Behind Stevie Nicks’ New Song “Lighthouse” and Why She Calls It “The Most Important Thing” She’ll Ever Do

Stevie Nicks is the creative force behind some of the most iconic songs in rock ‘n’ roll history, but the former Fleetwood Mac frontwoman argues that her September 2024 track “Lighthouse” is the most significant musical contribution she’s offered the world thus far. And it’s easy to see why.

“Lighthouse” is the first original solo track Nicks released since 2020 when she put out the politically driven “Show Them the Way.” This release has a similar political charge with a more precise focus: women’s reproductive rights.

Behind Stevie Nicks’ New Song “Lighthouse”

In an official Instagram announcement, Stevie Nicks said she began writing “Lighthouse” nearly two years before its September 27, 2024, release. “I wrote this song a few months after Roe v. Wade was overturned,” Nicks wrote. “It seemed like overnight, people were saying, ‘What can we, as a collective force, do about this.’ For me, it was to write a song.”

“It took a while because I was on the road,” she continued. “Then early one morning I was watching the news on TV and a certain newscaster said something that felt like she was talking to me~ explaining what the loss of Roe v. Wade would come to mean. I wrote the song the next morning and recorded it that night [and] have been working on it ever since.”

“I have often said to myself, ‘This may be the most important thing I ever do. To stand up for the women of the United States and their daughters and granddaughters ~ and the men that love them. This is an anthem.”

With its moody, driving rock arrangement and Stevie Nicks’ distinct rasp, “The Lighthouse” could stand on its own as a modern rock cut worthy of anyone’s attentive ears. But when one considers the intention behind Nicks’ 2024 release—and the life that she has lived leading up to it—the song adopts a new level of goosebump-inducing power.

An Anthemic Perspective of a Woman Who’s Lived Both Realities

“The Lighthouse” serves as Nicks’ protest of the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 decision to take away the constitutional right to an abortion by overturning Roe v. Wade, a landmark decision that Nicks saw first go into effect in 1973 as she was forging her career with Lindsey Buckingham, two years before they would join British blues rock outfit Fleetwood Mac.

Everything I fought for long ago in a dream is gone, Nicks sings in the first verse. Someone said the dream is not over. The dream has just begun. Or is it a nightmare? Is it a lasting scar? It is unless you save it, and that’s that. Unless you stand up and take it back. Take it back.

Nicks’ “The Lighthouse” stands in solidarity with citizens across the country who are fighting to restore the constitutional right to medical bodily autonomy—a fight that Nicks has fought before. I wanna be the lighthouse, bring you all together, the second verse continues. I wanna teach ‘em to fight; I wanna tell ‘em this has happened before. Don’t let it happen again.

And because no good protest song is complete without a call to action, Nicks implores her listeners to fight for their rights at the ballot box. You’ve gotta get in the game; you’ve gotta learn how to play, she sings. You’ve gotta make a change; you’ve gotta do it today. Nicks ends “The Lighthouse” with a final push for change: You better learn how to fight. You better say it out loud.

Photo by Kevin Mazur/WireImage for SN