The Story of Stevie Nicks' 'Silver Springs': 'Probably the Best Song I've Ever Written' (Exclusive)

In a new interview with PEOPLE, the Fleetwood Mac frontwoman recalls the track’s ‘Rumours’ snub like it happened yesterday

The best song to flow from Stevie Nicks’ fabled pen was initially snubbed by Fleetwood Mac.

Over 40 years after she wrote it, Nicks, 75, is reflecting on her biting breakup anthem "Silver Springs" — and the persevering hit’s “hard road” to success.

The legendary songwriter still remembers the moment she learned that the soul-stirring track had been cut from 1977’s Rumours — Fleetwood Mac’s masterwork and springboard to success — like it was yesterday.

“I went to the studio and [bandmates Mick Fleetwood and Lindsey Buckingham] were in the parking lot, and I got out of the car and they said, ‘We need to talk.’ That's never good,” she recalls to PEOPLE ahead of the release of her Rumours-inspired Barbie doll.

Nicks quickly learned that the duo had confronted her to share that they were scrapping her haunting masterpiece — which also happened to be about her recent split from Buckingham, 73.

“Do you mean ‘Silver Springs,’ probably the best song I've ever written?” she remembers saying to the pair. “And they're like, ‘Well, yeah. Let's move on with that.’”

Related: Stevie Nicks' Life in Photos

The slow-build song was axed to make room for “I Don't Want to Know,” another, much shorter product of Nicks’ pen — and one that she was both less fond of and less emotionally attached to.

Oh, and the band had already started recording the track without her.

The Fleetwood Mac songstress recalls not only questioning the swap but asking her bandmates, “So basically, you're telling me you have made a final decision without me?”

“I was so mad that I started to cry, and I'm pretty sure either I got back in my car and went home, or went in the studio furious and just fumed for eight hours. But I didn't get anywhere with that,” she recounts, adding that her “strong woman stance did not really make a difference in that situation at all.”

Related: Fleetwood Mac: Where Are They Now?

In what can only be described as a peace offering, the band did not nix “Silver Springs” entirely, but rather exiled it to the B-side of the album’s first single — and, fittingly, Buckingham’s fiery telling of the breakup — “Go Your Own Way.”

In 1977, Rumours was released, immediately solidifying the band as rock icons through songs like “Dreams” and “The Chain,” and later becoming one of the highest-selling records of all time.

Absent from the album’s tracklist, Nicks’ magnum opus remained a Fleetwood Mac rarity for two tumultuous decades marked by a constantly-changing band roster. (Nicks herself left the group in 1990 after a spat with Fleetwood, 76, over the rights to “Silver Springs,” per Rolling Stone.)

The band’s most successful lineup — the Rumours five — Nicks, Buckingham, Fleetwood, Christine McVie and John McVie, made a grand return in 1997 with a live album, The Dance. With it, the crowning jewel of Nicks’ songwriting oeuvre was ushered out of obscurity.

The epic breakup anthem even earned Fleetwood Mac a Grammy nod, along with the live version of “The Chain” and The Dance album. It was the group’s first nomination since 1978, when Rumours won album of the year.

Related: Breakups, Feuds and Making Loving Fun: Inside Fleetwood Mac's Various Ups and Downs Over the Years

After 20 years of deep-cut status, “Silver Springs” had emerged from the shadows and Nicks’ frustration about its lack of success and lackluster earnings — she had gifted the track’s publishing rights to her mom in the ‘70s — was finally rectified.

“I was so unhappy because I gave that song, when I wrote it, when we finished recording it, I gave that song to my mother,” she recalled, adding that it was a “dud gift” for many years.

“It didn't come back around until The Dance, where it was the live version, it was the single, and as far as I'm concerned it kicked that whole record into the universe,” Nicks said. “Then ‘Silver Springs’ burst into the world, and then I thought, ‘Well, maybe it was a good thing,’ because then guess what? My mom got thousands of dollars every month for the rest of her life.”

“So it wasn't such a bad gift in the long run after all,” she concluded. “But it was a hard road getting there.”

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Through its epic build and themes of perseverance, “Silver Springs” practically prophesied its own slow-burn success.

Outside of its powerful lyrics and bewitching sound, however, the track's post-Dance resurgence and overall staying power boils down to one factor: the enduring connection between Nicks and Buckingham.

The palpable, chill-inducing chemistry between the pair decades after their breakup is what ultimately thrust “Silver Springs” into the spotlight — and what has kept it there since.

While performing the song for The Dance, Nicks turned away from the crowd, locking eyes with her ex-flame, who provided backup vocals and played guitar as she belted the song’s vengeful chorus: “I'll follow you down 'til the sound of my voice will haunt you / Give me just a chance / You'll never get away from the sound of the woman that loves you.”

The duo’s undeniable on-stage chemistry captivated audiences, and became the key ingredient to the late-blooming song’s legacy.

Related: Stevie Nicks' Dating History: From Lindsey Buckingham to Joe Walsh

Today, it is an object of fascination on TikTok, where users upload videos lauding Nicks’ moxie and dissecting the intricacies of her now-iconic performance.

In March 2023, even Buckingham acknowledged the song's TikTok renaissance, sharing a clip of himself performing its guitar solo, captioned, “I heard we’re talking about that ’97 ‘Silver Springs’ again."

“Silver Springs,” and specifically The Dance version, also became fodder for Daisy Jones & The Six, the wildly successful Nicks-approved book-turned-series based loosely on Fleetwood Mac.

Author Taylor Jenkins Reid revealed that she took a lot of inspiration for Daisy Jones from Nicks and Buckingham’s post-breakup interactions, and specifically cited the 1997 performances of both “Silver Springs” and “Landslide.”

Related: The True Story Behind Stevie Nicks' Heartbreaking Fleetwood Mac Song 'Landslide'

In a 2019 blog post, Jenkins Reid said that she “kept coming back to that moment when Lindsey watched Stevie sing ‘Landslide.’” and “how it looked so much like two people in love.”

"And yet, we’ll never truly know what lived between them,” she wrote. “I wanted to write a story about that, about how the lines between real life and performance can get blurred, about how singing about old wounds might keep them fresh.”

In Nicks' eyes, Daisy Jones did just that.

In August 2023, the "Rhiannon" singer shared a post praising the “Silver Springs”-inspired series and specifically star Riley Keough, who played the show's titular singer, for her performance.

“It brought back memories that made me feel like a ghost watching my own story," the “Edge of Seventeen” singer wrote. "It was very emotional for me.”

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