Stevie Nicks’ Incredible Parting Gift To Joe Walsh

Rock legends Joe Walsh and Stevie Nicks had a passionate but short-lived relationship in the mid-1980s, marked by intense creativity and mutual respect, but also by destructive drug use. Their brief time together left a lasting imprint on both their lives and music, with Nicks even contributing to Walsh’s 1985 album Confessor.

In a 2023 interview with Howard Stern, Joe Walsh opened up about his relationship with Stevie Nicks during the early 1980s. Although Walsh didn’t quite share Nicks’ sentiment that he was “the great love of her life,” he had high praise for her musical talents. Walsh said:

“She helped me do the Confessor album.
“She wrote ‘Shotgun’ with me on that one and gave me some direction. She’s really good at the craft of songwriting. Left to my own devices, I will have 85 pieces of paper with a couple of words on each.”

Despite their efforts, critics were not overly impressed with Confessor. Guitar World’s Bruce Malamut described the album as “the apologia of a strictly raised midwestern Episcopalian after living in rock and roll sin for ‘Fifteen Years’ on the road” (via Encyclopedia). While the album didn’t receive the same acclaim as Walsh’s earlier works, it encapsulated the turmoil and introspection he was experiencing at the time.

Why These Two Rockstars Had to Split

Ultimately, the same rock and roll lifestyle that brought Nicks and Walsh together also drove them apart. Their escalating drug use became too much to handle, leading to their breakup. Nicks later revealed to Q Magazine:

“Joe and I broke up because of the coke.
“He told my friend and [backing] singer Sharon, ‘I’m leaving Stevie because I’m afraid that one of us is going to die, and the other one won’t be able to save the other person because our cocaine habit has become so over the top now that neither one of us can live through this. So, the only way to save both of us is for me to leave.’”

Reflecting on their time together, Walsh told Interview Magazine in 2012:

“We spent about a year together, and she helped me write a bunch of music, and I helped her write her music. We had a great relationship. Romantically, it shifted, but in terms of friends and respect for each other, that’s all still there. She’s a really great person.”

While their romance was brief, the music that emerged from their bond, including Walsh’s Confessor and Nicks’ “Has Anyone Ever Written Anything For You,” remains a testament to that connection.