Wild-hearted hits: Stevie Nicks’ 20 best songs – ranked!

20. Lady (2014)

Written in 1971, Lady depicts the young Stevie Nicks, recently relocated to California, struggling to get a break: “I’m unsure, I can’t see my way … I’m tired of knocking on doors.” There’s something poignant in finally hearing it sung by Nicks when in her 70s, the stridency of her vocal seeming to urge on her younger self.

19. After the Glitter Fades (1981)

A certain weariness pervaded Nicks’ debut solo album Bella Donna: it’s often audibly a response to Fleetwood Mac’s rise to vast fame and the personal tensions that underpinned it. Never more so than on After the Glitter Fades, on which a pedal steel guitar weeps as Nicks depicts a “living sometimes laced with lies”.

18. If Anyone Falls (1983)

An impressively idiosyncratic take on big 80s keyboard-heavy US rock – the synthesiser sounds like an accordion, which adds an oddly down-home feel to its booming sound – with a nagging, cyclical riff over which Nicks’ vocal floats, alternately dreamy and gritty. The rhythm canters along, and in the lyrics, love is lost and, it’s implied, found again.

17. Moonlight (A Vampire’s Dream) (2011)

Nicks in black-clad witchy mode, singing of a “strange lady from the mountains” locked in a relationship that’s literally sucking the life out of her. These lead characters are allegories for Nicks and – you guessed it – Lindsey Buckingham. The melody is rich, the music sleepy and subtly done, the mood inspired by watching Twilight.

16. Think About It (1981)

A song written for Rumours that failed to make the cut, Think About It offers a message of solidarity to Christine McVie in the middle of her divorce from bass-playing husband, John: essentially “don’t think about quitting the band”. It’s a song that carries a real heartfelt warmth with a gloriously uplifting tune.

15. Beauty and the Beast (1983)

Beauty and the Beast ends The Wild Heart on a powerfully emotional note of roll-end-credits grandeur. Inspired by the 1946 Jean Cocteau film of the same name, but written for Mick Fleetwood after his father’s death, it’s blessed with a suitably cinematic Paul Buckmaster arrangement. Nicks served the string section champagne in the studio.

14. Sorcerer (2001)

Another case of Nicks rummaging through her catalogue of unreleased songs, Sorcerer dates back to the early 70s: the 21st-century version, recorded with Sheryl Crow, is appealingly gloss-free and gritty-sounding folk-rock. Nicks and Crow’s harmony vocals are magical.

13. Bella Donna (1981)

“Come in out of the darkness” is Nicks’ note-to-self on her debut solo album’s title track, a song that depicts her as so exhausted by life in the spotlight she’s considering disappearing. Emotionally, at least, it’s an odd way to kick off your solo career, but musically, its stately, country-influenced rock is magnificent.

12. Blue Denim (1994)

Recorded while she was struggling with addiction to prescription tranquillisers, Street Angel was Nicks’ least satisfying, lowest-selling solo album. She’s more-or-less disowned it, but Blue Denim – which deals with the complete breakdown of Nicks and Buckingham’s relationship during Fleetwood Mac’s turbulent Tango in the Night era – is a keeper.

11. I Can’t Wait (1985)

Nicks’ solo catalogue is liberally studded with songs she let marinade for decades before releasing them. I Can’t Wait, on the other hand, was written and recorded on the same day. The production is very mid-80s – aural power-dressing – but its jittery urgency fits the lyrical tone: “I’m wasting my time while you make up your mind.”

10. Annabel Lee (2011)

Given her noted obsession with the supernatural, it was probably only a matter of time before Nicks released something inspired by Edgar Allan Poe. The surprise is how perfectly his 19th-century poem fits with Nicks’ lovely melody and the track’s classic Fleetwood Mac-esque sound: a late-period triumph.

9. Wild Heart (1983)

Inspired by Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights and given its first public performance when Nicks sang it while having her makeup done at a Rolling Stone cover shoot (the video’s on YouTube ), Wild Heart’s expansive six-plus minutes deal with a failed romance and new love. It’s raw, bruised and, ultimately, euphoric.

8. Talk to Me (1985)

Nicks in mid-80s air-punching power ballad mode – complete with booming snares, sax solo, hard rock guitars and glossy, epic synths – co-written by the man responsible for John Waite’s not dissimilar Missing You. It’s a very long way indeed from Silver Springs, but it’s also a very classy example of type.

7. Planets of the Universe (2001)

Another Rumours refugee – it was demoed by Fleetwood Mac – Planets of the Universe shares that album’s lyrical preoccupations: “I was wrong to live for a dream … I still wish you gone.” Nicks’ belatedly completed version is fantastic: tough, with a surprisingly funky chug, and the singer at her steeliest as she bids farewell.

6. Leather and Lace (1981)

In an emotional sense, Leather and Lace replicates the songwriting formula Nicks applied to much of Rumours: a track about an ex-lover, recorded with said ex-lover (in this case, Eagles’ Don Henley). At turns tender and careworn, the results are, as Nicks noted, “an unforgettable experience – as was he”.

5. Rooms on Fire (1989)

According to Nicks, Rooms on Fire concerns a rock star who’s accepted “that she will never ever be able to be married or have those children that she wanted, or the husband she wanted, or that deep, deep love she wanted”. Improbably, it’s also a completely fabulous pop song with a killer chorus.

4. Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around (with Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers) (1981)

Scheduled for inclusion on Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers’ fourth album, but given to Nicks to guarantee a hit single that would establish her as a solo artist, Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around is sultry and understated – new wave meets traditional heartlands rock – while Nicks and Petty make perfect, weary, warring lovers.

Related: Stevie Nicks on art, ageing and attraction: ‘Botox makes it look like you’re in a satanic cult!’

3. Has Anyone Ever Written Anything for You (1985)

Nicks’ perennial encore at solo gigs is the most heart-rending thing in her catalogue: a song written in response to then-boyfriend Joe Walsh’s Song for Emma, which was inspired by the death of his three-year-old daughter. From its fragile piano intro to its eerie final minute of echoing ambience, it’s utterly beautiful.

2. Stand Back (1983)

Inspired by Little Red Corvette – and featuring Prince himself on keyboards – Stand Back is a fantastic song and a powerful study in contrasts: forceful-but-cool 80s electronic pop, spiked with Nicks’ voice at its most raspily emotive and lyrics surveying the wreckage of her disastrous marriage to her late best friend’s husband.

1. Edge of Seventeen (1981)

It wasn’t the biggest hit from Nicks’ debut album, but Edge of Seventeen has had the most prominent afterlife – sampled by Destiny’s Child, covered by Lindsay Lohan and Muna, interpolated by Miley Cyrus – with good reason. The lyrics, inspired by the murder of John Lennon and the death of Nicks’ uncle, are pretty oblique, but the way the song feels somehow fits the title perfectly. The flickering guitar line (inspired by the Police’s Bring on the Night) and the pattering, explosive drums sound simultaneously thrilling and laden with trepidation – a neat encapsulation of life on the brink of adulthood, and Nicks’ soaring, somehow defiant vocal is magnificent.

• This article was amended on 4 July 2024. It was Joe Walsh, not Glenn Frey, whose Song For Emma prompted Stevie Nicks to write Has Anyone Ever Written Anything for You?.