During Dave Grohl's Sound City Players giant concert at the Palladium, Stevie Nicks introduced her new song ‘You can’t fix this’ as a poem she wrote about her 18-year-old godson, who died of an overdose last year. Just before singing, she said something like this: ‘In our day, we made a pact not to dance with the devil. We did a lot of other things but we never danced with the devil. Unfortunately, this little boy danced with the devil.’
And I have been thinking about it since,… and the more I think about it, the less it makes sense, what did she mean, we didn’t dance with the devil? In a recent Rolling Stone interview, she explained she almost died in the 90s!
‘What else happened is I went into rehab on December 12th, 1993 and came out on the 27th of January – 47 days to come off of Klonopin. I nearly died. And I think one of the reasons that Lindsey left is because I was very, very high on this horrific tranquilizer. I didn't even make it to most of the recording sessions for [1987's] Tango in the Night. I was sick. And I think he was horribly worried that I was going to die. That's one of the reasons you [turns to Buckingham] wanted to quit. We had this huge tour and it was booked. We were at Chris' house and [Lindsey] stood up and said "I quit," and I – being so high and so messed up – just raged across the room and I wanted to kill him.
When I came out of rehab, I did a small three-month tour, and I got through it. I was going to be OK, and everyone knew I was going to be OK. And I think that's when Lindsey thought Fleetwood Mac could go on, because his beloved ex-girlfriend was not going to die. She was going to make it.’
Okay, she was in rehab, Lindsey thought she was going to die but she never walked with the devil? May be she means she never took heroin or whatever drug she is referencing to by ‘dancing with the devil’, but what’s a difference if she was abusing her prescription, was close to die and had to go to rehab?
Any drug can kill you, she could have died a few times at the high of her addiction, and it wasn’t only Klonopin, there was also cocaine. This 2007 article in the Telegraph talks about long addiction to cocaine which lasted 10 years: ‘back in the days when Fleetwood Mac's album credits would include a 'thanks' to their dealer – Stevie Nicks estimates that she must have spent more than $1 million on the drug. '
And this isn’t dancing with the devil?
And The Independent also reported in 2007
‘Stevie Nicks says that although Fleetwood Mac was notorious for their drug use both on the road and in the studio, the band members all drew the line with heroin. 'It was a party. Everyone was partying. It was dangerous, but it was fun. They were fantastic, tragic times… None of us ever did heroin. Right there, that's why we are alive. We were careful — we didn't die. But we could have.’
Still she wrote these lines for her new song:
‘We stayed clear/Dancing with the devil/Call it respect, call it fear/But we never allowed the devil/To come to the party/We were careful in our way/Walked through the darkness/We made a pact not to dance with the devil’…
How credible is she?
The devil is another name fo5r heroin, specifically. No, Stevie never did heroin. She is also talking about
Fleetwood Mac. They never did heroin So, she isn’t lying.
Of course, many music legends did do heroin. Some are still with us, some never came back. Jimmy Page, Janis Joplin, Eric Clapton, John Lennon, Keith Richards, Pink, Ozzy Osbourne, Steven Tyler, John Belushi, Jim Morrison, and many, many others…they all danced with the devil.