Following the quarrelsome “Stand Back” is the conciliatory “I Will Run to You,” a duet with Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers. Back to back, the two songs complement each other well, fitting the pensive mood of the second half of the album. Written by Tom Petty, “I Will Run to You” has a melodic chorus and bears some resemblance to the song “You Got Lucky” from Tom’s 1982 album Long After Dark.
As an album cut, “I Will Run to You reached No. 35 on Billboard’s Mainstream Rock chart. On September 13, 1983, Stevie and Tom performed “I Will Run to You” (and “Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around) live during Stevie’s Wild Heart tour at Radio City Music Hall in New York, where Tom was a special guest.
‘Something really pretty’
“I don’t really know why Tom wrote this song for me,” Stevie recalls, “because it’s not like he had to, or not like I called him up and asked him to do it. But for some reason, he wanted to write me something really pretty, and he did, and we worked real hard. We recorded in New York, and we didn’t get it. Then we went to Caribou and recorded but still came back without what we thought was a real lead vocal from either of us. Finally, we did it in L.A.
Tom and I love to sing together, and we’ve really developed this relationship, and I’m not really very interested in developing relationships with other men singers, because this is just perfect: we sing well, we have a great time, we complement each other. I love his songwriting, perfect, why bother? Whatever the hassles that be that make it difficult — and believe you me the hassles that be are everywhere to stop Tom and I from ever doing anything together — my relationship with him is more important.
Anyway, the song’s fabulous. It’s beautiful, and I’m very honored that he even cared enough to write it for me.”
Musicians
Guitar: Michael Campbell
Bass: Howie Epstein
Drums: Stan Lynch
Guitar, vocals: Tom Petty
Keyboards: Benmont Tench
Produced by Jimmy Iovine. Recorded at The Hit Factory, New York.
Billboard charts
Mainstream Rock: 35 (July 23, 1983)
Lyrics
One so young, so changed
Should not be left alone
Two in love should confess
And not be left alone
And, I will run to you
Down whatever road you choose
Yes, I will follow you down
I will run to you
You’ve had time, come around
Will you please make up your mind
I stand accused on trial
Will you please make up your mind
And, I will run to you
Down whatever road you choose
Yes, I will follow you down
I will run to you
Make it easy for me
I been lonely, baby
Show some mercy, honey
I was nothing
All those lonely nights
Showed me something
If you need me
I’ll come runnin’
I will run to you
Down whatever road you choose
I will follow you down
I will run…
I will run to you
Down whatever road you choose
Yes, I will follow you down
I will run to you
Modern Records. (1983). Stevie Nicks: The Wild Heart [Press release].
Whitburn, J. (2008). Joel Whitburn presents rock tracks 1981-2008. Menomonee Falls, WI: Record Research, Inc.
Stevie Nicks was among the long list of performers to praise singer-songwriter Tom Petty for his enduring contributions to rock music in the March 25th issue of Billboard, which pays tribute to Petty and the 30th anniversary of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers’ self-titled debut album in 1976.
In the special feature, Nicks candidly reveals how Petty’s music helped pull her through hard times, including her 1994 stint through rehab. The feature also notes that Petty’s highest charting single was “Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around,” his classic duet with Stevie Nicks, which reached #3 on the Billboard Hot 100 in the summer of 1981.
A fearsome Kabuki doll grimaces malevolently from atop an antique upright piano into a pastel pink room, where porcelain flamingos stand in fixed motion next to a beige satin-covered bed littered with pillows. Jungle plants complement a lush green velvet sofa. Black- and white-striped chairs stand next to a large wooden organ alive with colorful buttons. A light scent of gardenia filters through the rooms, and windows frame a perfect view of the white California beach and blue sea.
It seems the ideal setting for a fairy tale, and indeed it is — in a way. For here lives Stevie Nicks, who, after seven years with Fleetwood Mac, is being hailed as “Queen of Rock and Roll.” Nicks appears from the far reaches of the bedroom. Black sweater, black ruffled taffeta skirt, boots. The Queen doesn’t take long to show her humanity.
“What are you doing there, shorthand? I always got grounded for shorthand,” she says. “I’d get Ds, then work them up to Cs by the end of the semester, but still…”
The singer-songwriter’s mission today is promoting her first solo LP, Bella Donna — but after bulleting up the charts from the day of its release, the album doesn’t need much help. Nicks, 33, considers it the beginning of an important part of her career, an outlet for some of the things she’s wanted to do, but as a Fleetwood Mac member couldn’t. “In a group of five people, you can’t just be you — you have to be a part of them. This was a chance for me to really get into my feelings and my fairy tales — the things I really love — that I couldn’t impose on them.”
