NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA - APRIL 25: Stevie Nicks performs during the 55th Annual New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival at Fair Grounds Race Course on April 25, 2026 in New Orleans, Louisiana. (Photo by Tim Mosenfelder/Getty Images for ABA)

Getty Images for ABA

The first time that author Annie Zaleski truly became a Stevie Nicks fan was as a kid in the 1980s, a decade that saw the legendary singer-songwriter in the midst of a successful career as a solo artist and a member of Fleetwood Mac. Although Zaleski’s parents had Fleetwood Mac’s popular 1970s records in their collection, it was the band’s 1987 album Tango in the Night that stuck with her.

“I definitely remember hearing all that stuff on the radio and really loving it, "Everywhere" especially,” she says. “I’m pretty sure I have a tape [that I recorded from the radio] where I have that song in particular kind of fading out because I really like that. I was pretty young at that point. So Stevie and Fleetwood Mac have been with me through my entire life.”

Zaleski channeled her admiration for the music of Nicks, who turns 78 today, into her latest book Stevie Nicks in 50 Songs (published by Running Press), which tells the story of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame artist through the songs that shaped her life and career, from the 1955 Red Sovine and Goldie Hill song “Are You Mine,” to the 2024 Taylor Swift track “Clara Bow.” In between are anecdotes about some of her key solo and Fleetwood Mac songs such as “Rhiannon,” “Dreams,” “Gold Dust Woman," “Sara,” “Leather and Lace,” “Gypsy,” “I Can’t Wait,” “Talk to Me” and “Planets of the Universe.”

In addition to the main text and many archival images of the singer throughout the years, this immersive book contains sidebars devoted to other aspects of Nicks’ career, including her fashions, collaborations and friendships, causes, and place in pop culture.

“A lot of journalists asked me, ‘So if you could write a book about anyone else, who would it be?’" recalls Zaleski. “And my immediate answer was ‘Stevie Nicks.’ Because I’m a huge fan, and I felt like there wasn’t a really good book that focused on her music. Some point after that, the editor that I worked with on a book I released on Cher last year emailed me, and she’s like, ‘Are you a Stevie Nicks fan? I’m thinking about pitching a book.’ I could not answer that email any quicker. I’m like, ‘Absolutely. What do we need to do?’ So it basically grew out of that."

In this interview, which has been edited for length and clarity, Zaleski talks about the singer’s music; the backstories behind some of her famous songs; and her enduring appeal after more than 50 years, especially with future generations of artists.

David Chiu: In working on the book, what do you see as a common thread that the 50 songs share? Is there a throughline in her music?

Annie Zaleski: What's interesting about it is that her lyrics are so poetic and so vulnerable. And she has the remarkable ability to talk about kind of what she's going through and make it universal in a way that it could mean something totally different to someone else, even though if she started off writing a song about a very specific element or specific situation in her life, that kind of expanded from there.

Obviously, there’s always a very strong melody, very strong hook. And she has the knack to think about how the narrative can support a hook? There’s a reason why she wrote some of Fleetwood Mac’s biggest hits, because she knows how to make poetic pop songs.

Chiu: The book is truly a deep-dive of her career with not only stories about each of the 50 songs, but the images and sidebars also add to the narrative.

Zaleski: There’s so much context around Stevie…It starts with the music, but she’s a cultural icon and figure. Her aesthetic is also such a part of why I think she’s so wonderful. So we wanted to have those in there as well to give people the full picture.

Chiu: I would love for you to riff on some of the songs discussed in the book, starting with Fleetwood Mac’s 1975 classic “Rhiannon,” which she wrote. One thing I didn’t know was that there was talk of a potential movie inspired by the song.

Zaleski: That was actually one of the most fascinating things. She got a record solo record deal in early '79. And at the time, her album was going to be the soundtrack to a film adaptation of “Rhiannon.” She was going to film it in Wales in the fall. It was full steam ahead, and she was going to star in it. And whatever happened that year, Fleetwood Mac made Tusk. So this whole project that was seriously envisioned never happened.

