This meaning and the lyrics of Landslide are an introspective, intensely personal expression of both frustration and longing for Stevie Nicks.

Music Has the Power to Ease Frustration

Polydor Records had just released Nicks and her boyfriend, Lindsey Buckingham, and the couple was having great difficulty in their relationship. In an interview, Stevie Nicks talks about the thoughts and circumstances she was having when she wrote the song while being seated in a friend’s living room in Aspen, Colorado. She wrote this song, looking out at the mountains, when it came to her that her life was the same as an avalanche of snow on those mountains: inexorable, dangerous, and impossible to hold back. Buckingham would leave to go on tour with the Everly Brothers and leave Nicks alone with her despair. 

The Ultimate Power of “”One More Chance””

Within this framework, Nicks would complete the song. The first album that the song featured in was Fleetwood Mac. Unlike many of Fleetwood Mac’s albums of the time, it was neither an upbeat dance tune nor a hard-rocking anthem or ballad. It’s like simple folk songs and includes just Stevie and an acoustic guitar. Nicks’s internal turmoil almost made her quit music and ditch Buckingham forever. When she had finished the song, however, she resolved to give both music and Buckingham one more chance. The rest, as they say, is history. It not only became the most successful song of the album but also became the most memorable song of Stevie’s career. The group is still around, although Buckingham was fired in 2018.

The band experienced its own turmoil too. They were all each other’s exes and were fighting constantly. They were still fighting three years later when they recorded the album “Rumours.” The same instability that plagued the group as a whole was what nearly drove Nicks to quit her career and all her dreams in 1974. Nicks was also dealing with her father, who was her business manager at the time. The pressure she felt was what drove her to the Rockies in the first place, couch surfing between friends’ homes until her epiphany that led to one of her most famous songs.

The song has been a hit in many milieus since Fleetwood Mac band first recorded it. The American country music band Dixie Chicks added the track as the second single in their album, Home, released in 2002 and also performed it live with Nicks in their VH1 Divas Las Vegas tour. 

Nicks herself sang it live on the Season-11 finale of “America’s Got Talent.” Just last year, the Top Seven “American Idol” contestants sang it on the show. Contestant Noah Thompson dedicated his performance of it to his grandmother, who had reared him as her own child. Numerous other television shows have used the song in part of their soundtracks. These shows are as varied as Cold Case and South Park. After 11 gruelling and violent seasons, “The Walking Dead” used the song in its series finale, offering hope for the in-universe future after so much depravity and death. Landslide is relevant, loved, and appreciated even after years of its first release without changing a bit, proving Nick’s decision of writing this song back in Colorado, while looking at the mountains, the best decision of her life. 

Lyrics

I took my love, I took it down
I climbed a mountain and I turned around
And I saw my reflection in the snow-covered hills
‘Til the landslide brought me down

Oh, mirror in the sky
What is love?
Can the child within my heart rise above?
Can I sail through the changin’ ocean tides?
Can I handle the seasons of my life?

Well, I’ve been afraid of changin’
‘Cause I’ve built my life around you
But time makes you bolder
Even children get older
And I’m getting older too

Well, I’ve been afraid of changin’
‘Cause I’ve built my life around you
But time makes you bolder
Even children get older
And I’m getting older too
Oh! I’m getting older too

Oh-oh, take my love, take it down
Oh-oh, climb a mountain and you turn around
And if you see my reflection in the snow-covered hills
Well, the landslide bring it down
And if you see my reflection in the snow-covered hills
Well, the landslide bring it down
Oh-ohh, the landslide bring it down

Source: Musixmatch

Songwriters: Stevie Nicks

Landslide lyrics © Welsh Witch Music

This article was first published March 5, 2023 and last updated June 2, 2023

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