Lindsey Buckingham ‘Tore Apart’ Stevie Nicks’ ‘Storms’ When Presented to Fleetwood Mac
Stevie Nicks is an award-winning songwriter, even if Lindsey Buckingham didn’t like “Storms” the first time. In fact, his then-girlfriend said he ‘tore it apart,’ telling Nicks “it just needs some work.” Here’s what we know about the Fleetwood Mac original.
Stevie Nicks wrote ‘Storms’ about her relationship with Fleetwood Mac’s Mick Fleetwood
Nicks is one of the masterminds behind Fleetwood Mac’s most popular songs. That includes “Dreams,” the only track to reach No. 1 on the United States music charts. The singer was also a songwriter on “Storms.”
With “Storms,” Nicks described her reaction to a fading relationship. In a 2020 interview with The Guardian, the artist said that this song was specifically a “f*** you” to Mick Fleetwood, who was recording music with Buckingham and Nicks at the time.
“Every night that goes between,” the lyrics state. “I feel a little less / As you slowly go away from me / This is only another test.”
The song was released in conjunction with 1979’s Tusk. Since its debut, the track earned over 22 million Spotify plays.
“Every hour of fear I spend / My body tries to cry,” Nicks sings in the chorus. “Living through each empty night / A deadly calm inside.”
Lindsey Buckingham told Stevie Nicks that ‘Storms’ ‘need[ed] some work’
As another Fleetwood Mac songwriter, Buckingham shared his thoughts on “Storms” before its release. In her memoir Storms: My Life with Lindsey Buckingham and Fleetwood Mac, Buckingham’s former girlfriend, Carol Ann Harris, detailed her experience with the rock band. That includes her perspective on music written by Nicks.
“He tore it apart,” Harris wrote, according to Music Spotlight Magazine. “By the time he was finished dissecting everything in detail about what was wrong with the song, he smiled serenely and said, ‘I like it, Stevie. It just needs some work.'”
“The end result was always the same: a snarling, vicious battle over her music,” Harris added. According to the LA Times, Nicks and Buckingham officially ended their love affair while creating Rumours in 1977.
Stevie Nicks released solo music like ‘Edge of Seventeen’
After their time with Buckingham Nicks and Fleetwood Mac, Nicks branched out as a solo artist, releasing songs like “Edge of Seventeen” and even starring as herself in American Horror Story. With much of their personal relationship in the public eye, Nicks shared that maybe if they didn’t work together, Nicks and Buckingham would’ve gotten married.
“I think, in Lindsey’s heart, he thinks if we hadn’t joined Fleetwood Mac, we would still have become famous,” Nicks said during an interview with Q Magazine in 2008, “and we probably would have gotten married and probably would have had kids and probably would have lived in San Francisco, his hometown, and our lives would have been very different and we probably would have never done drugs.”
She added, “It’s possible.”
