Stevie Nicks raises her voice again.
The rock legend released new anthem “The Lighthouse” on Friday, September 27 – his first new solo song in four years.
“Don’t close your eyes and hope for the best / It’s dark outside / The light goes fast / Until the last hours,” she sings. “Your life has changed forever / And all the rights you had yesterday / They’ve been taken away / And now you’re afraid / You should be afraid.”
Nicks wrote the heavy, atmospheric song in 2022, after the Supreme Court reversed Roe v. Wade that June, eliminating the constitutional right to abortion.
“I am very sad, at the age of 76 I had to see it Roe v. Wade taken away,” Nicks tells PEOPLE exclusively in an email interview. “Two years ago, when I realized the ramifications of women’s rights disappearing, I was watching a lot of news and I was like a sponge — it just soaked into me. ”
Following the news, the Grammy winner and Rock & Roll Hall of Famer channeled that grief into song.
“I woke up one morning … which I never write when I wake up in the morning, and all of a sudden I was like, ‘I’ve got my scars, I’ve got my scars,’ so I just grabbed my notebook and started writing the whole thing,” she says. It was a long song and I didn’t know what kind of song it would be. I found an instrumental that I liked and within two or three days I recorded the song. I never redid the vocals — it’s the original vocals — and it took me two years.”
Stevie Nicks performs on stage at the 38th Annual Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony on November 3, 2023 in New York City.
Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic
Since then, the Fleetwood Mac alum has been fine-tuning the track, working with some A-list collaborators along the way.
“This song traveled around; it was in the hands of many producers, many musicians, many people who helped with it. Sheryl Crow, bless her, came in and was a big help in the production. Dave Cobb did amazing classical guitar chords and was I’m the first producer I worked with on a song,” she says. “I’ve been touring solid for two years, so we’ve been working on this song the whole time. I never thought it would take two years to get it to the point where it’s perfect.”
The topic of women’s reproductive rights is personal for Nicks, who revealed in 2020 The Guardian that she “would have had to walk away” from Fleetwood Mac if she hadn’t had an abortion in 1979. Without that procedure, “I’m pretty sure there wouldn’t have been Fleetwood Mac,” she added at the time.
Now, she tells PEOPLE, “All the stories we’re telling about the need for women’s health care and the need for safe and legal abortion for women are absolutely necessary.”
Nicks wrote the song on September 26, 2022.
“It seemed like overnight people were saying, ‘What can we, as a collective force, do about this…’ For me, it was to write a song,” she said in a statement. “I’ve often said to myself, ‘This might be the most important thing I’ve ever done.’ To stand up for the women of the United States and their daughters and granddaughters — and the men who love them. This is an anthem.”
Nicks – who has two more dates on her final tour – is set to perform further Saturday night live for the first time after 41 years on October 12.
Categories: Trends
Source: HIS Education