A single song can live a thousand different lives. In an artist’s notebook, it’s one thing. In the studio, it becomes something else. And once it’s released to the world, it takes on new meaning again—reshaped by fans, memories, and time. For Stevie Nicks, though, there’s one song where she always knew which version mattered most.
Being Stevie Nicks must be a strange experience. Now in her 70s, she was just in her twenties when Rumours catapulted her to global stardom. For decades since, she’s stood under stage lights, reliving and performing the raw emotions of her youth—songs born of heartbreak and longing, still sung with conviction night after night. There’s a kind of emotional time-travel baked into her performances: she’s not just revisiting the past—she’s breathing new life into it.
That’s what great art does—it refuses to rust. It endures. And when artists are in the studio creating something new, they have to wonder how their work will live beyond that moment. Will it hold up years down the line? Will it still connect? And more importantly for someone like Nicks, will it work live?
When she wrote ‘Edge of Seventeen’, she already had her answer.
The track, a standout from her solo debut Bella Donna, was born from grief—specifically, the sorrow and shock she felt after the death of John Lennon. Nicks turned that emotion into something powerful, casting Lennon as a white-winged dove of peace. That symbolism mattered to her, and she wanted people to feel it. So, she crafted the song to demand attention—to be loud, memorable, and alive.
And it worked. The song became not just a hit, but a staple—especially in her live shows, where it’s taken on a whole new kind of energy. Decades later, it’s still the one she looks forward to the most.
“That’s my favourite thing onstage. Of all time. It beats ‘Rhiannon,’” Nicks once said, placing her solo anthem even above her Fleetwood Mac classics. Every time that instantly recognizable guitar riff kicks in, she’s lit up by it again.
“I don’t know, there’s just something about it… when I hear that da-da-da da-da thing—it just makes me… that’s it. Then it’s all worth it,” she explained, not needing perfect words to describe the magic of it.
The crowd gets it, too. ‘Edge of Seventeen’ still lands with the same power it had the day it debuted. On record, it’s powerful—but live, it becomes something else entirely. For Nicks and her fans alike, it’s a reminder that some songs are meant to be felt in the moment, again and again.
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