the New Yorker article
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/th...ial-type=owned
We kept up a friendship, and, in 2017, I interviewed her for Rookie’s podcast. Then the show’s production company shut down midseason, and the conversation never aired.
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Over two evenings last month, Nicks and I caught up over the phone. She was at her home in Santa Monica, where she has spent the pandemic keeping nocturnal hours and working on a TV series based on the Welsh myth of Rhiannon. When she apologized for asking to speak at 10:30 p.m. E.T., I assured her that I was on a similar schedule. “Good,” she said. “Then we are definitely friends of the night.” This interview has been adapted from our unpublished early conversation and our recent ones.
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A lot of these songs were in a suitcase that was accidentally sold at a flea market after I went on the road in 1983. So the songs have been travelling around the Internet now. A lot of people out in the audience knew the songs, but then there’s the next two generations that probably didn’t know them. So I figured you just have to tell them the story of each one of those really unfamiliar songs: what it was about, who was involved, and when it was written, and build a story around it.
How did the suitcase of cassettes find its way back to you?
Well, my best friend, [Robin], when she died [of leukemia, in 1982], she was pregnant. I decided, in my completely insane state of mind, that I was just going to marry her husband so that I could take care of the child. And, well, that didn’t work very well. So, for three months, getting ready to go on a big tour, I tried to be a mom, and it was impossible. And then out of nowhere, I just said, “You know what? We need to get a divorce.” I left, and he just decided to clean out the whole house, and there was a suitcase of cassettes—I don’t really know that he knew what was on all these cassettes. He had, like, a yard sale, and I don’t think that the people who bought it necessarily even knew what was exactly in it either. But somebody [eventually] figured out what it was, and then all of a sudden all these demos were out there in the world. So some fans who found out about this bought them and sent them back to me. That’s how cool my fans are. And then I took a lot of the great demos to Nashville and said I want to record these songs, but I want it exactly as they are. And they did it. And that’s why I love that record so much, because the songs on there are really close to how I wrote them.
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Do you have literary influences that have inspired your music?
You know, I go in and out of reading. When I have a little bit of time to myself, my Zen time at night after a show, I slice a plate of apples and I sit on my bed with as many favorite fashion magazines as I can find. I’m just a fashion-magazine hag and I used to just have thousands of tear sheets, but now that I have my little iPhone I’m taking pictures. So my camera is filled with what would’ve been my tear-out sheets. But it can be, like, four in the morning and I’ll be, like, “Let’s see, you have to wake up at eleven-thirty.” And then I kind of go, “Why would I want to be asleep right now? This is the best time of my entire day.”
Ugh, that is such a good feeling.
It is. And it’s, like, it’s mine.
And almost nothing else that I do in my life is really mine. It’s all shared, and there’s always two or three people around. And I have Lily [Nicks’s dog] now. She has really saved my life, because Sulamith [Nicks’s previous dog] was sick for that last year.
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I think, Tavi, when you are really creative,
I think that staying in a creative place is the best thing you can do if you have any depression going on. I’m not bipolar, but I’m something. I call it the Nicks crazies. My dad and my two uncles and my grandfather, they all had it too. My brother. And when I have that the least is when I’m really involved in doing stuff.
It’s, like, just remember. Time passes. When you’re really in a hole, go talk to somebody now. Because it’s just going to get worse, you know. And do some fun things. Do something that really makes you happy. Or go out and rent some great movies that you’ve always wanted to see, like
“Storks.” [Laughs.]
It’s my favorite movie. I’ve watched it six times and it’s just so great. Have you seen it?
No. [Laughs.]
It’s the sweetest movie. It’s about the storks going out of business and they become, like, FedEx, and they only deliver packages. No more babies. And they accidentally push the wrong button and one baby comes through—there’s the little star of the whole movie. The storks are her only friends. You just have to buy this movie and have it on replay at all times. It’s a cartoon, but it’s a massive movie of life and love and sadness and tragedy. That’s my answer to depression: “Storks.”