Stevie Nicks’ ‘Long Way to Go’ Was Inspired by Advice She’d Received From a Friend About a Man

Stevie Nicks released the song “Long Way to Go” on her 1989 album The Other Side of the Mirror. The song is written about Nicks’ encounter with an ex-partner and advice she received from a friend. In a 1989 interview with Castle Walls, Nicks gave details about the advice the friend gave regarding the ex-boyfriend that inspired “Long Way to Go.”

Stevie Nicks wrote ‘Long Way to Go’ about an ex-partner

“Long Way to Go” is the second track on the album The Other Side of the Mirror. According to Music Spotlight Magazine, Nicks revealed in a 1989 interview with Castle Walls that “Long Way to Go” is about an ex-partner.

“I remain real good friends with most of the men in my life. ‘Long Way to Go’ was not written in such a nice way. This happened to be an experience that I had with somebody that I did very much love, who… we had been broken up for a long time before, a year before,” Nicks said in the interview according to Genius.

According to Music Spotlight Magazine and Genius, Nicks said in the 1989 interview that the man asked to meet up even though he was hours away. When Nicks received the call from the man, she had just finished making her 1985 album Rock a Little.

What inspired Stevie Nicks’ song ‘Long Way to Go’

Genius and Music Spotlight Magazine report that while trying to decide what to do, Nicks asked her friend who replied, “Well, it’s a pretty long way to go to say goodbye again. I thought that we’d already, basically… Stevie, it’s taking you an awful long time to get over this. Do you want to go down and start it up again?”

Nicks ended up going anyway, but the meeting did not end on a happy note.

“I think the last thing that I did say to him was, ‘you know, it’s a real long way to go to say goodbye again. I thought we already did that. Have fun, tell the world.’ Which basically means words we don’t say over the radio,” Nicks said in the interview according to Genius. “I mean, he put me in the car, and I was hysterical in tears, and I cried all the way home.”

A look at the lyrics to ‘Long Way to Go’

In “Long Way to Go,” Nicks verbatim quotes what her friend told her about visiting the man, and calls the subject of the song the “high” of her “life.”

“It’s a real long way to go… to say goodbye/ I thought we already did that/ Have fun… tell the world/ Well it’s a real long way to go… to say goodbye/ I thought we already did that/ Have fun… tell the world,” Nicks sings in “Long Way to Go.”