The Tragic Backstory That Inspired Stevie Nicks To Write a Song for Joe Walsh: “Thank You, Joe”

It is fairly common knowledge that Joe Walsh and Stevie Nicks were a committed couple in the 1980s. However, their relationship came to an end when they both realized that together, they would not be able to beat their c—e addiction. So, in 1986, the two parted ways and went on to focus on themselves. Both Walsh and Nicks got sober years later. Before Nicks and Walsh parted ways because of shared troubles, Walsh inspired Nicks to write a song because of his own trouble—the loss of his two-year-old daughter, Emma Kristen Walsh.

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Before Joe Walsh joined the Eagles in 1975, Walsh’s late daughter and ex-wife, Stefany Rhodes, were involved in a car accident on April 1, 1974, in North Boulder, Colorado. Emma tragically sustained severe head injuries and passed away the night of the accident. Years later, due to grief and other factors, Rhodes and Walsh divorced in 1978.

A life event such as this one sticks with somebody forever, and while on a road trip in Colorado, Walsh shared a story pertaining to his daughter with Nicks. Moved by the story, Nicks went on to write the 1985 single, “Has Anyone Ever Written Anything For You?”

How Joe Walsh Aimed to Change Stevie Nicks’ Perspective

In the liner notes of the album TimeSpace, Nicks shared the tragic backstory that inspired the song she wrote for her ex-lover, Joe Walsh. In the liner notes, Nicks wrote, “I guess I had been complaining about a lot of things going on on the road, and he decided to make me aware of how unimportant my problems were if they were compared to worse sorrows.”

“So he told me that he had taken his little girl to this magic park whenever he could, and the only thing she EVER complained about was that she was too little to reach up to the drinking fountain. I saw the park… his baby’s park, and I burst into tears saying, ‘You built a drinking fountain here for her, didn’t you?’ I was right, under a huge beautiful hanging tree, was a tiny silver drinking fountain. I left Joe to get to it, and on it, it said, dedicated to HER and all the others who were too small to get a drink,” added Stevie Nicks, via Song Facts.

Nicks concluded, “Thank you, Joe, for the most committed song I ever wrote. But more than that, thank you for inspiring me in so many ways. Nothing in my life ever seems as dark anymore, since we took that drive.”

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