Album: Bella Donna
Year: 1981
. . .
This is probably my favorite Stevie Nicks song all up, and that includes Fleetwood Mac heavy hitters like “Landslide,” “Gold Dust Woman” and even the hallowed “Dreams.” “Edge of Seventeen” takes all of the spacey, trancey aspects of her music and rolls them into a single ball of hooky weirdness.
We talked a bit yesterday about Stevie Nicks’s friendship with Tom Petty, and that’s kinda sorta the springboard for “Edge of Seventeen,” as Nicks had befriended Petty’s then wife, Jane, and at some point Jane told Stevie that she and Tom met at the “the age of seventeen,” which Nicks heard as “the edge of seventeen,” and there we go.
In a weird way, this origin story is the polar opposite of an early KFSR joke: during U2’s live version of “Gloria” from Under a Blood Red Sky, at the end of the breakdown — and after he’s already introduced Adam Clayton — Bono yells “this is the Edge” as Edge starts cranking up his guitar for the final chorus, which one of our DJs heard as “this is the age!” engendering a bit of confusion on their part.
ANYWAYS, guitarist Waddy Wachtel also had an origin story for his churning, chugging riff that drove the song: apparently, he lifted it from “Here Comes The Night” by the Police, which, sure, though what Wachtel is doing is far more primal than what Andy Summers was doing, an chugga chugga chugga chugga railroad ride into infinity.
Which is what I love about “Edge of Seventeen:” how primal it sounds at the core, opening with that riff and some Russ Kunkel hi-hat work, as Nicks, flanked by background singers Lori Perry and Sharon Celani starts with the chorus.
Just like the white winged dove
Sings a song
Sounds like she’s singin’
Whoo-whoo-whoo
Just like the white winged dove
Sings a song
Sounds like she’s singin’
Whoo, baby, whoo
Said, whoo
So here’s an embarrassing fact: for years and years and years, I heard that chorus as “just like the one-winged dove,” not “just like the white-winged dove,” and since I never actually saw a lyric sheet, I don’t think I ever got corrected with that. Even though I guess a one-winged dove would just fly around in circles, which actually makes sense, given the circular nature of the vocal arrangement.
And the days go by
Like a strand in the wind
In the web that is my own
I begin again
Said to my friend, baby (Everything stops)
Nothin’ else mattered
He was no more
(He was no more)
Than a baby then
Well, he seemed broken hearted
Somethin’ within him
But the moment
That I first laid
Eyes on him
All alone on the edge of seventeen
As Nicks sings that verse, the musicians start filling it out: Professor Roy Bittan on the piano, most especially, but there’s also assorted percussion, and of course as they head back into the chorus, drummer Russ Kunkel his some tight, tremendous drum rolls that always start a tiny bit too late but always end up exactly where they belong, as do the backing vocalists, who swoop and swirl all around Nicks: not on the chorus, but basically the entire song.
While Nicks originally intended to write the song about her friends the Pettys, the deaths of Iovine’s friend John Lennon and Nicks’s own uncle turned it into a meditation on grief.
The clouds never expect it
When it rains
But the sea changes color
But the sea
Does not change
So with the slow graceful flow
Of age
I went forth with an age old
Desire to please
On the edge of seventeen
Of course, I didn’t know any of this back in 1981, by which time I’d edged past 17 to the ripe old age of 18; all I knew for sure was that guitar part was really fucking cool, the drum rolls nearly as cool and the harmonies on “sings a song sounds like she’s singing” the best of all. And I wasn’t the only one: while “Edge of Seventeen” didn’t do nearly as well as the fantastic Tom Petty duet “Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around” and the dread Don Henley duet “Leather and Lace” (which actually sounds OK now, until Henley starts singing), it still made it to #11 on the Billboard Hot #100.
And while Nicks had bigger hits as the 80s went on, both “Stand Back” and “Talk To Me” rode their back-lit videos into the top ten, nowadays, they just sound like generic 80s pop, and I had no time for them even at the time. On the other hand, “Edge of Seventeen” sounded amazing back then, and still does, and is easily her most popular solo song on Spotify, having been streamed nearly 320 million times. (In terms of Stevie Nicks songs all up, “Landslide” has nearly 500 million streams and “Dreams” is now over a billion!)
Oh, and if the Duffer Brothers are reading this, “Edge of Seventeen” should be the next 1980s song you make into a 2020s hit. It would be perfect for the next season of Stranger Things.
“Edge of Seventeen”
“Edge of Seventeen” Original Video
“Edge of Seventeen” Live 1981
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