Stevie Nicks Made Her Views on Marriage Crystal Clear in This Mike Campbell Co-Write That Took Nearly 30 Years to Release

When working on her debut solo album, Bella Donna, Stevie Nicks insisted on getting Tom Petty involved in a collaboration. “Stevie came to me around ’78, and she was this absolutely stoned-gone huge fan, and it was her mission in life that I should write her a song,” recalled Petty in the 2005 book Conversations with Tom Petty. “And we were a little wary of Stevie. We didn’t quite know whether to like Stevie or not, because we kind of saw this big corporate rock band, Fleetwood Mac, which was wrong; they were actually artistic people.” 

Petty continued, “But in those days, nobody trusted that sort of thing, and we just kept thinking, ‘What does she want from us?’ And then, of course, she turned into one of my great, great friends forever. But Stevie was really adamant about me writing her a song.”

Petty ended up writing “Insider,” but decided to keep that one for The Heartbreakers. Producer Jimmy Iovine then suggested a song Petty and Mike Campbell had written called “Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around.” The single went to No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100 and was the first of many collaborations with Petty and Campbell. Both went on to work on Nicks’ second album, The Wild Heart, with the Petty-penned “I Will Run to You,” backed by the Heartbreakers.

By Nicks’ third album, Rock a Little, in 1985, Campbell was on board as a co-producer and also co-wrote the track “Imperial Hotel” with Stevie. Campbell would go on to work on every Nicks album thereafter, writing three more tracks on her follow-up, The Other Side of the Mirror, in 1989, along with her 1994 release Street Angel. He also co-produced Nicks’ 2001 album, Trouble in Shangri-La, and contributed to her 2011 album, In Your Dreams.

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 ’24 Karat Gold’

In 2014, Nicks released her eighth album, 24 Karat Gold: Songs from the Vault, co-produced with Dave Stewart and Waddy Wachtel, and featuring another Campbell contribution, the smokier rocker “I Don’t Care.”

Campbell initially wrote the song for Nicks as an instrumental during the 1980s, and nearly three decades later, she revisited it for her 2014 album 24 Karat Gold in Nashville, adding new lyrics. Musically, Nicks likened the harder rocker to something akin, in energy and style, to Led Zeppelin.

“It is my best Led Zeppelin offering ever,” said Nicks.

I don’t care where you go
I don’t care what you do
I don’t care what you said
I just care that you love me

Sometimes love happens
Things you never dreamed

Co-written by Nicks with Campbell and Wachtel, the lyrics reflect on her relationship with Lindsey Buckingham and her aversion to marriage. Though Nicks did briefly wed Kim Anderson after his wife and her friend Robin died from leukemia, her journey wasn’t about the diamond rings, but more about making music.

I don’t care what you do
I don’t care, it’s not my thing
I don’t care about diamond rings
I just care that you need it

I don’t care about next year
I don’t care about yesterday
I don’t care that you don’t see it
I just care that you feel it

“In the beginning of my relationship with Lindsey, I realized that being in a relationship with a very powerful, controlling man probably wouldn’t work out for me in the future as an artist,” revealed Nicks in a 2015 interview.

“Something in my little songwriter’s heart said, ‘This is what I’m always going to do,’” she added. “I’m going to do that whether I’m with Lindsey or whether I go and find another guitar player to play music for me and we go play at Chuck’s Steak House.”

Photo: Stevie Nicks of Fleetwood Mac performs live at The Oakland Coliseum in 1977 in Oakland, California. (Richard McCaffrey/ Michael Ochs Archive/ Getty Images)