Stevie Nicks - Bella Donna Live 1981 HQ

Rare live performance, cut from the HBO special.

This beautiful, soothing song by Stevie is among her most enigmatic. For each line, gorgeously wrapped in lyrical imagery, there could be two or three possible interpretations.

This is a song of liberation - it is about facing your fears to become fearless. No one is fearless, of course - except superheroes, which we sometimes expect our icons to be. We forget that they are real people with worries and insecurities and that they make mistakes and they worry about failure. Anyone can fail and everyone does sometimes. What's courageous though, is to keep going, to keep trying, to keep soaring to new heights.

After Fleetwood Mac completed the recording of Tusk, Stevie went to Chile for about six weeks to recuperate and reflect on her life. She came back to Phoenix to begin composing, feeling more refreshed. She was quoted as saying, "I was scared to death and intimidated and insecure, afraid and lonely and tired, and I just didn't know what to do really...and Bella Donna really got in there and saved my life".

Although the song seems to mainly deal with Stevie's personal journey, there are parts of the song that may very well have something to do with Lindsey Buckingham. After all, her strong feelings for him are very closely tied to her own quest for happiness and independence.

We know that Stevie has an elusive way of writing. As she said in a 1997 Spin magazine article, she never gives all her secrets away. Even when she gives interviews, she never tells what her songs are about completely. We also know that there are other songs on Bella Donna that deal with her feelings for Lindsey, so it is entirely possible that this song does too.

She looks towards the future - feeling optimistic about her career and her life. I feel Stevie singing this song to herself as a lullaby the same way that she sings it to us, soothing and providing comfort, the way that the Bella donna does for her. The Bella donna is her blessing and her curse. Her talent gives her everything good - fame, success, adulation - but it has also been the source of her misery - strife, jealousy, tension, excess,loneliness. But through it all - Stevie knows that she would not give up her life - it is her destiny.

http://www.fleetwoodmac.net/penguin/interpretations/b/belladonna.htm

The pics are from a show Stevie did on december 5th, 1981, in Phoenix, Arizona. That's where she's originally from. It was on the Compton Terrace which was cofounded by her father Jess.
John Stewart was the opening act for this awesome but short tour.