The Ballad About Lindsey Buckingham That Heartbreaker Benmont Tench Helped Stevie Nicks Finish Writing

A year before joining Fleetwood Mac in 1974 with her then-partner Lindsey Buckingham, Stevie Nicks wrote “Landslide” while living in Aspen, Colorado. During this period, Nicks also started writing a song called “Kind of Woman,” a song she later revealed was about her relationship at the time with Buckingham and his time on the road as a touring musician.

“‘Kind of Woman’ I wrote about Lindsey [Buckingham] when he went on the road with the Everly Brothers, and I was sure he was gonna meet somebody because it says, ‘Temptation falls in your path / No hesitation why you ask / You have another waiting at home / And yes she matters to you,’” said Nicks of the song.

“That was me, right?” added Nicks. “And … it says, ‘You didn’t mean to meet her, you cried / Oh, but the sun goes down every night / She came to you and you were alone / And yes she matters to you / It’s the kind of woman that’ll haunt you.’”

Temptation falls in your path
No hesitation why you ask
You have another waiting at home
And yet she matters to you

Kind of woman that’ll haunt you
She matters to you
She’s the kind of woman that’ll haunt you
She matters to you

You didn’t mean to meet her, you cried
Oh, but the sun goes down every night
She came to you, and you were alone
So yes, does she matter to you

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“As Joni Mitchell would say…”

Nicks’ lyrics were built on the uncertainty and jealousy around her relationship with Buckingham. “So it’s like, which is the kind of woman? Was it me, or was it the woman that he would meet?” said Nicks. “I didn’t know, and then I’d never been on the road, or I had no idea. I mean, I had the same thoughts that probably every little girl in the world thinks when a rock and roll band comes into town.”

She added, “As Joni Mitchell would say, ‘Don’t count on your plans with a rock and roll man.’”

Promised myself a long time ago
No, it would be difficult to let you go
Oh, if not at least within
The touch of my fingers
It’s close, she keeps in heaven

Bella Donna also features Nicks’ hits “Edge of Seventeen, and the Tom Petty and Mike Campbell-penned “Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around,” along with her other duet with former boyfriend Don Henley, “Leather and Lace.”

The Eagles’ guitarist Don Felder also plays on the album, along with the Heartbreakers’ Stan Lynch and Benmont Tench, who also helped Nicks finish the song she started years earlier, “Kind of Woman,” and wrote its bridge.

“There was no drama between her and the Heartbreakers,” said Tench of the Heartbreakers working with Nicks during the Bella Donna sessions. “In Fleetwood Mac, there was a lot of personal stuff going on. Then she steps in the room with us, a rock’n’roll band that’s fronted by a guy she adores. I think it was a breath of fresh air for her.” 

Photo: Ethan Miller/Getty Images