Two Devastating Losses Inspired Stevie Nicks To Write This Early Hit

In 1982, Stevie Nicks had her third big single as a solo artist, with “Edge Of Seventeen”. On her debut Bella Donna album, Nicks wrote “Edge Of Seventeen” by herself.

“Edge Of Seventeen” says, “He was no more / Than a baby then / Well, he seemed broken-hearted / Somethin’ within him / But the moment / That I first laid / Eyes on him / All alone on the edge of seventeen.” The sad song was inspired by not one, but two heartbreaking losses Nick experienced: both John Lennon and a beloved uncle.

Ironically, Nicks never actually met Lennon. Still, she felt a kinship with him, and they did share a close connection.

 “I was in Australia when John Lennon was shot,” Nicks remembers. “Everybody was devastated. I didn’t know John Lennon. But I knew Jimmy Iovine, who worked with John quite a bit in the ’70s, and heard all the loving stories that Jimmy told about him. When I came back to Phoenix, I started to write this song.”

How the Death of Stevie Nicks’ Uncle Inspired Her to Finish “Edge Of Seventeen”

Sadly, when Nicks arrived in Phoenix, she found out that her Uncle Bill had terminal cancer. His death also inspired part of “Edge Of Seventeen”, including the lines, “When I went searching for an answer / Up the stairs and down the hall / Not to find an answer / Just to hear the call / Of a nightbird singing / Come away.”

“[He] got very sick very fast, and died in a couple of weeks,” Nicks shares. “My cousin John Nicks and I were in the room when he died. There was just John and I there. That was part of the song when I went running down the hallways looking for somebody. I thought, ‘Where’s my mom? Where’s his wife and the rest of the family?’ At that point, I went back to the piano and finished the song.”

The emotions in “Edge Of Seventeen” are intertwined between both Lennon and her uncle, even though their circumstances were very different. She brings them together especially in the lines, “Just like the white-winged dove / Sings a song / Sounds like she’s singing / Whoo, baby, whoo, said whoo.“

“To me, the white-winged dove was for John Lennon, the dove of peace,” Nicks explains. “And for my uncle, it was the white-winged dove who lives in the Saguaro Cactus. That’s how I found out about the white-winged dove, and it does make a sound like whoo, whoo, whoo. I read that somewhere in Phoenix and thought I would use that in this song. The dove became exciting and sad and tragic and incredibly dramatic.”

“Every time I sing this song I have that ability to go back to that two-month period where it all came down,” she adds. “I’ve never changed it, and I can’t imagine ending my show with any other song. It’s such a strong, private moment that I share in this song.”

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