In 1981, Stevie Nicks officially stepped away from the personal and creative chaos within Fleetwood Mac by releasing her first solo album. The project had been years in the making, beginning while the hit rock band was at work crafting their twelfth album, Tusk. Although the group’s experimental record is critically acclaimed now, it didn’t earn the initial commercial success of their previous breakout LP Rumours.
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The commercial disappointment of Tusk didn’t deter Nicks from pursuing her own vision for her debut solo record. Her choice to stay true to herself was a win for Nicks and music fans alike. The twelve-track LP, titled Bella Donna, became a massive hit and majorly shifted the trajectory of her life and career.
Keep reading to learn what inspired Stevie Nicks to write “Bella Donna,” the hypnotic title track from her beloved 1981 debut solo album.
The Lyrics
Set atop lines of glittering piano, Nicks’s captivating lyrics reflect the perspective of someone who sees through someone’s pompous public persona.
You can ride high atop your pony
I know you won’t fall
‘Cause the whole thing’s phoney
You can fly swinging from your trapeze
Scaring all the people
But you’ll never scare me
She goes on to poetically explain the feeling of reaching the end of your patience and choosing to leave love behind for self-preservation.
And the woman may be awestruck
And the woman may truly care
But the woman is so tired
So the woman disappears
Come in out of the darkness
Bella Donna, my soul
The Meaning
For many years, the true inspiration and meaning of “Bella Donna” had been debated by fans. In a 1981 interview with Rolling Stone around the album’s release, Nicks discussed the song’s subject matter in broad terms.
“‘Bella Donna’ is a term of endearment I use, and the title is about making a lot of decisions in my life, making a change based on the turmoil in my soul,” Nicks explained. “You get to a certain age where you want to slow down, be quieter. The title song was basically a warning to myself and a question to others. I’m thirty-three years old, and my life has been very up and down in the last six years.”
Forty years later, Nicks elaborated on the true inspiration behind “Bella Donna” through a post shared on her Instagram account.
“The song was written about my boyfriend’s mother, who was involved with a man in Chile during the coup that happened there in 1973,” she wrote. “The man she loved was banished to France. Banished—or imprisoned, that was the choice. The love story never really ended, but she never saw him again. I was so touched by this story of lost love that I wrote ‘Bella Donna.’
“The moment the poem and then the song was finished, I knew I had the basis for my first solo record. I believed in it deeply from the bottom of my heart,” Nicks continued. “I never doubted for a moment that this song would be the title of the record and that it would change my life in so many ways—on so many levels.”
The Impact
In many ways, the post shot down longstanding rumors about the song being born out of her rocky relationship with bandmate Lindsey Buckingham. Instead of focusing on false narratives, Nicks described how crafting “Bella Donna” helped reshape her perspective on what love really is.
“It defined how I would feel about love forever,” she added. “It broke my heart and gave me the strength to fight for it—It was a fine line to walk between love and hate and passion.”
The rock icon did take the opportunity to directly address rumors that the song—and her solo record as a whole—had caused lasting division amongst her and her bandmates.
“It did not break up Fleetwood Mac,” Nicks declared. “If anything, it kept us together.”
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