Stevie Nicks is everywhere the past few weeks, appearing on Saturday Night Live, releasing a new song about women’s rights and, most recently, appearing on a CBS Sunday show to talk about the abortion she underwent at the height of the band’s fame. In 1979, around the time of “Rumours,” she was impregnated by Don Henley of the Eagles. The band, she said, would have been destroyed if she hadn’t.
I always found Nicks the least interesting of Fleetwood Mac’s trio of songwriters, but I did like one song she wrote. I don’t know why “Gypsy” resonates with me when the rest of her catalog doesn’t. Maybe it’s that descending bass line, or her heartfelt nostalgia for the early days of her career (the Velvet Underground was a vintage clothing store in San Francisco she used to shop at). Maybe it’s the emotional charge the tune took on after Nicks’ best friend, Robin Anderson, died of leukemia.
Nicks wrote the tune around 1979, and recorded a demo when she was considering songs for her first solo LP, “Bella Donna.” Even with no embellishment, she creates the song’s spell with just her voice and electric piano.
The song went through a long development period. Various demos have been released over the years, showing how it evolved in the studio. This one, released on with the 2016 remaster of “Mirage,” is less cluttered than the final version, and leaves in her lyric about Anderson, “I still see your bright eyes … I can’t find you.”
The final version wasn’t released until 1982 on the band’s “Mirage” album. It shows how much Lindsey Buckingham’s arrangements unified the band’s sound.
