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Sun 2 August 2026 20:15, UK
While we all revel in the drama of Fleetwood Mac and, more specifically, their seminal album, Rumours, Stevie Nicks had to learn to live with it.
Just 26 years old, Nicks was just a child when she joined Fleetwood Mac in 1974, thrust into the wild storylines of their songwriting after living a relatively quiet and unglamorous life as an unsuccessful musician until then. After just one album, their ‘75 self-titled record, the wheels of Fleetwood Mac fell off and furiously slid straight into chaotic and toxic success, a world which Nicks would never really be able to step back from.
When Rumours came out in ‘77, the band set a dramatic precedent for themselves, becoming hostages to the success of their own drama. The global critical and commercial acclaim made it increasingly difficult for each member to do what they should have done come the final show of the Rumours tour: leave.
Not least for Nicks, arguably the most individually charismatic member of the band, as well as the one who had endured the most drama. Her break-up with Lindsey Buckingham was the source of brutal songs on the record, and her personal life became the source of artistic intrigue.
It wasn’t until ‘81, when she embarked on her debut solo record, that she was somewhat freed of that pain and pressure, learning what a life as a solo artist could give her and what lay ahead, should she step back from Fleetwood Mac and go it alone. But that new life presented a conflict: one where the shackles coming off felt both liberating and frightening, bringing with it a realisation that maybe after all, she had become accustomed to the chaos.
That juxtaposition can be heard all over her solo track ‘The Wild Heart’, taken from her ‘83 follow-up album of the same name. She explained, “I wrote this when I came off the Bella Donna tour, one of the most exhilarating and beautiful experiences I’ve ever had”.
But then the reality dawned on her. The screams of the stage had subsided, and there wasn’t any band to go back to. Even in their darkest, most fraught days, Fleetwood Mac would have been a support unit, but now, Nicks was alone, reckoning with her independence that she was beginning to realise wasn’t as liberating as she thought.
Further reading: From The Vault
Nicks heartbreakingly recalled, “I moved into my new dream house, but it was more of a nightmare because it was cold and empty. I only had my piano. There were no phones, and I was alone, freezing, with nothing. It was like going from heaven straight to hell without stopping off for a burger on the way. I was devastated.
“I moved into my closet with my quilt and pillows and my writing stuff. My clothes were hanging in my face, and I took my little stereo in there, and that’s where I lived. But the song really is about learning to live with Stevie; learn to be a stranger, learn to live in silence, learn not to call on everybody else to get you out of everything or make everybody else pay for what you’re going through because you’ve chosen this life.”
The coldness of that new reality led her to her sophomore solo album, The Wild Heart, but also back to the band. While Tusk could have marked a rightful end for Nicks and the band in ‘79, leaving her to flee the nest, the uncertainty of this independence led her, along with her bandmates, back to Fleetwood Mac, to stumble on through the toxicity and try to recapture the Rumours magic.
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