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The Stevie Nicks Song She Denied Was Written About Don Henley

The Stevie Nicks Song She Denied Was Written About Don Henley

Throughout her stellar career, Stevie Nicks has always been an open book when it comes to her song lyrics. Nicks used songwriting as a tool to deal with the challenges life threw at her and the moments that were worthy of celebration.

One topic that has come up consistently is the men in your life. Most notably, Lindsey Buckingham was his most important muse, and although they separated romantically in the 1970s, their stories will forever be intertwined because of the heavenly music their relationship inspired.

Before the duo joined Fleetwood Mac, they met in high school and played together at Fritz. After their initial band broke up, Buckingham and Nicks continued to work in a new capacity as a duo.

Although they secured a major record deal as Buckingham Nicks, releasing an album, it was not a commercial success. However, it caught the attention of Mick Fleetwood, who recruited the pair to join Fleetwood Mac, and the disintegration of their relationship inspired a number of material on the band’s most revered album, Rumors.

Another individual who inspired Nicks and was romantically linked to her was Don Henley of the Eagles. The pair were only a couple for a brief period in the late 1970s, but have remained close friends ever since, despite not being soulmates in the traditional sense.

Henley influenced his beloved track, ‘Leather and Lace’, on which he also appears. Nicks once admitted about the writing of Bella Donna: “I must say now that Mr. Don Henley was responsible for that song because he would come in every day and tell me to start over or that I was on the right track, and he made me finish.

Although they were about to break up when the song was almost finished, Henley still fulfilled his duty as a collaborator on ‘Leather and Lace’.

Stevie Nicks - Fleetwood Mac - Solo
(Credits: Far Out / Atlantic Catalog Group)

It is often assumed that ‘Sara’ by Fleetwood Mac, from Preywas also written about Henley. However, Nicks denied this assumption and stated that the track was inspired by a multitude of different people in her life.

During an interview with Weekly entertainment, the Fleetwood Mac singer said that although the title came from Mick Fleetwood’s ex-wife, it wasn’t inspired by her either, stating: “I used her name because I love the name so much, but it was really about what was going on. with all of us at that moment. It was about Mick and my relationship, and it was about a relationship I had after Mick.”

While the song contains many verses drawn from Nicks’ personal life, she also used her artistic license to flesh out ‘Sara’ with touches of fiction. She explained, “You’re just making a movie, writing a story around this paragraph, that little nucleus of life.”

The song also includes the line ‘When you build your house’, which Henley performed about him because he was building a house at the time. “I was building my house at that time, and there’s a line in the song that says: And when you build your house, call me,” he told GQ in 1991.

However, Nicks denied this to Weekly entertainmentstating: “He wants it! If Don wants to think that the ‘house’ was one of the 90 houses he built – and he built house after beautiful house, and once they were done, he would move out because he was no longer interested in them (laughs)… No. He’s a one of my best friends in the world. If anything happened to me, he would be there, always. But if someone said that, they’re full of shit!”

Additionally, in the line about the house, Nicks elaborated on its meaning, saying, “It was about when you get your act together, so let me know, because until you get your act together, I really can’t be around you. ”

Although Henley inspired Nicks on ‘Leather and Lace’, the Fleetwood Mac singer claims the same cannot be said for ‘Sara’. While Henley may have previously believed otherwise, Nicks’ rebuttal is definitive.

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