Book Review: Visions, Dreams, and Rumours

There is power in the reason and significance of the first record you ever bought.  Mine was Wild Heart, Stevie Nicks' second solo album.  For the better part of a year, I had listened to "Stand Back," "Nightbird," and "If Anyone Falls," and loved hearing it every time.  It was only right for me to buy the album...and to keep it for life.  

I later found out she was part of Fleetwood Mac, the one pop band who brought us such hits as "Don't Stop," "Go Your Own Way," and "The Chain," one of my personal favorites from the album.  

Stevie Nicks an ever-creative soul who refuses to give up, whose one and only passion is music no matter what happens, and who gives to things bigger than herself, and is a sage to other young women emerging onto the music scene.

What stood out to me in the production of Rumours was Nicks' "Silver Springs" was originally nine verses long.  She was asked to make it shorter.  But she had a hard time with that because she felt like the beauty of the song would be compromised.  What she also had to overcome was, that song wouldn't be on the original album for Rumours.

I don't consider it coincidental that while I was reading this book, Tom Petty died an untimely death, and I experienced a stressful personal situation.  I loved reading how her love for Tom Petty was at a superfan level, and so strong, the band made her an honorary Heartbreaker.

My respect for the late Tom Petty only great stronger when he encouraged Nicks in a low point in her career, taken from page 311 of the book

Heartache and heartbreak are what Stevie herself is no stranger to.  In addition to her life and complicated times with Lindsay, she experienced the death of her best friend, and a had longtime battle with cocaine addiction that almost caused permanent brain damage, thanks to the drug being handed out like candy in the making of Rumours.  Between her hit songs, both with the Mac and as a solo artist, and her personal journal writings, there is nothing she hasn't written.

That inspires me.  I can live on that alone for the rest of my life if I could.  What have I done since reading this biography?  Written down my dreams soon after waking up, writing more now in my spare time instead of wasting time on social media, and writing in a Favorite Moment a Day journal. In so doing, I have had my own visions and dreams.