“Bella Donna” is the first track on Bella Donna (1981), Stevie Nicks’ first solo album. It precedes “Kind of Woman” in the album track order.
About the Song
“Bella Donna was my idea for the name of this album before I even wrote the song “Bella Donna.” I always loved the sound of the words bella donna and that’s really how I get my ideas for songs. You know, “Rhiannon” was a sound before it was a song to me.
When I came off the road with Fleetwood Mac last year after our year tour — the year-Tusk Tour — I really had decided that it was time for me to make some decisions and some changes in my life, one of them being that I wanted to make sure I could still exist alone without Fleetwood Mac and without the entourage and without everything that went along with being in a very big rock and roll band. After six or seven years of that, you don’t really know anymore until you actually try to do something alone.
So I saw some time coming up that I was going to be free enough to be able to actually pick out the songs and do it and I did it to prove to myself that I could still exist alone. And if you listen to the words to “Bella Donna” you will realize I am not writing about a beautiful woman — I’m writing about the possibility of any woman not being beautiful anymore and just turning into an old, used-up woman. And if you listen once again to the words and you hear me say, “No speed limit / This is the fast lane / That’s just the way that it is here,” that is the way that is it there. “And the woman becomes tired and the woman disappears / And you never thought that your face would become thin,” but it did and it scared me and I didn’t like it and I decided that I had to go out and do something alone without the rest of everybody that had surrounded me for a long time.
And “Bella Donna” is really the symbol of that and why when you turn over the album it says “come in out of the darkness.” It was telling myself to come in out of the darkness and also offering the same question to everybody else. And it was a decision whether or not to remain in the darkness or not.”
Lyrics
You can ride high atop your pony
I know you won’t fall
’cause the whole thing’s phony
You can fly swingin’ from your trapeze
Scaring all the people
But you never scare me
Ooh, my bella donna
And we fight for the northern star
No speed limit
This is the fast lane
It’s just the way that it is here
And you say
I never thought it could
Bella donna
And we fight for the northern star
And the lady’s feeling
Just like the moon that she loves
Don’t you know that the stars are
A part of us
Oh, and the lady’s feeling
Just like the moon that she loves
And you say
But I never thought it could
My bella donna
Come in out of the darkness
You are in love with
And I’m ready to sail
It’s just a feeling
Ooh, oh…
Sort of captures your soul
Bella donna
And the woman may be awestruck
And the woman may truly care
But the woman is so tired
Oh…
So the woman disappears
Oh, come in out of the darkness
Ooh, Bella donna, my soul
Don’t change
Baby, please don’t change
And you say
And your face becomes thin
And it you never thought it could
Ooh, come in out of the darkness
Oh, bella donna
Ooh, ooh…
You are in love with
And I’m ready to sail
It’s just a feeling
(Stevie Nicks) © 1980 Welsh Witch Music (BMI) admin. by Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC
Reference
Nicks, S. (1981). Stevie Nicks Interview. Denis McNamara, inteviewer, WLIR 92.7 FM .