Stevie Nicks and Tom Petty perform onstage, 1981 (Lynn Goldsmith)
Working with Tom Petty
Bella Donna also gave her the chance to work with singer Tom Petty, who’s featured on the track that has become the hit single, “Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around.” Nicks has been making surprise appearances at various Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers concerts around the country to sing the duet live.
She talks of Petty’s group in reverent tones, bringing to mind a little sister thrilled to be admitted into the realm of the boys. “They make me feel like a true Heartbreaker,” she says, “which is really something, because I know the Heartbreakers never planned to have a girl hanging around.”
When she had to miss a concert in Providence, R.I., she says, “Tom called and told me, ‘It was an incredible concert, but it just wasn’t the same without you. “That’s the nicest thing Torn Petty has ever said to me. It was just a simple thing, but it knocked me out.
“I’ve really become attached to them, because they’re all like my brothers and they’re all proud of me in their own little kind of male-type way. I go through a sort of ‘post Heartbreaker depression blues’ after I do a couple of dates with them and wake up the next morning and they’re gone and I have to go on all by myself,” She admits that at such times she calls the group to ask if the guys miss her,
The Heartbreaker experience
She’s written a song out of her Heartbreaker experience which will be featured on the next Fleetwood Mac LP. It’s called, “If You Were My Love.” Nicks says, “It’s like a love song, but it’s not. It’s about going outside your own life and getting attached to something that isn’t yours.
“It’s been kind of like falling in love with another band — for a minute. It has nothing to do with — and truly, clarify this — there is absolutely nothing going on between me and anybody in that band. They’re all married. They’re all expecting babies. That’s what makes it very easy for me to be with them and be their friend, and almost be one of the guys.”
Why does she make a point of clarifying her relationship with Petty and the Heartbreakers? Has someone implied it’s more than platonic?
“Well, not really,” she says, “but you know, you kind of wait for someone to start talking and I just don’t want anyone to start talking.”
Actually, the recent Rolling Stone cover story on Nicks made clear her relationship with record producer Jimmy lovine, who went from work on Petty’s Hard Promises LP to Bella Donna. She frowns at the reminder. “I don’t like people to know about that either. I just don’t want people talking about that part of my life,” she says.
The same celebrity status that’s made her a subject of the rumor mill has brought numerous acting offers. “I never wanted to be an actress and I don’t want to be an actress now,” she says. “I don’t like getting up early. I dislike being unspontaneous.
I’m not your person who’s going to sit around all day — I get real nervous and restless. So unless somebody brought me a story that just KILLED me, I wouldn’t do it. I don’t think it’s in the stars.”
No conflict with ‘Mac’
Nicks is adamant about her solo career not interfering with her Fleetwood Mac work, “I don’t see why I can’t do both — unless everyone gets crazy. But if Fleetwood Mac doesn’t believe in my loyalty by now, I’ve made a big mistake,” she says. “I will be there for them ‘til the end. It’s just that I have to have time to do my music. I waited six years to put out the 10 songs on Bella Donna. Five of those songs were written before 1976. That’s a long time to wait. And those songs were all available to Fleetwood Mac.”
That there has been friction within the ranks of the group is hardly a secret. Nicks acknowledges the fact with a nod. “It’s like a family though. We can get mad at each other and yell, then not see each other for a few days or weeks, and when we get together again we look at each other and it’s like, ‘Were we mad?’ There’s such a feeling. You can’t replace seven years of solid togetherness.
“Outside people talking — that’s what corrodes a band. Someone could say something and by the time it goes through 15 people, it’s entirely different. You’ll tell the rest you didn’t, and they’ll say, ‘I believe you’ — but it’ll leave a mark. Sometimes those things take time to get over.”
Another irritant is the image people have of her. “Through the last seven years, I have wished people would consider me a songwriter instead of a girl singer in the pile with the rest, or a rock star who dances around a stage,” she says. “What I really want to hear is, ‘Did she really write all those songs?’ What I’ve done with Fleetwood Mac hasn’t been enough to convince anyone of my ability as a writer.”
But Bella Donna, she hopes, has opened a new door.
