As two exceptionally unique and individualistic songwriters, it can be easy to assume Stevie Nicks and Prince don’t have much in common. But that eccentricity is their shared trait, attracting one another to a musical partnership that teetered on romance without ever going over the edge. That was for the best, Stevie Nicks later said, because a failed affair never soured their working relationship. (And if anyone knows the dangers of working with a lover, it would be the former frontwoman of Fleetwood Mac.)
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Even with a subtly flirtatious dynamic between the two musicians, Nicks and Prince collaborated several times to great effect. He played synth on her track “Stand Back”, which she wrote over top of Prince’s track, “Little Red Corvette”, hence why she asked him to perform on the song. Prince also loosely based “When Doves Cry” on Nicks’ “Edge of Seventeen”, which features a refrain about a “white-winged dove.” After Nicks realized Prince paid homage to her in his song, she began incorporating lyrics from “When Doves Cry” into live performances of her hit single from her debut solo album, Bella Donna.
But there was another song in Prince’s catalogue that he tried to convince Nicks to co-write—a collaboration that surely would have been one for the ages. But the “Dreams” singer ultimately refused Prince’s request.
Why Stevie Nicks Didn’t Help Prince Co-Write This Signature Track
Sometime after Prince tracked synth and drum machine parts for Nicks’ 1983 song, “Stand Back”, he reached out to her about writing lyrics for an instrumental track he was working on. The sprawling, ten-minute track was the foundation for “Purple Rain”, a song that has since become synonymous with Prince’s musical legacy. It would have been a stunning collaboration, no doubt, but Nicks refused.
“It was so epic,” she told Classic Rock in 2013. “So off-the-scale. I told him, ‘Prince, I’m sorry. But I’ve listened to this a hundred times, and I don’t know where to start.’ It felt like a movie. It became a movie [and] his signature song. I always feel like there’s a little bit of me in it. The thing is, I think Prince would have liked a romance, but I didn’t want that. If that had happened, we wouldn’t have had a musical relationship.” Still, she said she was “very flattered” to know Prince might have been sweet on her.
Even after his passing, Nicks feels a strong connection to her late friend. “The saddest thing of all is Prince and I never played that song onstage together,” Nicks told Rolling Stone of “Stand Back”. “That just breaks my heart. I guess we all think we’re immortal. I always thought we had plenty of time. But you know, I feel like Prince is with me. When I’m nervous, I’ll talk to Prince. In my solo act, when I do “Moonlight”, I wear this white wolfy coat, [and] I try to transform into a Dire Wolf from Game of Thrones. And before I go on, I always say, ‘Walk with me, Prince.’”
Photo by Ross Marino/Getty Images
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