Born This Way: Stevie Nicks didn’t blink once
She wrote the song about him. She waited. And she watched him sing it back to her.
On May 23rd, 1997, Fleetwood Mac got back together a decade after their previous album and recorded The Dance, essentially a live version of their greatest hits, but included new material, one song of which was named Silver Springs and written by Stevie Nicks.
Some quick background: Fleetwood Mac’s main quintet is John Fleetwood, John McVie, Christine McVie, Stevie Nicks, and Lyndsey Buckingham. The band is well known for absolutely fucking all hating each other when they created Rumors, which is objectively one of the greatest albums of all time. Nicks and Buckingham hated each other because Buckingham cheated on her, was a total dickbag about it, and then absolutely wanked out when she started having her own fun with a public face after they split.
Both Nicks and Buckingham wrote songs about the breakup, and both Go Your Own Way (his) and Dreams (hers) made it onto Rumors. His was kind of bitchy, and hers was lethal and accusatory about how his love was conditional and unreliable:
“Thunder only happens when it’s raining;
Players only love you when they’re playing”
But Buckingham managed to bury Silver Springs, Nicks’ truly devastatingly emotional tribute to herself, for years, until the band recorded The Dance in 1997. And if you haven’t watched one of the most famous staredowns in human history, I strongly encourage you to watch this video of it on YouTube.
Stevie Nicks gets her song. She owns the stage. She gets a mic. And her flat powerful waves catch McVie’s gentle ivory tinkling. And when the song builds up at the end, she stares a fiery hole through Buckingham who not only has to accept the stare, but has to sing the backing vocals to it. Her most potent and intense eye-spearing comes as she grungily enunciates:
I’ll follow you down ’til the sound of my voice will haunt you,
[Give me just a chance]
You’ll never get away from the sound of the woman that loves you.”
Nicks is not inherently nasty. She is a Gemini sun, Capricorn Moon and Aries rising. But she is also a Cancer Venus. Venus is the sign of love, and represents what you find beautiful and fulfilling and desirous. Cancer is an emotionally-giving sign and can fall in love, for real, within seconds of meeting a person. Not in the heart-fluttery way of Pepe LePew, but in a “wow we could be friends forever” manner. Connections you make with Cancer people are quite literally a part of their identity; they are a family-obsessed (chosen or otherwise) love bundle and their very self-actualization involves all the people they can put their arms around. So Nicks was in deep. She and Buckingham knew each other from high school and had years under their belts before Fleetwood Mac. So when his cock went a-wandering she was wounded in a way only other water signs will know. But unlike Scorpios who want revenge, and Pisces who can move on when they find some new and more interesting trauma, Cancer feels it raw, and forever. Cancer absolutely sucks at getting over things, especially important love and family-related issues, and ESPECIALLY when someone hurts them. Venus in Cancer shoots caffeinated steroids up its ass. That Cancer Venus is where the pain in that song comes from.
The scything effectiveness with which every melodious cut lands comes from her triple Gemini combination: her sun, Mercury and Uranus are all in the twins in the third house. Gemini is the sign of communication. If there is any combination of things to turn such visceral Cancer pain into words, it is the sun (identity), Mercury (also communication; rules Gemini) and Uranus (individuality) which, when turning it on, can elucidate with pin-prick precision.
We often make a big deal about Mars in birthcharts when it is in a fire sign - the go-get-’em planet in a go-get-’em sign - but if Mars is an indicator of how I get what I want, quiet, perfectionist, prepared and understated Virgo is a lethal placement. Aries Mars runs in with swinging fists. Virgo Mars gets whatever she wants, and vanishes with plausible deniability, before you noticed she did anything. If Stevie wanted this to hurt, she has a stunningly effective placement for it to do so. This is even the placement that could have had her happily sit and wait until The Dance was recorded in 1997 so she could deliver so brutally, making one of the band’s most famous moments her reminding an international audience what a piece of shit he is.
And then that Aries rising. While Cancer and Virgo placements excel at passive-aggression, Aries just way prefers aggressive-aggression. She stared Buckingham down, fucking daring him to respond, or fuck her song up. She did not take one backward step. Not one unplanned blink.
“This is about you. I know it. You know it. They know it. Now fucking sing it back to me.”
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