Stevie Nicks Reveals Who the ‘Great Dark Wing’ Is in The Fleetwood Mac Song ‘Sara’
Stevie Nicks has written many songs for Fleetwood Mac, and she revealed the secret meaning behind the track “Sara” from the 1979 album Tusk. Here’s who Nicks called the “great dark wing” in her famous song.
Stevie Nicks had an affair with her Fleetwood Mac bandmate
Most Fleetwood Mac fans know that singer Stevie Nicks had a turbulent romance with the band’s guitarist, Lindsey Buckingham. But he wasn’t the only Fleetwood Mac member the “Rhiannon” singer dated. She also had an affair with drummer Mick Fleetwood while he was married to Jenny Boyd, and Nicks was dating someone else.
“One night we had a party and everybody was drunk and everybody was gone and it was just me and Mick, and we ended up spending the night together,” Nicks told Q Magazine in 2008. “And I fell in love with Mick and I think Mick fell in love with me.”
The singer has said that she regrets her romance with Fleetwood. “Mick and I would never have had an affair had we not had a party and all been completely drunk and messed up and coked out, and, you know, ended up being the last two people at the party,” Nicks said for Oprah’s Master Class. “So guess what? It’s not hard to figure out what happened – and what happened wasn’t a good thing. It was doomed. It was a doomed thing, caused a lot of pain for everybody, led to nothing.”
Their fling ended when Fleetwood started dating Nicks’ close friend, Sara Recor, who partially inspired the song “Sara.”
Stevie Nicks revealed who the ‘dark wing’ is in the Fleetwood Mac song ‘Sara’
In the Fleetwood Mac song “Sara,” Stevie Nicks sings about a man referred to only as a “great dark wing.” The lyrics include: “And he was just like/A great dark wing/Within the wings of a storm/I think I had met my match.”
Nicks revealed that her affair with Mick Fleetwood inspired the song. “Sara was pretty much about Mick. So, he was the ‘great dark wing,’” she told MTV Fanatic (via In Her Own Words) in 1998. “And, ah, it was about everything that was going on at that particular time, too, but he was the, the reason for the, you know, the beginning of it.”
Nicks has also said there are more lyrics that fans have never heard. “The original Sara was 16 minutes long. Like about nine more verses than what you hear on the record, “ she reportedly said on the Tommy Vance show in 1994. “It got edited down to 14 minutes, down to 11 minutes, down to 9 minutes, down to 7 minutes, down to 4 minutes and 40 seconds. I was to the point where I went, ‘Is the word Sara even going to be left in the song?’”
The singer wrote another song with ‘Sara’ in the title
The name Sara has a special meaning to Stevie Nicks. The “Gypsy” singer has said that if she ever had a little girl, she would name her Sara. She also used the moniker as a pseudonym when she checked into the Betty Ford Center for her cocaine addiction in 1986.
The Fleetwood Mac song “Welcome to the Room… Sara” was inspired by Nicks’ 30-day stay at the rehabilitation facility. It includes the lyrics: “It’s not home/And it’s not Tara/In fact, do I know you?/Have I been here before?/This is a dream, right?/Déjà vu/Did I come here on my own?”