Marilyn Beck / Chicago Tribune-New York News / September 1981
The Charts
Pop
ENDLESS LOVE — Diana Ross and Lionel Richie
QUEEN OF HEARTS — Juice Newton
SLOW HAND — Pointer Sisters
STOP DRAGGIN’ MY HEART AROUND — Stevie Nicks with Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
URGENT — Foreigner
WHO’S CRYING NOW — Journey
ARTHUR’S THEME (BESTTHAT YOU CAN DO) — Christopher Cross
Fleetwood Mac singer borrows some hard-edged help from Petty.
Pop Album Reviews:
STEVIE NICKS, Bella Donna, Modern Records. MR38-139.
What’s particularly attractive about Stevie Nicks’ solo plunge is the musical and stylistic diversity she has layered Bella Donna with. In the past, Nicks has cloaked herself exclusively in the simplistic sort of “June/moon/spoon” romanticized mysticism one might expect from someone who publishes her songs under the trade name of “Welsh Witch” music.
The first time one heard “Rhiannon” in 1976, it was an interesting touch. But after creamy cuts like “Sisters of The Moon” and “Gold Dust Woman,” it was easy to grow tired of hearing Nicks cheapen D.H. Lawrence to a sulky pop beat.
Here she comes off as a more accomplished, wide-ranging writer and singer. Much of the improvement comes from her hooking up with the rock-oriented producer/engineer team of Jimmy lovine and Shelly Yakus. In addition, Tom Petty and his band have provided the instrumentation and the result is a harder, punchier sound than the gooey pudding whipped up on the past couple Fleetwood Mac LPs.
The centerpiece cut, “Edge of Seventeen,” might have been an effort to listen to on Rumours or Tusk, but here all the lines like “just like the white winged dove” and “but the sea changes colours” (note the affected spelling of that last word — Welsh witch indeed!) are buoyed up by the punchy arrangements.
The Petty connection is interesting and made slightly more intriguing by the fact that Nicks seems to have unintentionally one-upped Petty. She sang on the relatively weak “Insider” that showed up on his recent Hard Promises LP and in return got one of the better new Petty songs, “Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around.” The passion of the piece suits Nicks well, and it’s a bit of a relief to hear her sing it in her husky voice rather than have to listen to the whiny version Petty might have turned out.
Besides Petty and the Heartbreakers, Nicks gets good use out of other familiar names. Eagle Don Henley adds some nice vocals to a pretty version of Waylon Jennings’ and Jessie Colter’s “Leather and Lace” while another Eagle, Don Felder, joins Nicks and Henley on the final piece on the record, the 1975 Nicks composition “The Highwayman.” E Street pianist Roy Bittan plays on “Edge of Seventeen,” “After the Glitter Fades” and “Leather and Lace,” and he also gets a writing credit for some very distinctive opening chords added to “Think about It.”
Past all the outside input, however, Bella Donna is Stevie Nicks’ record and it’s surprising how attractive she and it are. In addition to the previously mentioned doubts, it’s an acknowledged fact that Nicks’ voice is a delicate instrument that is beginning to fail. Overlooking the benefits of pacing one’s self in the studio (as opposed to the nightly strain of concerts), Nicks is in very full voice here. She belts out the country-style “After the Glitter Fades” without hesitation and only on “Kind of Woman” does her voice start to crack or fade.
Unlike Rickie Lee Jones, another singer who steeps herself in romanticism on a new solo album, Nicks is not as demanding or penetrating a writer. On the other hand, Nicks hasn’t fallen into the trap of self-absorption that alienates the listener from Jones’ Pirates — Nicks the writer is easily understood and enjoyed. The title track is slightly obscured by the foggy passions that are Nicks’ preoccupation, but other numbers like “How Still My Love” and “Outside the Rain” are effective pieces of mood and affection.
The only letdown in Bella Donna stems from this accessibility. In truth, these generally appealing songs don’t have a lot of impact when added up as an album. Nicks is not a Chrissie Hynde or even a Pat Benatar when it comes to generating vocal excitement — obviously, she’s not a fullblown rocker like those two, yet as a stylist she doesn’t quite generate the energy that other stylists like Linda Ronstadt or Joan Armatrading can turn out. There are points during some of the cuts, like “The Highwayman” or “Kind of Woman,” that are emotionally flat and unaffecting.
Still, one has to give Nicks credit for shaping a much fuller and better LP than her work with Fleetwood Mac might have indicated she was capable of. Her name alone and the tie-in with Petty virtually assure Bella Donna sales. It’s nice that there are actually some songs here worthy of that status.
C.P. Smith / Santa Ana Orange County Register / August 9, 1981 (This article was transcribed by Stevie Nicks Info)
No conflict with ‘Mac’
