(Credits: Far Out / Alamy)
Tue 28 October 2025 2:00, UK
Stevie Nicks is so unique that she is often a law unto herself. We’ve seen that proven many times. But what exactly was the moment that she realised her life was always going to be destined for rock and roll stardom?
Naturally, she was someone who knew exactly who she was from a young age. While most kids were off climbing trees or playing dress-up, Nicks – though likely guilty of a bit of that too – had her sights set on something much bigger. Becoming a star wasn’t just a daydream; it was the goal. Looking back, it’s no wonder she made it, given that she’d been chasing that dream since the fourth bloody grade.
Although the position as frontwoman of Fleetwood Mac soon dominated her view as she climbed the ladder of the industry, through that mixture of hedonism, storm clouds, and champagne, there wasn’t often time for Nicks to take stock of what truly set her on the path to becoming a musician. That was especially the case when her selection of feuds and foibles all too frequently got in the way. But after a turbulent 1970s, the ‘80s dawned to have a much clearer outlook for the singer. A solo career beckoned, and this also gave her the chance to reflect on her own inspirations as an individual.
“I listened to a lot of R&B soul radio,” she said in 1981, musing on her pivotal childhood moments. “I loved listening to the radio. When I was a child I was so enthralled with music. I can remember sitting in the backseat of our car with my mom and dad in the front.”
But when one song in particular began to float through the airwaves, she knew in an instant that everything was different. That was ‘Diana’ by Paul Anka. “That was in the fourth grade and that was as early as I remember keying into the radio thinking, ‘Man, I really love that song’,” she recalled.
This first major hit for Anka, released in 1957, went on to assume a much more significant mantle than its singular sentiment might lead you to believe. It not only launched its creator’s career, lasting decades and spawning a whole litany of hits on his own, but it also became one of the best-selling songs ever recorded by a Canadian artist. The fact that, as a by-product, it also inspired the musical intuition of one of the world’s greatest ever rock stars is almost like the sweetest cherry on top.
Of course, most artists will have a specific hero musician or time in their life that they can trace their sonic hopes and dreams back to, but Nicks is different in the sense that she can pinpoint hers with almost millimetric precision to the second that Anka’s ‘Diana’ got its first spin on the radio. She may have been only a child innocently singing along to her favourite song in the back seat of her parents’ car, but it’s the mark of the woman that she knew intrinsically, even back then, that this was always bound to lead her to greater things.
Ask any kid in fourth grade what they want to be when they grow up, and you’ll get a right mix of wild and wonderful answers. But keep an eye out for the ones with that extra bit of fire in their belly – that spark in their eye that says they’re not messing about. Those are the ones Nicks would probably see as kindred spirits, because nothing’s going to stand in their way. She only has to look in the mirror to know it’s true – she’s living proof.
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