{"id":5141,"date":"2019-05-30T13:57:33","date_gmt":"2019-05-30T12:57:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fleetwoodmac-uk.com\/wp\/?p=5141"},"modified":"2022-10-02T12:58:25","modified_gmt":"2022-10-02T11:58:25","slug":"how-stevie-nicks-lost-masterpiece-ooh-my-love-became-a-cult-fan-favorite-rolling-stone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fleetwoodmac-uk.com\/wp\/how-stevie-nicks-lost-masterpiece-ooh-my-love-became-a-cult-fan-favorite-rolling-stone\/","title":{"rendered":"How Stevie Nicks\u2019 Lost Masterpiece \u2018Ooh My Love\u2019 Became a Cult Fan Favorite | Rolling Stone"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Rob Sheffield
\nRolling Stone<\/a>
\nMay 30th, 2019<\/p>\n

Deep cut from 1989\u2019s \u2018The Other Side of the Mirror\u2019 summed up what Nicks called a \u201cmagical time\u201d in her career<\/h3>\n
\"\"
Mandatory Credit: Photo by Ian Dickson\/REX\/Shutterstock (8289678b)
Stevie Nicks in concert, 28 November 1989
Stevie Nicks in concert, Wembley Arena, London, UK – 1980s<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Happy birthday to Stevie Nicks\u2019 best song ever, \u201cOoh My Love.\u201d It\u2019s a buried treasure in her legendary career \u2014 never a hit, not even a single. She\u2019s never sung it live. Just a deep cut from her most tragically underrated solo album, The Other Side of the Mirror<\/em>, released 30 years ago, in the last days of May 1989. The album fell through the cracks \u2014 nobody was really checking for solo Stevie in the late Eighties. But it\u2019s prized by hardcore Stevie freaks, especially \u201cOoh My Love.\u201d For some of us, it sums up everything that makes her the ultimate rock queen \u2014 her most soulful moment ever, with or without Fleetwood Mac. If I had five minutes to convince a jury she\u2019s a genius, \u201cOoh My Love\u201d is what I would play. When my time comes, bury me with this song in Stevie\u2019s shawl vault.<\/p>\n

When I interviewed her in 2014<\/a>, I confessed \u201cOoh My Love\u201d was my favorite. \u201cThat\u2019s one of my<\/em> favorites too,\u201d she said. \u201cIn fact, The Other Side of the Mirror<\/em> is probably my favorite album. Those songs were written right before the Klonopin kicked in. \u2018In the shadow of the castle walls\u2019 \u2014 that song was very important to me. I was lucky those songs were written when they were, before that nasty tranquilizer. It was a really intense record. People don\u2019t talk about that record much, but it was different from all the others. It was a moment in time. I had gotten away from the cocaine in 1986. I spent a year writing those songs. I was drug-free and I was happy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOoh My Love\u201d is her sleek synth-pop power ballad about a princess who hides behind her castle walls. She dreams of the world outside, but she\u2019s terrified of letting her walls down \u2014 a very Stevie Nicks dilemma. She belts her wildly emotional vocal (\u201cYes, it was a strain on her\/Watching her castles fall down\u201d) over a New Wave guitar groove from the Fixx\u2019s Jamie West-Oram. Stevie as a princess trapped in her palace is like Bowie\u2019s Major Tom inside his space capsule. \u201cOoh My Love\u201d is her version of Bowie\u2019s \u201cAshes to Ashes\u201d or Kate Bush\u2019s \u201cHounds of Love,\u201d as she fights to escape a solipsistic nightmare. A the end, when she wails \u201cIt was a strain on meeeee<\/em>\u201d \u2014 it\u2019s powerful as Bowie pleading, \u201cI want an axe to break the ice,\u201d or Bush shrieking, \u201cTake my shoes off and throw them in the lake!\u201d A heartbreaking song that only Stevie could have done. But hardly anyone was listening.<\/p>\n

\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cOoh My Love\u201d came after she kicked cocaine \u2014 but before her even more destructive addiction to benzos. It was a moment of clarity she commemorated with a very special album, The Other Side of the Mirror.<\/em> She holed up in a Hollywood mansion with producer Rupert Hine, a dashing Brit whose track record included the Fixx, Howard Jones and Tina Turner. (\u201cBetter Be Good To Me,\u201d you remember that one.) The songs had a goth Alice in Wonderland <\/em>vibe, over Hines\u2019 lavish R&B synth pulse.<\/p>\n

