The Song That Took Stevie Nicks More Than 40 Years to Release After Being Lost in a Suitcase of Demos

By the early 1970s, Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham were living at the home of producer Keith Olse while they were struggling artists in Los Angeles. During this time, Nicks was writing songs she would later release at different points throughout her career.

Before Nicks and Buckingham were asked to join Fleetwood Mac in 1974, she already amassed a batch of songs she had written, including her later Bella Donna track “After the Glitter Fades,” a Hollywood story she originally wanted Dolly Parton to sing, and some Fleetwood Mac hits, including “Rhiannon,” inspired by a Welsh witch, “Landslide,” about her deteriorating relationship with Buckingham and their struggles. Others she filed away and some were later lost when a suitcase of her earlier demos were accidently sold in the early ’80s.

“Lady” was another song Nicks wrote during this time, the first she had ever written on piano. “I think ‘Lady’ was written at the end of 1971 or [the] beginning of 1972 when Lindsey and I got our first piano,” recalled Nicks. “I think it was the first song I ever wrote on a piano.”

[RELATED: The Ballad Stevie Nicks Wrote for Joe Walsh After an Unforgettable Car Ride With Him, “Has Anyone Ever Written Anything For You”]

‘What is to Become of Me’

Nicks’ lyrics reveal her fears about her life and career at the time—And I wonder what is to become of me.

Come lately, I just keep waiting

I see nothing out there

The sun keeps throwin’ out the light from the clouds

But there’s no light in here

I know that things have got to change

But how to change them isn’t clear

I’m tired of knockin’ on doors

When there’s nobody there

You know I’m tired of knockin’ on doors

When there’s nobody there

And the time keeps going on by

And I wonder what is to become of me

And I’m unsure, I can’t see my way

And he says, “Lady, you don’t have to see”

And the time keeps going on by

And I wonder what is to become of me

And I’m unsure, I can’t see my way

And he says, “Lady, you don’t need to see”

And he says, “Lady, you don’t need to see”

Lost and Found: Nicks’ Suitcase of Songs

Nicks never released “Lady” with Fleetwood Mac and finally shared it more than 40 years later on her 2014 album 24 Karat Gold: Songs from the Vault, a collection of previously unreleased and newly recorded songs she had written in the 1970s and early ’80s.

“Almost all of those were what I call songs that went in the gothic trunk of lost songs,” said Nicks. “For whatever reason, they didn’t go on records. It wasn’t because they weren’t good enough. It was because I didn’t like the way they were recorded, or there were too many songs, and when you’re putting twelve songs together, sometimes you have to lose a song that you really love just because you have too many slow songs and you need more fast songs. When you’re sequencing your record, it’s a piece of work, it’s not about each separate song.

For years, “Lady” and other songs were lost in a suitcase that was accidently sold at a flea market while she was touring in 1983, following her divorce from Kim Anderson. “The songs have been travelling around the Internet now,” said Nicks of some of the songs from 24 Karat Gold. “A lot of people out in the audience knew the songs, but then there’s the next two generations that probably didn’t know them. So I figured you just have to tell them the story of each one of those really unfamiliar songs: what it was about, who was involved, and when it was written, and build a story around it.”

[RELATED: The Country Ballad Stevie Nicks Wrote for Dolly Parton, Later Covered by Glen Campbell, “After the Glitter Fades”]

She added, “I don’t think that the people who bought it necessarily even knew what was exactly in it either. But somebody [eventually] figured out what it was, and then all of a sudden all these demos were out there in the world. So some fans who found out about this bought them and sent them back to me. That’s how cool my fans are.”

Nicks took the demos to Nashville and wanted to record the old songs just as they were with producers Dave Stewart and Waddy Wachtel. “That’s why I love that record so much,” said Nicks, “because the songs on there are really close to how I wrote them.”

Photo: Fin Costello/Redferns