Randy and Anthony would like to dedicate this episode to Randy’s mother, Janet, who passed away 4 days before the recording. Janet was the person who introduced Randy to Stevie Nicks, and Randy was able to take her to her first Stevie concert in 2017.
‘The Other Side of the Mirror,’ was released in May 1989, and was Stevie’s highest charting album in Europe. Girl was BIG in Sweden, and so it seems are we! Sweden accounts for 11% of our podcast audience. We would like to say, “Tack så mycket!”
Following up on the urban legend from the last episode, this album DOES have mirror in the title, and as Anthony mentions, is thematically similar to the video for ‘Don’t Come Around Here No More.’ Stevie must have been so influenced by losing that song (see last episode) that she decided to create an entire album based on the Alice in Wonderland theme.
‘Long Way To Go,’ is one of Stevie’s best diss tracks, and the story behind it is brutal. After wrapping up the recording for ‘Rock A Little,’ Stevie is chatting with her on again, off again paramour Joe Walsh. He asks her to come to his house so they can listen to the first test pressing of the album together. After driving over two hours and listening to the album, Walsh breaks up with her for the final time, and keeps the test pressing of the album. It was a long way to go to say goodbye. The remix Randy mentions is excellent.
Rob Sheffield, music journalist and über-fan spoke to Stevie Nicks about the origin of ‘Ooh My Love,’ and she expanded on the story she recounts in the ‘In Your Dreams,’ documentary about stealing the Mike Campbell track that became Tom Petty’s ‘Runaway Train.’ “Even by Nicks standards, “Ooh My Love” had a messy history. As she “I stole that from Tom Petty — accidentally! I picked up the wrong cassette at Tom’s one night, a tape of Mike Campbell’s instrumental demos. Tom would get them first, and then the ones he didn’t want, Mike sent them to me. I accidentally arrived home one night with a cassette — I thought it was mine, but it was Tom’s. It just said, ‘24 Demos from Mike Campbell.’ It had the song that inspired ‘Ooh My Love,’ which became ‘Runaway Train” for Tom.” You can read the entire article over at Rolling Stone. The Fleetwood Mac demo is included in the deluxe edition of ‘Tango in the Night.’
Randy’s 49th Birthday Surprise
Fleetwood Mac also demoed ‘Juliet,’ and it is also available on the deluxe ‘Tango in the Night,’ (as well as the instrumental ‘Book of Miracles‘).
Stevie did extensive press in Europe as well, including an interview special, ‘Reflections from the Other Side of the Mirror.‘ The piano demo of ‘Doing the Best I Can,’ is included.
Where’s Raven?
Raven takes a back seat (again) as The New Titans wrap up the ‘Who is Wonder Girl?’ storyline (which gave us the ugliest Troia costume ever).
Dig Deeper
Randy didn’t do an alternate playlist for this album, because he didn’t think it needed any changes (ok, maybe we could delete ‘I Still Miss Someone’). Instead, here’s a complete pro-shot concert from the tour.
Further Reading
Timothy White’s ‘Rock Lives,’ includes the essay Randy mentioned in the episode and it is available from Better World Books.
The Generic, Non Specific Stevie Nicks Podcast 