I think “Rhiannon” is such a visual song, and it’s something that makes sense why it would be a movie. She took the name from a book by this author named Mary Bartlet Leader called Triad: A Novel of the Supernatural and Salem’s Children. It’s about this girl who becomes possessed by a spirit named Rhiannon. And that something in Stevie, and so she sat down at the piano. Then that grew into kind of bringing in Welsh storytelling as well because Rhiannon’s a goddess [in Wales]. That’s a good example of Stevie taking something very small and kind of making this fantastical world around it.

Chiu: Another classic song she wrote for Fleetwood Mac is “Dreams,” the only U.S. number one song that the group ever had in their career.

Zaleski: A lot of people came to the song from the viral video during the COVID lockdown, where we had 420dogface208 on TikTok drinking cranberry juice and skateboarding [to the song]. So it kind of had a moment in recent years. It was basically about her breakup with Lindsey [Buckingham]. And what I love about the lyrics, basically, the narrator's telling like a restless partner, "Be careful what you wish for. Grass isn't always greener.”

Obviously, this is on [Fleetwood Mac’s 1977 album] Rumours, and Rumours is basically this whole conversation between the individual band members. Rather than actually talking to each other, they wrote songs about each other. So she basically was trying to work through her breakup on that. What a really timeless-sounding song.

Chiu: “Silver Springs” has sort of attained a sense of legend in its own right because it was supposed to be on Rumours, but instead became a B-side for a single. And then it received renewed popularity through the band’s performance of the song for Fleetwood Mac’s 1997 live album The Dance.

Zaleski: They had too many songs [for Rumours], and they left it off. And Stevie always loved the song. This was basically a song that meant a lot to her. What was interesting was that I discovered that one of the things that precipitated her exit from Fleetwood Mac in the late '80s was that she wanted to have this song on a solo compilation. I think it was Mick [Fleetwood] who said, "Nope." And she was like, "All right. I'm quitting the band." So it was just one of these things that it was just that it meant absolutely so much to her.

What’s interesting is that I remember the performance [from The Dance]. But it wasn’t until later when it was on YouTube, and it got passed around, that it took on a lot more significance, where Stevie’s kind of singing the song directly to Lindsey — as I put it, like working things out on the remix, literally right there in real time.

Chiu: Stevie’s first solo album was 1981’s Bella Donna, which featured “Edge of Seventeen,” one of her many iconic songs outside of the Mac.

Zaleski: This song has so many different pieces and parts of source material. So the white-winged dove, for example, she said at one point, was from a menu that she received on an airplane that mentioned the bird being protected by a cactus. But the song symbolized multiple people in her life who had died or were sick when she wrote the song. She was dating [producer] Jimmy Iovine at the time; this was coming together when John Lennon died. She had an uncle who died.

The phrase “edge of seventeen” came because Stevie misheard Tom Petty’s then-wife [Jane saying] “the age of 17,” and she interpreted it as “the edge of 17.” It’s so funny seeing how all that sort of stuff came together. This is another example of a song. You don’t necessarily need to know the full sort of inspiration behind it because it’s just so galvanizing. It is just such a mission statement for her, basically. Obviously, [Destiny’s Child’s] “Bootylicious” samples it, and they kind of brought it back into pop culture, too.

Chiu: Speaking of Tom Petty, he is indelibly linked with Stevie through their collaboration on “Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around,” also from the Bella Donna album.

Zaleski: I’ve always just really loved their friendship. The Heartbreakers had recorded a version of it. And I guess Jimmy Iovine apparently asked Tom if Stevie could try that, basically. But then Tom had a slightly different recollection. He wrote a song called "Insider," which is a fantastic song for her. But then Tom kind of took it back. So they kind of traded songs, basically, because he felt guilty that he didn’t give Stevie "Insider." It depends on who you ask about the origin story.

