Bella Donna Interview
 

Thanks for posting this, Viv! I'd never heard the full unedited interview.

There have been lots of stories about how she gave away the royalties to many of her songs... interesting to hear Sara royalties were given to 3 guys on her crew.... the 4th person, who recorded the demo is possibly Hernan as he has told stories over the years about working on that demo with her to flesh it out and record it properly. I forget now where she wrote it, but somewhere in her thankyou's on one of her albums she thanks someone "for the spaces in Sara" so maybe that person got a cut.

She was reportedly generous, really too generous and trusting, in the beginning of her career and gave away too many royalties. Makes me wonder if once she got her own dedicated manager and business manager etc if they took tighter control on her behalf. :shrug:

Yes...thanks for posting these clips. My favorite is the I Don’t Want to Know/Silver Springs clip. She didn't know Lindsey recorded IDWTK......haha haha.

I've been waiting for someone to comment on this interview. This was the first time I heard this particular interview. I never knew she gave away the royalties to this song. All these years later we've learned she stole the riff of Edge of 17 from a song by The Police. A recent Ledgie mentioned she stole the music to Enchanted from Bob Seger. Stevie admits she stole Little Red Corvette to write Stand Back. I have a master recording of her writing Prettiest Girl in the World right over the actual song, "My Name is Luca," which was a huge hit for another artist. Not hard for me to believe after all this time she could have easily stole parts of Sara from Carol Hinton. I cracked up when she said even if she lost the case she never would have given Carol a dime of the royalties. She claimed had that happened she would have paid out of her own pocket money. Yeah right! LOL

I Don't Want To Know is such a great rocking song. It's such a shame Stevie holds grudges for so long. That would be such a great song to sing live. The only live versions we have of that are from the pre FM tours.

And who knew until now Silver Springs was originally 7 minutes?

I still have the broadcast version of this interview on a cassette somewhere. It included her talking about the 7 minute version of Silver Springs and the IDWK vs SS bit. And the L&L stuff and a lot of what is here but they cut to only little bits of each. So it's nice to hear to full answers that she gave.

Waddy commented on the Edge of 17 riff a number of years ago, and reportedly got a slap on the wrist from Madame (or her team) for it and kinda walked it back. Knowing the Police song Bring on the Night it was shockingly similar and odd to me at the time but they never talked about where it came from. I've always wondered why the demo of it was never leaked.

Don't forget writing She Still Loves Him over a Dire Straits song. (which she had to give proper credit for on 24k). And then there was the Tom musical track she wrote over and gave to FM until Tom called her out. I'd have to dig out my old LPs to check but I don't recall people like Mike Campbell being given public credit as cowriters on original releases of her albums (Whole Lotta Trouble, Imperial Hotel etc).

I believe the only thing Carol claimed was that she'd written the words to Sara, as a poem, and sent it to Stevie. There was no music to steal! :eek:

She has admitted over the years that her chord repertoire is incredibly limited... her music composing is not her strong suit.

IDWTK is the song that got me hooked to this band back in 1977. It’s always been in my top 5 of all time favorites.

I Don't Want to Know is easily one of the best songs she ever wrote and infinitely better than anything post Bella Donna. It would've worked well live in the early days for sure, but would've relied heavily on the background singers anytime post 78.

There was some sort of news item in Rolling Stone in 1980 about the Sara lawsuit. I think Mo Ostin was quoted as saying, “The theory of this thing is bizarre. The idea that a record company could tell Stevie Nicks how to write a song is ridiculous.”

(A lot more ridiculous in 1980 than today, to be honest.)

wasn't there speculation on here few months ago that maybe Stevie hates IDWK because she didn't really write it, that wording and phrasing sound very much like typical Lindsey. that maybe he wrote it and gave her the credit ssince it was replacing her song on the record.

It is the song that sounds least like hers.