Nick of Time - new article
 

Nick of time
35 years later, Stevie Nicks is still inspired by her breakup with Lindsey Buckingham

By LARRY GETLEN

Last Updated: 8:10 AM, May 1, 2011
Posted: 7:37 PM, April 30, 2011

While writing the songs for Fleetwood Mac’s classic 1977 album “Rumours,” which remains one of the top 10 best-selling albums in US history, the group was inspired by enough relationship breakdowns, bed-hopping and substance abuse to make the “Jersey Shore” house look like a weekend at Bible camp.

While keyboardist/vocalist Christine McVie and bassist John McVie slogged through a harsh divorce, she wrote “You Make Loving Fun,” on which John had to play, about her new lover, the band’s lighting director.

Meanwhile, vocalist Stevie Nicks and singer/guitarist Lindsey Buckingham were mired in a devastating breakup of their own. So when Nicks wrote “Dreams” and Buckingham wrote “Go Your Own Way” about the bust-up, they each had to sing emotionally charged, bitter lyrics written about themselves.

Almost 35 years later, the legacy of this spiritual connection to former lover and bandmate Buckingham haunts Nicks’ every artistic move.

“When Lindsey and I sing ‘Go Your Own Way,’ we still look at each other with eye-slashing anger,” says Nicks, who last toured with Buckingham and Fleetwood Mac in 2009. “That never goes away, because we can never quite forget that situation.”

It’s hardly surprising, then, that Nicks’ feelings toward him are well-represented on “In Your Dreams,” her first solo album in a decade, out on Tuesday. The song “Moonlight (A Vampire’s Dream)” alternatively addresses her relationship with Buckingham, and the one between Edward and Bella from “Twilight,” two relationships in which she sees deep similarities. After seeing “New Moon” in 2009, Nicks took two verses from an old, unreleased Fleetwood Mac song from the ’70s, and intertwined it with an essay she wrote about the film.

The psychic weirdness between Nicks and Buckingham continues to this day. Buckingham appears on “In Your Dreams” in a song called “Soldier’s Angel” (Fleetwood Mac drummer and fellow ex-Nicks paramour Mick Fleetwood appears on the album as well), and Nicks says that the strange vibes that haunt the former lovers never fade.

“Lindsey and I are difficult people to work together,” says Nicks. “He’ll say to me, ‘I think that song should not be in the third person,’ and I go, ‘Would you say that to Bob Dylan?’ That shuts him up for a second.”

Singing the classics brings up other difficult memories. “Gold Dust Woman,” for example, recalls her days of cocaine abuse so pronounced that she burned a hole through the cartilage in her nose. Surprisingly, though, she says that cocaine was far less damaging to her than drugs that were prescribed by a doctor.

“I skated through the cocaine days pretty safely,” she says. “I went straight to Betty Ford when I knew I couldn’t do it anymore. But the stupid psychiatrist that put me on Klonopin — that was my death sentence.”

Nicks says that a shrink kept her dependent on the drug for seven years just so he could press her for debauched tales of Hollywood.

“If anything would have [killed] me, it would have been that,” she says. “You’re just getting fat and the lights are going out in your eyes. You’re losing [the ages] from 40 to 47, prime years of your life, sitting on a couch gaining 25 pounds. And this doctor just watches you and says, ‘How’s things with you and Lindsey? What about all the other rock stars in the world?’ ”

Despite her sensitivity for those with drug issues, one famous substance abuser has her riled — Lindsay Lohan, whose Stevie Nicks obsession has included butchering her song “Edge of Seventeen,” and talking publicly about wanting to play Nicks in a biopic.

“I thought [that version] was terrible,” says Nicks. “I have to laugh at [talk of her playing me], because I feel very sorry for her. She’s going to the slammer for three months. I would rather die than go to jail. For me, that makes me think even more that she’s insane. She’ll never play me in a movie.”

But aside from such distractions, Nicks is excited to play music that touches on the darker episodes in her life.

“Boring, blah things don’t bring out anything, and there’s just nothing boring or blah about [my or Lindsey’s] lives. We travel through this world in this insane way,” she says. “It’s difficult [to sing about], but it’s also wonderful, because if I had to go up there and sing these songs every night [without that], I would be extremely bored with all of them.”

She would never use words like slammer or say something in that way. This article is garbage and just another way to get at Lindsay Lohan.

That Bob Dylan line never gets old! ;)

Nope.

I specifically remember seeing somewhere that Stevie actually liked that cover, and I'm pretty sure she would have also had to have approve consider it's her song. So yeah, this article is bull.

I find it hard to believe that Stevie would be so, what's the word I'm looking for, inconsiderate maybe, to someone who has a lot of the problems she herself had at that time. I mean, it took Stevie being told that she was going to die if she did drugs again to stop?

Had to laugh at her bringing up the Thrown Down fight :lol:

You'd think in all the time they've recorded together Lindsey would have said something else to her that would have upset her...

ha! i like that she says "slammer". how 'old school' of you Stevie!

Never! :thumbsup:

I have to admit the slammer line had me laughing out loud. :lol:

Yeah, something strikes me as "off" about this. She would never be so blunt as to say that Lohan's version of "Edge" was "terrible." She's much more candid and professional than that.

[QUOTE=CADreaming;975221]Nick of time
35 years later, Stevie Nicks is still inspired by her breakup with Lindsey Buckingham

By LARRY GETLEN

Last Updated: 8:10 AM, May 1, 2011
Posted: 7:37 PM, April 30, 2011

While writing the songs for Fleetwood Mac’s classic 1977 album “Rumours,” which remains one of the top 10 best-selling albums in US history, the group was inspired by enough relationship breakdowns, bed-hopping and substance abuse to make the “Jersey Shore” house look like a weekend at Bible camp.
[QUOTE]

Can't say I ever thought the Rumours-era would be compared to Jersey Shore. Just reminds me of what SnL said during their pre-Unleashed videoed interviews on ET, Access Hollywood, etc., that if the paparazzi was around when they were in their heydey they would have never survived it. hehe

But back to the article. Nothing really new here, same old same old, although like others I laugh at the mention of the Bob Dylan quote from SYW timeframe.

I didn't count but how many references to Lindsey in this one? I might start a drinking game as all the new press unfolds.

Eugh, why would people feel the need to make up things that Stevie has said? As if she doesn't say enough weird things as it is. :rolleyes: Oh well.

Huh? This is the New York Post, right? I am taking that some of you think it's a fake interview. Why?
???

oh wait.........it's The Post? if so, this is a shady interview! The Post is from the devil and SHOULD NOT be read!

THIS.

Newspapers are generally way too afraid of libel suits to make up fake interviews. And why would the Post have to? I think the interview is legit.

Well, I'm pretty sure that Stevie would have approved it before it was recorded, not after, in order for them to get the rights to it and everything. So it's not like she would have heard it before hand necessarily.

Anyway, I can't recall whether or not she's said anything about the song (only her "Over my dead body comments" regarding the movie hah) but she may very well have.. nor do I really say I can make a judgement over the validity of the article. It doesn't really sound like the way Stevie usually speaks but that could just be bad transcription.. also, it seems like the NY Post would be reliable but I'm not an avid newspaper reader or anything so really I wouldn't know.

I'm going to choose to believe (despite that odds) that it's a misquoting. I don't like to think that Stevie is the sort of person who would make that comment.