Stevie Nicks is no stranger to writing (and performing) sentimental songs with deep connections to real events and people in her life, but the former Fleetwood Mac frontwoman has refused to perform one particular song from her repertoire, saying it’s far too emotional to play live. And it’s easy to see why.
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Nicks’ 2003 track recounts the painful memories of a day no American who was alive to witness it will ever forget, including Nicks herself, who was only six miles away when it happened.
The Rock Star Was Minutes Away From 9/11
Stevie Nicks’ “Illume (9-11)” is the third track off Fleetwood Mac’s seventeenth and final studio album, Say You Will. As the name suggests, Nicks wrote the song while trying to process the harrowing emotions of the terror attacks on the World Trade Center towers on September 11, 2001. Although the national tragedy impacted virtually every corner of the United States, it felt especially pressing to Nicks, who was only a few miles away from the Twin Towers when they fell.
“It seems like yesterday,” Nicks recalled in a 2020 memorial post on social media. “Looking down from high up in the Waldorf Astoria Hotel at 7:30 on the morning of 9/11 at a sea of yellow cabs, thinking about going out to enjoy the beauty of New York, deciding to go to sleep for a few hours, and then go out. The next time I looked out of that same window, it was totally gray. No sign of life. My assistant didn’t wake me until after the second plane hit, and the world changed.”
“I’ve never been a political person, but suddenly, I felt like I was in the middle of history,” Nicks told USA Today in 2003. “We were at the Waldorf with all these foreign diplomats. It was very scary. I watched people jumping from the Twin Towers on a Mexican TV channel. We put wet towels in the windows to keep out the burning iron smell.”
Stevie Nicks Refuses To Play This Song Live
In a moment of immense horror and tragedy like 9/11, Stevie Nicks was no longer a rock star. She was just another American, like any one of us, watching the events’ aftermath unfold in real time on national television. She had been in New York City to perform, and understandably, she debated canceling the tour.
“But my parents and friends, like Tom Petty and Don Henley, kept saying, ‘People paid to see your show. If they’re willing to go out in this frightening world, don’t you dare come home,’” Nicks told USA Today. “It was hard to walk on stage and not burst into tears. I was almost hysterical. All my songs suddenly seemed to be about 9/11.” When the tour finished six weeks later, Nicks sat down and wrote her tribute, “Illume (9-11).”
“I didn’t set out to write a September 11th song. It just happened,” Nicks later explained. “I tell you, my heart was so very heavy and full at this time. I was so confused.” Although Fleetwood Mac put the song on their final album in 2003, they never translated the studio version to the stage. “I have never been able to sing it on stage,” Nicks said in her social media post from 2020. “I can still hardly listen to it 19 years later.”
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