The other thing about her is she’s an amazing solo artist, but she works well with other vocalists just so incredibly. Obviously, people like Don Henley and then within Fleetwood Mac, she just has a wonderful ability to harmonize. And I mentioned earlier that harmonies are a big sort of feature of a lot of the songs she writes, but that [track] in particular.

Chiu: I had no idea until much later that Prince had a connection with Steve’s big hit in 1983, “Stand Back,” from The Wild Heart.

Zaleski: Stevie heard “Little Red Corvette” on the radio, and she was so inspired that she got an idea. She was briefly married in the early '80s, and she was on the way to her honeymoon. She basically made her new husband pull off the side of the road, and she had to get a cassette player and get her sort of ideas down. And so she asked Prince to call up and play on the song. And I love it. I found a quote where she said, "I track down Prince's phone number, and because I'm Stevie Nicks, I can get it," which is just so very Stevie Nicks thing to say.

She basically told him she wrote the song to “Little Red Corvette,” and apparently offered him royalties. He didn’t take her up on the proposal. But he came into the studio, apparently did it very quickly and then left. I love it. I didn’t realize that beyond that sort of session, they actually had hung out a little bit. There was talk of them actually writing together, which was very, very interesting because I think that's not something that people realize.

Chiu: And I was so happy that you included "Rooms on Fire," from the 1989 album The Other Side of the Mirror, in the book. It was a hit song back then, but now it has kind of been forgotten after 37 years.

Zaleski: It's also such a deeply personal song that she wrote it about a rock and roll star who is pretty much accepted that she'll never be married or have kids or a husband, and she's accepted it, which is a pretty serious topic for a pop song.

She kind of hinted around who it was. The prevailing belief is that it’s about Rupert Hine, who produced the record that this was on…This song that she’s writing about someone who’s producing a record, and it's about how you can never be married.

Chiu: Fast-forward to recent years, she tackled the political and social climate at of the times for the song “The Lighthouse” in 2024, a rare thing in her songwriting.

Zaleski: That’s very true. In recent years, I think on social media [she] has been very outspoken. But her songs have been pretty personal and vulnerable. I think she’s like, "This is too important not to." So “The Lighthouse” is about fighting for your rights and taking your power back from oppressive forces. And she wrote and recorded in less than a day, a couple of months after the Supreme Court overturned Roe vs. Wade.

I love what she said was she told CBS News, “Everybody kept saying, ‘Well, somebody has to do something. Somebody has to say something. Well, I have a platform. I tell a good story. So maybe I should try to do something.’” She basically realized that she needed to speak up. And it’s a great song, very stormy, as the title kind of implies, and just a strong song.

Chiu: It is remarkable how, after all these decades in music, she has this sort of special connection with younger stars, like Taylor Swift, Harry Styles and Lana del Rey. Why is that?

Zaleski: Part of it is the fact that Fleetwood Mac and Stevie herself have such resonance with younger artists. it’s funny because I think over a decade ago, there was like a Fleetwood Mac tribute record. So every decade or so, there’s a bunch of pop stars and young stars who cover Fleetwood Mac or say, "Hey, they're a real influence on me." Hayley Williams is an example. She's a big fan [along with] Bethany Cosentino from Best Coast and currently Harry Styles and Taylor Swift.

I think it’s because Stevie’s also really generous. Stevie has never been someone who’s gatekeeping knowledge or thinks she’s better than anyone else. She has a lot of respect for what artists do. That makes a difference. The thing is that she's been doing this for so long. She doesn't have to; she can kind of do whatever she wants at this point.

And she’s choosing to be a mentor to people and be this sort of role model figure for people. So I think that’s because I think people pick up on that. She has so much respect for them. That’s a powerful thing when you have someone so talented treat you like an equal, treat you like a peer. And so you can just tell that the way she treats people, it endears her to younger generations.