was there too. been there, done that.“

In the late 1970s, Nicks was on top of the world with the legendary band Fleetwood Mac. She had broken up with her longtime partner and Fleetwood Mac bandmate Lindsey Buckingham, and was dating Don Henley of The Eagles when she found out she was pregnant, and decided being a mother didn’t get in the way of being a touring musician. the cards.

In 1979 she terminated the pregnancy. “In my younger life, I had already decided that I didn’t want anyone to be hurt all the time and thought, ‘When are you coming back?’ “Well, I don’t know. I’ll be back when I get back, you know?” said Nicks. “And you don’t even have any idea how big that Fleetwood Mac would become in the future, you know? And this is super personal and weird, so you know… you can work this out if you need to.”

“I appreciate you sharing this story, though,” Smith said.

‘Well, and it’s a good story too. I tell a good story!’ Nicks said. “I got pregnant. And it was like: Why? I have an IUD. I am fully protected. I have a great gynecologist. How come this happened? Who cares?“

“So you’ve taken all the precautions?”

“Yeah. And I’m like, This can’t happen. Fleetwood Mac has been around for three years. And it’s big. And we’re going into our third album. It was like, Oh no, no, no, no, no, no.“

Nicks said it would have “destroyed” Fleetwood Mac if she had had the baby: “Absolutely, for many reasons. I would have tried my best to get through it, you know, because I would be in the studio every day and a But mostly, having a kid with Don Henley wouldn’t have been overkill in Fleetwood Mac, with Lindsey and me – we had been apart for two or three years. It would have been a nightmare scenario for me.”

Fleetwood Mac was a collection of stars, but Stevie Nicks was at the center. She was the one who wrote the band’s only #1 single in the US, “Dreams,” a song that is still a hit on streaming today.

But if “Dreams” is about heartache and vulnerability, Nicks’ new song is the exact opposite: It’s about fighting for the same reproductive rights she had.

Smith asked, “There are people who criticize your choice, condemn your choice. Is there anything else you want to say to them?’

‘I’d like to know. Are you just the few guys who make the decisions for us?’ Nicks replied.

She said that ultimately the choice was mine. And you know what? If people want to be mad at me, be mad at me. I don’t care. If I had made the other choice, I would have gone the other way. I would have been a great mother if I had gone this way, and I did a great job.”

Nicks would reach new heights as a solo artist, becoming the first woman inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. twice.

Of course, Nicks has had her share of heartache, too. The woman she called her musical soulmate, Christine McVie, died in 2022and Nicks was devastated.

“I wanted to go in and sit on her bed and hold her hand and sing ‘Touched By An Angel’ to her until I was sure she heard it,” she said. ‘And I didn’t succeed. And I didn’t get to say goodbye to her.’

Nicks now ends her shows with a moving tribute to her best friend. She sings, but can’t bring herself to look. “We have a really nice montage of her and me. I never turn around and look. I can’t, because I start sobbing. And if I start sobbing, I can’t finish the song. So I just don’t look at it.”

Nicks says that even though McVie is gone, she feels her presence with her all the time. She wears a necklace containing some of McVie’s ashes. “A little bit of her,” Nicks said. “But as important as that is, she is in my heart,” she said.

Nicks says she doesn’t really care whether her new song, “The Lighthouse,” is a hit or not; she just wants people to listen. “Poets write what they write, and poets shouldn’t be censored. Writers shouldn’t be censored. This song shouldn’t be censored. It should go out into the world and do what it’s going to do, maybe change some minds. There is a God, and God gave me this talent to sing, write and dance.

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Story produced by John D’Amelio. Editor: Steven Tyler.

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