“Tusk” was the long-awaited follow-up to the landmark “Rumours” album, which has sold over millions. Several songs made it from “Tusk” to the charts, but none climbed as high as Stevie Nicks’ “Sara,” reaching No. 7 on the US Billboard Hot 100 charts. So how did this gentle and mystical masterpiece come about? ?
Fortunately, we have the answer in Nick’s own words. In various interviews he explained that he wrote this song in 1978, assisted by the singer and model Sara Recor, after whom the song is named. When the song was written, Nicks was quietly dating Mick Fleetwood, the band’s drummer, who had recently divorced. A few months later, Fleetwood left Nicks after falling in love with Recor (they would later marry, then divorce).
So what is this song about? Fleetwood Mac? Sarah record? Or someone else?
Eagle Don Henley, who dated Nicks for about 2 years in the late 1970s and early 1980s, believed it was an abortion Nicks had after getting her pregnant. Henley thinks it’s a tribute to the unborn child. He said that he was building a house at the time, and the lyrics “When you build your house, call me home” were meant for him. Nicks has not contradicted this. In an interview with US Magazine in 1990, he said, “That’s true. She did [build the house]. And I was in it before I finished it.”
However, Nicks once said that the song was about Fleetwood. “Sarah it was more or less about Mick. So, he was the ‘great dark wing’. And, oh, it was also about everything that was going on at that particular time, but he was the reason for, you know, the start of it all,” he told MTV Fanatic in 1996.
But in an interview on The Tommy Vance Show in 1994, Nicks said, “It’s about me, about her [Sara], about Mick, about Fleetwood Mac. It’s about all of us at that point. There are little details about each of us in that song and when I had all the other verses, it really covered a big group of people.”
other verses?
It seems that the original song was 16 minutes long. But the original vinyl version of canine It was only 6:27. However, when canine originally released as a compact disc single in 1987, this latest version was only 4:37, with the center verse and musical bridge from the vinyl version omitted. Later, the original 6:27 vinyl version appeared on Fleetwood Mac’s “Greatest Hits” from 1988, released in 1988. But none of these were the “real version”, which Nicks says has about 9 more verses.
And there is even another version! When Tusks was remastered and re-released in March 2004, there was a new version known as the ‘cleaning lady’ version (because Nicks is clearly audible at the beginning of the ‘I don’t wanna be a cleaning lady!’ demo recording). ‘). This particular version is almost nine minutes long and contains lyrics that had previously only been performed live, such as “and the wind went wild”, “no shame for Sara, you can’t have any more” and “swallow your whole pride, don Never change, never change.
All that clipping eventually made its way to Nicks because, as he said in the Tommy Vance interview, “The original Sarah it lasted 16 minutes. About nine more verses than you hear on the record. It was edited to 14 minutes, 11 minutes, 9 minutes, 7 minutes, 4 minutes and 40 seconds. I was at the point where I said, ‘Is the word Sarah is it even going to be in the song?”
And then there was the demand.
In 1980, a year after the song’s release, Stevie Nicks was sued for plagiarism by Carol Hinton of Rockford, Michigan. In late 1978, Hinton had written a song called “Sara”, which she had sent to Warner Brothers, which is Fleetwood Mac’s record label. The lyrics of the Hinton song and the Stevie Nicks song were similar. They both shared the lines, “Drowning in the sea of love” and “When you build your house, call me.” The lawsuit lasted for months, despite the fact that Nicks had multiple witnesses (including Kenny Loggins). Nicks refused to settle and defended himself against the lawsuit by showing that he had written and recorded a demo version of the song at producer Gordon Perry’s Dallas studio in July 1978, months before Hinton submitted the lyrics. to Warner. Ultimately, Hinton gave in and accepted that Nicks hadn’t stolen the song from him.
“There were great similarities in the lyrics,” Stevie later said, “and I never said that she didn’t write the words that she wrote. Just don’t tell me that I didn’t write the words that I did. Most people think that the other party will get there.” He settled out of court, but he chose the wrong songwriter. Calling me a thief for my first love, my songs, is going too far.”
So how does Nicks feel about his own songwriting? In 1986, Nicks checked into the Betty Ford Clinic for cocaine addiction. When she registered, she used the name “Sara”. She wrote “Welcome To The Room, Sara” about her experience there, which ended up on Fleetwood Mac’s 1987 album “Tango In The Night.”
But give Nicks the last word. In an interview with Jim Ladd in 1979, he said, “If I ever have a girl, I’ll call her Sara. It’s a very special name to me. I love singing it on stage. It’s the absolute delight of my night. There’s so much in it.” Sarah. And he is the poet in my heart, for sure.”