\u201cThose songs are different,\u201d she told me in 2014. \u201cThat was a moment in time. And you know what? That time never came again, either. That particular record was specific, and nothing like that ever came around again. I\u2019ve always kind of hoped that it will. Because it was a magical time. Up in that big castle-y house in Mulholland, with the producers and the girls.<\/p>\n

\u201cThen the Klonopin really kicked in. To go from The Other Side of the Mirror<\/em> to Street Angel<\/em>\u00a0\u2026 that was difficult. I was a wreck and the album was a wreck.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even by Nicks standards, \u201cOoh My Love\u201d had a messy history. As she said in January<\/a>, \u201cI stole that from Tom Petty \u2014 accidentally! I picked up the wrong cassette at Tom\u2019s one night, a tape of Mike Campbell\u2019s instrumental demos. Tom would get them first, and then the ones he didn\u2019t want, Mike sent them to me. I accidentally arrived home one night with a cassette \u2014 I thought it was mine, but it was Tom\u2019s. It just said, \u201824 Demos from Mike Campbell.\u2019 It had the song that inspired \u2018Ooh My Love,\u2019 which became \u2018Runaway Train\u201d for Tom.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stevie sang her lyrics over it and began demoing it with Fleetwood Mac for Tango in the Night<\/em>. She was so proud of this new tune, she called up Tom on tour in Japan to pay it for him. \u201cWhat an idiot, right? Let\u2019s play him the song you stole over the phone! Tom just starts screaming at me on the other end of the phone. I\u2019m realizing, \u2018How stupid are you, Stevie?\u2019 So I had to go in the next day and tell Fleetwood Mac, \u2018Guess what, we can\u2019t do this song.\u2019 \u2018Why can\u2019t we do it?\u2019 \u2018Because I stole it from Tom Petty and I\u2019m absolutely a total criminal and a thief.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

The Mac had to ditch their version, which went unheard until the 2017 deluxe Tango<\/em> reissue. \u201cThese are the ups and downs of being friends with other songwriters.\u201d But she never forgot it. \u201cWay later, years down the road, I sat down at the piano and tried to recall it. I wrote \u2018Ooh My Love\u2019 on the piano: \u2018In the shadow of the castle walls \u2026\u2019 Of course, I don\u2019t know near as many chords as Mike Campbell does. All I remembered was that distant enchanted melody.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stevie\u2019s version ended up barely resembling the song Petty and Campbell recorded for Let Me Up (I\u2019<\/em>ve Had Enough) <\/em>\u2014 or even the 1987 Mac demo. It became a ballad in the mode of John Waite\u2019s \u201cMissing You\u201d or Belinda Carlisle\u2019s \u201cI Get Weak.\u201d (She finished it with longtime friend Rick Nowels, who produced \u201cI Get Weak,\u201d just as she got her hit \u201cTalk to Me\u201d from the guy who co-wrote \u201cMissing You.\u201d There are no accidents in Stevie World.) It sounds like she\u2019s singing straight from the heart. \u201cWell, I was. I love those words. When I sat down at the piano and played that for Rupert, he said, \u2018This is an awesome song.\u2019 It was a beautiful album \u2014 a step back into my R&B roots.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stevie released The Other Side of the Mirror<\/em> on May 30th, 1989, a week after David Bowie\u2019s Tin Machine<\/em>, which gives you an idea of the stakes for veteran artists at the time. The Top 10 album chart was full of electric youth: Paula Abdul, Bobby Brown, Guns N\u2019 Roses, Madonna, New Kids on the Block, with Debbie Gibson, Milli Vanilli and the Cure right below. When the single \u201cRooms on Fire\u201d reached radio in early May, the media made much of the novelty that Stevie was 40, like Ozzy, Donna Summer or Eddie Money, all of whom had current hits, along with over-40s like Cher, Bette, Elton, Rod, Aretha and Roy Orbison, who had just died at 52. (Stevie turned 41 a few days before the album dropped.)<\/p>\n

The Other Side of the Mirror<\/em> made a modest chart debut at Number 93 in June and grazed the Top 10, but soon dropped out of sight, out of mind, out of time. People just slept on it: The cover art looked too Dynasty<\/em>, the Bruce Hornsby duet did her no favors, and let\u2019s not even get into the Kenny G sax solo. The Fleetwood Mac mystique was at an all-time low, after their latest Lindsey Buckingham break-up drama \u2014 not the last time this would happen. Nobody noticed when the Lindsey-free Mac released an album in 1990 \u2014 or when Stevie quit a year later. Before long, the band was down to Mick Fleetwood, John McVie and a cast of bargain-basement ringers, playing the oldies circuit with REO Speedwagon.<\/p>\n

