3 Songs Stevie Nicks Wrote About Mick Fleetwood

Part of the reason why Fleetwood Mac broke up was because many of the band were romantically involved, and none of those relationships worked out. After Stevie Nicks split with longtime partner Lindsey Buckingham, she was involved in a brief affair with drummer Mick Fleetwood. Their relationship only lasted a few years, but it did lead to a few new songs from Nicks. Here are three songs Nicks wrote about Fleetwood. 

Stevie Nicks expressed regret toward her affair with Mick Fleetwood in ‘Storms’

Nicks and Fleetwood started their affair in 1977 while on the Rumours tour in Australia. At the time, both were in relationships. Fleetwood was married to Jenny Boyd, sister of Pattied Boyd, and Nicks was dating the Eagles’ Don Henley. Fleetwood and Boyd got divorced in 1978 after he started his affair with Nicks. 

Shortly after the “Landslide” singer ended her affair with Fleetwood, she wrote “Storms”, which appeared on Fleetwood Mac’s 1979 album, Tusk. On her website, Nicks explained that the song is about Mick and their doomed relationship. Their affair destroyed Mick’s marriage, ending with him running off with Nick’s friend, Sara Recor. Nicks was filled with regret, and “Storms” captured their messy affair and the damage it did to others. 

“That relationship destroyed Mick’s marriage to Jenny, who was the sweetest person in the world,” Nicks wrote. “So did we really think that we were going to come out of it unscathed? So then what happened to me, my best friend falling in love with him and moving into his house and neither of them telling me? It could not have been worse. Payback is a b****. Bad karma all around. Here’s that song in a nutshell: Don’t break up other people’s marriages. It will never work and will haunt you for the rest of your miserable days.”

‘Sara’ is about Fleetwood’s relationship with one of Nicks’ closest friends

While Stevie Nicks and Mick Fleetwood were still engaged in their affair, the drummer moved in with Sara without telling Nicks. Nicks felt a deep betrayal from Sara and Mick, especially since she still had feelings for Fleetwood. Mick later married Recor in 1988, and the couple divorced in 1995. 

In response to their relationship, Nicks wrote “Sara,” another song from Tusk. The tune expresses her heartbreak when Mick began a relationship with someone else. In an interview with The Tommy Vance Show, Nicks explained that “Sara” is about multiple people, despite the title. 

“I remember the night I wrote it,” Nicks recalled. “I sat up with a very good friend of mine whose name is Sara, who was married to Mick Fleetwood. She likes to think it’s completely about her, but it’s really not completely about her. It’s about me, about her, about Mick, about Fleetwood Mac. It’s about all of us at that point.”

‘Beauty and the Beast’ is a reference to the classic fairytale

Nicks based “Beauty and the Beast” on the 1946 Jean Cocteau film. Nicks released the song on her 1983 solo record, The Wild Heart. In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Nicks said the beast from the film reminded her of Fleetwood, but it also emphasized many aspects of their relationship. While the couple in the movie had a happy ending, Nicks and Fleetwood’s pairing was doomed from the beginning. 

“It was definitely about Mick,” Nicks confirmed. “But it’s also based on the 1946 Jean Cocteau movie. I first saw it on TV one night when Mick and I were first together, and I always thought of Mick as being sort of Beauty and the Beast-esque, because he’s so tall and he had beautiful coats down to here, and clothes made by little fairies up in the attic, I always thought, so he was that character in a lot of ways And also, it matched our story because Mick and I could never be. A, because Mick was married and then divorced and that was not good, and B, because of Fleetwood Mac.”

Elements of this story were first reported by Far Out.