Stevie Nicks gets a hand from close friend Sheryl Crow and producer Dave Cobb on her new single, “The Lighthouse,” which is out now from Warner Records. Crow and Cobb co-produced the song with Nicks, while Crow sings and plays guitar and bass. Waddy Wachtel, the longtime guitarist in Nicks’ solo band, also contributed to the recording, which was inspired by the Supreme Court striking down the constitutional right to abortion in 2022.
“I wrote this song a few months after Roe v. Wade was overturned,” says Nicks. “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. 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.”
“That was 9/6/2022. I have been working on it ever since,” she continues. “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.”
Nicks has seldom released original music in the past decade; her latest was the 2020 single “Show Them the Way,” although she put out a cover of Buffalo Springfield’s “For What It’s Worth” two years later and also guested on the most recent Gorillaz album, Cracker Island. The arrival of “The Lighthouse” appears timed to the Fleetwood Mac principal’s Oct. 12 appearance on Saturday Night Live, although it’s unknown if she will perform the track on the episode.
Nicks has a solitary show scheduled tomorrow (Sept. 28) in Hershey, Pa., as a makeup for a June gig postponed due to illness. On March 29, 2025, she will team with Billy Joel for a concert at Ford Field in Detroit.