Pauline Adamek
Rock legend Stevie Nicks performed a powerful new song last night that wowed the live audience and brought the house down. The October 12th show, the third in Saturday Night Live’s 50th season of 2024, was hosted by Ariana Grande.
Her first song of the evening, “The Lighthouse,” resonated as a fervent Women’s Rights Anthem and was reportedly written in 2022 directly after Roe v. Wade was struck down by the largely corrupt, Republican-stacked US Supreme Court.
Released last month, Nicks wrote the song with Magnus Birgersson and Vincent Villuis to promote women’s rights. Birgersson, better known by his stage name Solar Fields, is a Swedish electronic music artist. For her second performance, she sang the hit “Edge of Seventeen,” from her 1981 debut solo album, Bella Donna.
Backed by a killer band of musicians, Nicks’ polished performance reminded us that the rock icon still has crucial messages to convey. Her formidable stage presence coupled with her impassioned lyrics served as an urgent and dire warning as well as an explicit call to action. With this song, the artist voices what many of us want, which is a return to empowerment in opposition to our basic human rights being stripped away.
It has been nearly four decades since Stevie Nicks appeared on the show, and last night’s performance cemented her reputation as a significant artist. The Fleetwood Mac legend last took to the SNL stage on Dec. 10, 1983.
The singer songwriter successfully kicked hard drugs in the mid-eighties, and also went through a successful detox from Klonopin during the early nineties.
In April 2019, Nicks was elected to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, making history by becoming the first woman to be inducted twice, once as a member of Fleetwood Mac and also as a solo artist.
Listen to the track and watch the official video here.
The Lighthouse, 2024
Co-written by Stevie Nicks, with Magnus Birgersson and Vincent Villuis
Lyrics:
I have my scars – you have yours
Don’t let them take your power
Don’t leave it alone in the final hours
They’ll take your soul, they’ll take your power
Don’t close your eyes and hope for the best
Dark is out there… The light is going fast. Until –
The final hours. Your life’s forever changed
And all the rights that you had – yesterday – are taken away
Now you’re afraid
You should be afraid
You should be afraid
Because everything I fought for
Long ago… In a dream
It’s gone.
Someone said the dream is not over.
The dream is just begun.
Or – is it a nightmare?
Is it a lasting scar?
It is, unless you save it.
And that’s that.
Unless you stand up. And take it back.
Take it back.
I have my scars – you have yours
Don’t let them take your power
Don’t leave it alone in the final hours
They’ll take your soul, they’ll take your power
Unless you stand up and take it back
Try to see the future and get mad
It’s slipping through your fingers
You don’t know what you had
You don’t have much time… to take it back
I wanna be the lighthouse, for all of you together
Bring it out in a song
Bring it out in stormy weather
Tell them the story
I want to teach them to fight
Oh, I want to tell them, this has happened before
Don’t let it happen again
I have my scars – you have yours
Don’t let them take your power
Don’t leave it alone in the final hours
They’ll take your soul, they’ll take your power
Unless you save it, and that’s that
Unless you stand up and take it back
Try to see the future and get mad
It’s slipping through your fingers
You don’t know what you had
You don’t have much time…
Gotta get in the game. You gotta learn how to play
Gotta make a change. You gotta do it today
In the midnight hour. They’ll slam the door
Make you forget what you’re fighting for
Put you back in your place
They’ll shut you down. You better learn how to fight
You better say it out loud
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