The Story Behind the Song Stevie Nicks Wrote in 1975 But Never Shared With Fleetwood Mac

Shortly after joining Fleetwood Mac on New Year’s Eve, 1974, with Lindsey Buckingham, Stevie Nicks already had a batch of songs in her books, some of which she presented to the band, including classics “Dreams,” “Landslide,” and “Rhiannon.”

Then there were songs, including many she had written in her teenage years before joining the band, which she archived indefinitely. Some of Nicks’ songs, dating as far back as 1969, were lost and later recovered in a “dark Gothic trunk of mystical, magical lost songs,” which Nicks later recovered and recorded for her 2014 album 24 Karat Gold: Songs from the Vault.

Years earlier, while working on her 2011 album In Your Dreams with producers Glen Ballard and Dave Stewart, Nicks also dug up another old song she had neglected for decades since first writing it in 1975. After she wrote it, Nicks remembered stuffing it in a box at her parents’ home in Phoenix, Arizona. The song was so old she didn’t even remember who she originally wrote it about.

“Our next song was written about I don’t remember,” joked Nicks during a 2011 concert. “This song is about some ancient creature that we can’t remember, but we wish him well. He got a song out of it.”

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[RELATED: The Ballad Stevie Nicks Wrote for Joe Walsh After an Unforgettable Car Ride]

‘My secret love secretly died’

Nicks’ lyrics find solace in accepting a love that was never meant to be.

Come on, it’s time to go upstairs
But I don’t want to be leaving you here
I can’t go be in that room alone
When I know that you’re down here in tears

I am not asking forever from you
I’m just asking to be held for awhile
In a timeless search for love that might work
We’re already paying the price

But you need some rest
My darling, it’s best
But we already passed it, I cried
Ooh, eeh
Listen to me
My secret love secretly died

The song remained lost for more than three decades until her sister-in-law and backup singer, Lori Perry Nicks, dug it out of a storage vault housing old cassettes in Phoenix.

“I pulled songs from 1976 that I don’t know why in the world did not go in the first Fleetwood Mac album,” Nicks told The Ventura County Star in 2010. “I must’ve misplaced the cassette. … It’s kind of been lost for 30 years.”

“Secret Love” did get a second chance in 2011 as the lead single of Nicks’ seventh solo album, In Your Dreams.

Making the ‘Rumours’ Cut

Before boxing it away, Nicks originally recorded a demo of “Secret Love” for Fleetwood Mac’s 1977 album, Rumours. “Something in my head,” recalled Nicks, “I saw the cassette in my head with the little ink that said, ‘Secret Love.’”

Written a year after she joined Fleetwood Mac, Nicks said it was “crazy” that “Secret Love” never became one of the band’s songs.

“This is a very easy, simple, precise song that Lindsey Buckingham would’ve loved, and Fleetwood Mac would’ve loved,” said Nicks. “I put it away right after I joined the band, and for some reason, I never put it on any of my records either.”

Photo: Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images