If “romance ending in banishment” sounds like something straight out of a Stevie Nicks song, that’s because it’s the basis of a real-life event that helped create the title track and foundation of the album Nicks said she was “most proud of.” Indeed, if there were ever a specific album you could remember Nicks by, she’d hope that it was this one.
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Nicks said the album “defined how I would feel about love forever.” And on an even broader scale, the 1981 album would help define a new era of sentimental, overtly feminine rock.
How a Romance Ending in Banishment Created a Whole Album
Stevie Nicks was a bona fide rock star when the 1980s rolled around. She had already catapulted to fame as the tambourine-wielding vocalist of Fleetwood Mac. And although she contributed some of the band’s most iconic tracks, like “Dreams” and “Landslide,” not all of her songs made the cut. Sometimes, the band passed them over because they were too slow, too boring, or simply didn’t fit the album’s vibe. Nicks kept writing anyway. One song was about her boyfriend’s mother’s relationship that ended with military imprisonment. Nicks immediately knew she had the basis for a solo record. That song would be the title track: “Bella Donna.”
In an Instagram post from 2021, Nicks said she wrote the title track to Bella Donna “about my boyfriend’s mother, who was involved with a man in Chile during the coup that happened there in 1973. 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.”
Nicks went on to say that the album “defined how I would feel about love forever. 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.” She also said that she “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 [and] on so many levels.”
Stevie Nicks Said The Album Kept Fleetwood Mac Together
When a bandmate goes solo, it can often be the death knell for the group. Stevie Nicks’ departure from Fleetwood Mac in the early 1980s, no matter how temporary, caused many to wonder if this was the beginning of the end for the British-American rock band. After songs like “Edge of Seventeen” skyrocketed to the top of the charts, it became even easier to assume that Nicks was no longer interested in shaking the tambourine in a band with her hot-and-cold ex-boyfriend.
Public assumptions aside, Nicks disagreed that Bella Donna disaffected her other band. She argued in her social media post, “It did not break up Fleetwood Mac. If anything, it kept us together.” Speaking to Vermillion County First, Nicks said, “When I told Fleetwood Mac that I was gonna [record a solo album], they were, of course, terrified that I would do that record and then I would quit. I said to them, ‘I just need a vehicle. I have trunks of songs from 1973 that are never going to be heard. The only reason I’m doing this solo thing is so I can throw a few more songs out.”
Ultimately, Nicks said Bella Donna was the record she was “most proud of. And all because of a tragic love affair that caused an important and relevant song to be turned into a story that the world seemed to love. Thank you, Maria Teresa Rojas, for being my inspiration.”
Photo by MediaPunch/Shutterstock
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