The Song Stevie Nicks Called ‘a Warning to Myself’
Singer-songwriter Stevie Nicks released her debut solo album, Bella Donna, on July 27, 1981. In addition to the popular song “Edge of Seventeen,” the album features a title track of the same name, and Nicks once called the song “a warning to myself.”
Stevie Nicks thinks the song ‘Bella Donna’ was ‘a warning to’ herself
On Bella Donna, “Bella Donna” is the first song on the tracklist. The meaning of the song is deeply personal and reportedly it was partially inspired by Nicks’ work in Fleetwood Mac.
According to Music Spotlight Magazine, Nicks wrote “Bella Donna” when “she looked back at her tumultuous years in Fleetwood Mac and saw the danger in continuing with that lifestyle. The song became a declaration of independence.”
Music Spotlight Magazine reports the Nicks told Rolling Stone at the time, “The title is about making a lot of decisions in my life, making a change based on the turmoil in my soul. You get to a certain age where you want to slow down, be quieter. [The song] was basically a warning to myself.”
A look at the lyrics in ‘Bella Donna’
When Nicks first released “Bella Donna” in her solo debut, references and parallels to her time in Fleetwood Mac were apparent if one was looking for them.
Nicks concludes the song with the lyrics, “Come in out of the darkness/ Bella donna, my soul/ Don’t change, baby, please don’t change/ And you say/ And your face becomes thin/ You never thought it could/ Come in out of the darkness/ Bella donna/ You are a love wind/ And I’m ready to sail/ It’s just a feeling.”
Since releasing Bella Donna, Nicks has reflected and shared different meanings and inspirations behind the album’s tracklist.
In an Instagram post in 2021, Nicks shared a passage from her journal, revealing what inspired the song “Bella Donna.”
“The song was written about my boyfriend’s mother who was involved with a man in Chile during the coup that happened there in 1973,” Nicks wrote. “The man she loved was banished to France. Banished ~ or imprisoned, that was the choice. The love story never really ended – but she never saw him again.”
She continued, “I was so touched by this story of lost love that I wrote ‘Bella Donna’ – the moment the poem and then the song was finished, I knew I had the basis for my first solo record.”
Stevie Nicks wanted to change while working on ‘Bella Donna’
Nicks worked on Bella Donna with producer Jimmy Iovine. According to Music Spotlight Magazine, Iovine was strict when he first met Nicks.
“[He said,] ‘I know that you’re really used to being like the midnight cat queen that comes in whenever you feel like it,’” Nicks said in Music Spotlight Magazine. “This is not how we’re gonna do this album. First of all, you only have three months. And second, I don’t want to waste my time with a cartoon.”
While this was a different album-making experience for Nicks, it did inspire her to move away from how she had been making music with Fleetwood Mac and pushed her to be more mature and independent.
