Stevie Nicks
I don’t know a lot about Stevie Nicks other than that she has a terrific voice and that she is part of (as they are often described) rock’s “famously fractious family”—Fleetwood Mac—which is on a reunion tour.
But apparently it was an open secret that Nicks aborted a baby she had with Don Henley, who was then the frontman for the Eagles. However until an interview she gave Billboard magazine that appeared last Friday, Nicks had never confirmed that one of her better known songs—“Sara”—was written about that baby. Here is the exchange with Billboard’s Rob Tannenbaum:
That reminds me of a story Don Henley told years ago, about your [Fleetwood Mac] song “Sara.” He said you got pregnant while the two of you were dating, and Sara was the name you gave the unborn baby.
Had I married Don and had that baby, and had she been a girl, I would have named her Sara. But there was another woman in my life named Sara, who shortly after that became Mick’s wife, Sara Fleetwood.
So what Henley says about the song is accurate, but it’s not the entirety of the song?
Right. It’s accurate, but not the entirety of it.
The allusion to Henley’s story was a 1991 interview he gave to CQ:
“I believe, to the best of my knowledge, [that Nicks] became pregnant by me. And she named the kid Sara, and she had an abortion – and then wrote the song of the same name to the spirit of the aborted baby. ….I was building my house at the time, and there’s a line in the song that says, ‘And when you build your house, call me.’”
Ben Johnson explained that Nicks and Henley’s torrid two-year affair had been no secret, and the subsequent abortion had been well-known. According to Eagles biographer Marc Eliot, Nicks “was deeply upset about what she considered his fast and easy consent to her decision. Nicks took it as Henley’s way of saying he wasn’t interested in any type of serious long-term commitment.”
But Nicks had never acknowledged that the song was dedicated to her child until last week, 35 years after its release. The closest she had come was a statement in 1979 that “If I ever have a little girl, I will name her Sara. It’s a very special name to me.”
Here are the key lyrics to “Sara”:
Wait a minute, baby
Stay with me awhile
Said you’d give me light
But you never told me about the fire…
Stay with me awhile
Said you’d give me light
But you never told me about the fire…
Sara, you’re the poet in my heartNever change, never stopAnd now it’s goneThey say it doesn’t matter what forWhen you build your house, call me…
All I ever wanted was to know
That you were dreaming
There’s a heartbeat
No, it never really died
You never really died
That you were dreaming
There’s a heartbeat
No, it never really died
You never really died
Ms. Nicks has never had any living children.
By Dave Andrusko, NRL News
