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.”
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. (Farout)