Stevie had bigger problems to worry about. When she got home from her European tour, she noticed something strange: She couldn\u2019t remember a single moment of the tour. She couldn\u2019t remember making her next album either, just as nobody could remember hearing it. Street Angel <\/em>was a tranquilized dud: The benzos had taken over. \u201cThis doctor was a groupie \u2014 he just wanted to hear me tell stories about rock & roll. So he kept upping my dose for years. Finally I said, \u2018I\u2019m taking enough Klonopin every day to sink a boat. That\u2019s why I gained all this weight, and that\u2019s why my writing is terrible, and that\u2019s why The Other Side of the Mirror<\/em> was the last good record I made. This was all your idea.\u2019\u201d She went back to rehab, sobered up and slowly regained her mojo, with solo gems like In My Dreams<\/em> and 24 Karat Gold<\/em>. In March, she entered the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a solo artist \u2014 the first woman ever to get inducted twice \u2014 with an affectionate speech from Harry Styles, who she calls her \u201clove child.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stevie\u2019s often discussed the deep inner meanings of \u201cRhiannon\u201d or \u201cEdge of Seventeen\u201d \u2014 she\u2019s always willing to Nicksplain these classics. Yet \u201cOoh My Love\u201d remains a mystery. Some of her best-loved songs have spent years lurking in the shadows, waiting to be discovered. \u201cSilver Springs\u201d was a lost B side nobody knew for 20 years, until she revived it as the knockout punch of The Dance<\/em>. The famous version of \u201cWild Heart\u201d she sang at her 1981 Rolling Stone<\/em> cover shoot \u2014 the world had no idea it existed until YouTube came along. That\u2019s the zone \u201cOoh My Love\u201d is in \u2014 a lost classic, underrated yet undeniable. But it\u2019s a song that captures everything that makes Stevie Nicks great.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Rob Sheffield Rolling Stone May 30th, 2019 Deep cut from 1989\u2019s \u2018The Other Side of the Mirror\u2019 summed up what Nicks called a \u201cmagical time\u201d in her career Happy birthday to Stevie Nicks\u2019 best song ever, \u201cOoh My Love.\u201d It\u2019s a buried treasure in her legendary career \u2014 never a hit, not even a … Continue reading How Stevie Nicks\u2019 Lost Masterpiece \u2018Ooh My Love\u2019 Became a Cult Fan Favorite | Rolling Stone<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"How Stevie Nicks\u2019 Lost Masterpiece \u2018Ooh My Love\u2019 Became a Cult Fan Favorite | Rolling Stone","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[7,15,16],"tags":[79,82,133],"class_list":["post-5141","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fleetwood-mac","category-solo-activity","category-stevie-nicks","tag-fleetwood-mac","tag-stevie-nicks","tag-the-other-side-of-the-mirror"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p31Ax0-1kV","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":5526,"url":"https:\/\/fleetwoodmac-uk.com\/wp\/stevie-nicks-announces-24-karat-gold-concert-film-live-album-rolling-stone\/","url_meta":{"origin":5141,"position":0},"title":"Stevie Nicks Announces \u201924 Karat Gold\u2019 Concert Film, Live Album | Rolling Stone","author":"fmfanuk","date":"September 16, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"By\u00a0Brittany Spanos September 16, 2020 Rolling Stone Event will screen in cinemas for two nights only in October Stevie Nicks fans can relive her 24 Karat Gold tour with a special concert film, Stevie Nicks 24 Karat Gold the Concert, which will screen in theaters for two nights only this\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Release Info"","block_context":{"text":"Release Info","link":"https:\/\/fleetwoodmac-uk.com\/wp\/category\/release-info\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/fleetwoodmac-uk.com\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/Live-Concert-Promo.png?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/fleetwoodmac-uk.com\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/Live-Concert-Promo.png?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/fleetwoodmac-uk.com\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/Live-Concert-Promo.png?resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/fleetwoodmac-uk.com\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/Live-Concert-Promo.png?resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":232,"url":"https:\/\/fleetwoodmac-uk.com\/wp\/christine-mcvie-will-never-rejoin-fleetwood-mac-says-stevie-nicks\/","url_meta":{"origin":5141,"position":1},"title":"Christine McVie will never rejoin Fleetwood Mac, says Stevie Nicks","author":"fmfanuk","date":"December 6, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Stevie Nicks has downplayed the likelihood of Christine McVie reuniting with Fleetwood Mac. 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