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Fleetwood Mac · S6 E3
Gypsy
Stevie looks back at her bohemian past before the fame. The saddest, most nostalgic melody she has ever written
A piano in a rented house in Los Angeles, 1981. Stevie Nicks plays a melody she's been carrying since before Fleetwood Mac existed, before the fame, before the cocaine, before any of it, and starts crying before she finishes the first verse.
"Stand Back" (Stevie Nicks, 1983). Stevie at her most cinematic and untouchable. While this solo single came after Mirage, it captures the same mystical, spinning-in-chiffon energy that powered "Gypsy." The woman who wrote about her bohemian past became the bohemian past other women wrote songs about.
Before the Gold Dust
"Gypsy" is about a time before Fleetwood Mac, before Rumours, before any of it. Stevie wrote it about the years she and Lindsey spent living together in a tiny apartment in Los Angeles, broke and anonymous, sleeping on a mattress on the floor with velvet curtains they'd found at a thrift store. The song mourns a version of herself that fame erased. She's not writing about a breakup. She's writing about the death of who she used to be.
Sources
Davis, Stephen. "Gold Dust Woman: The Biography of Stevie Nicks." St. Martin's Press, 2017.
Nicks, Stevie. Various interviews compiled in Zoë Howe's "Stevie Nicks: Visions, Dreams & Rumours." Omnibus Press, 2014.
“So that's what 'Gypsy' means: it's just a search for before this all happened.”
— Stevie Nicks, on "Gypsy," interview with Entertainment Weekly, 2009
TAP TO REVEAL: What specific memory inspired the opening of "Gypsy"?
Stand Back, Stevie Nicks (1983)
"Stand Back" was written in a single sitting after Stevie heard Prince's "Little Red Corvette" on the radio during her honeymoon. She called Prince, who came to the studio and played the synth part that drives the entire track. The production is bigger and more electronic than anything Stevie had done with Fleetwood Mac: pulsing synthesizers, a driving beat, and a vocal that sounds like she's commanding a stadium from inside a cathedral. Listen for the synth riff that enters after the first chorus. That's Prince, uncredited, playing on someone else's hit.
Sources
Davis, Stephen. "Gold Dust Woman." St. Martin's Press, 2017.
The Velvet Underground Store, San Francisco
The vintage clothing and fabric shop on Haight Street that inspired the opening imagery of "Gypsy." Stevie and Lindsey used to buy scraps of velvet and lace here to decorate their apartment when they were broke. The store closed before the song was written, and driving past the empty space triggered the entire lyric.
Gypsy: The Details
That's Alright, Fleetwood Mac (1982)
"That's Alright" is a Mirage deep cut that captures the album's strange atmosphere of resignation. The production is smooth and radio-friendly, but the lyric accepts a situation that clearly isn't alright at all. For an episode about "Gypsy" and the ache of looking backward, this track represents the band's collective mood during Mirage: going through the motions, making the songs sound fine, while everything underneath is coming apart.
That's Alright, Fleetwood Mac (1982)
"That's alright, I will wait for you." The lyric reads like patience, but in the context of a band where everyone is simultaneously breaking up and staying together, it reads more like exhaustion. The melody is warm and the arrangement is polished, which is exactly the point. Mirage is an album that sounds beautiful on the surface while everything underneath is cracking. "That's Alright" is the sound of someone who's decided to stop fighting it.
Which uncredited musician played the signature synth riff on Stevie Nicks' solo hit "Stand Back"?
"Gypsy" is the emotional peak of Mirage, but Christine McVie has a different kind of song holding the album together. Next: "Love in Store," steady craftsmanship, and the woman who kept writing hits while everyone else was falling apart.
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