Stevie Nicks epitomizes how the best revenge is living well. It’s been 34 years since Fleetwood Mac’s landmark “Rumours” made Nicks and her bandmates the coolest of the cool. There arguably wasn’t a female in the land who didn’t long to have Nicks’ beauty, grace, and impeccable vocal and songwriting abilities. Of course, the mean girls then and now have often disparaged Nicks. Her answer? Respond with incredible music including her just released “In Your Dreams,” hailed as her best album in a decade.
“I try to make my music as timeless as possible,” Nicks recently told the Toledo Blade. “I don’t think that any of my songs are directed to people in their 70s. My songs are directed toward the whole world. I think love, in many ways, when you’re writing about it, is not different. When I fell in love with the first guy I fell in love with at 15 1/2 and I wrote my first little love song and told my mom and dad I was going to be a songwriter, I was in love with that guy at 15 1/2 [in the same way] as I have been in love with anyone since.
| Onstage |
| Stevie Nicks |
| When: 8 p.m. Saturday |
| Where: Jiffy Lube Live, 7800 Cellar Door Drive, Bristow |
| Info: $30 to $210; ticketmaster.com; 202-397-SEAT |
“So when I write, that’s how I write, I look back to 15 and come up to how old I am now and I see so many similarities. I don’t think a lot of things change.”
What has changed is the reach of music. The same week “In Your Dreams” debuted, “Rumours” re-entered the charts at No. 11 after an episode of “Glee” dedicated its hour to the album.
The new technology has also given Nicks many new ways to reach her fans.
Consider the song “Soldier’s Angel” that Nicks and former Fleetwood Mac member Lindsey Buckingham — her longtime musical collaborator and boyfriend — recorded as a tribute to veterans. Nicks said visiting soldiers at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Bethesda gave her the idea for the song.
“I was on tour with Fleetwood Mac at the end of 2005, and I got an invitation to Walter Reed. I went having no idea that it was going to become such a part of my life,” Nicks told the Boston Globe. “As I was driving away, I thought, ‘I have to do something.’ And I immediately started thinking about putting some music on some iPods, something that would be a rehabilitative tool for them and also joyous. That became my little mission. So every time we go, if we’re seeing 40 soldiers, we go there with 40 iPods.”
Little wonder Nicks is still in the dreams of many.
