On December 10, 1983, Stevie Nicks appeared as the musical guest on Saturday Night Live to promote her second solo album, The Wild Heart, and performed the songs “Stand Back” and “Nightbird.” Nicks returns to SNL on October 12, as a musical guest, alongside host Ariana Grande, marking her first appearance on the show in 41 years.
In celebration of the 50th season, SNL is commemorating its past and has already welcomed former cast members including Dana Carvey, Andy Samberg, and Maya Rudolph. Nicks is another blast from the past.
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How Stevie Dealt With ‘SNL’ Stagefright
When Nicks first performed on Saturday Night Live in 1983, a portion of her performance almost didn’t go as planned. Before “Nightbird,” her third single from The Wild Heart, Nicks’ co-writer and duet partner, singer, and songwriter Sandy Stewart, suffered from severe stage fright and could not go on, leaving Nicks to find a last-minute replacement—fast.
“We practiced and practiced, and everything went well,” remembered Nicks, adding “She freaked out and had terrible stage fright, so she couldn’t do it.”
Taking Stewart’s spot was Nicks’ then sister-in-law Lori Perry. “She said, ‘I’ll do it,’ and she’s crazy, but she said, ‘I’ll do it,’” said Nicks. “This is literally right before we went on, and so we went on and we did it, and it came out perfect.”
She continues, “It was one of those shows, that even with that horrible wrench that was thrown in the middle of it, it came off beautifully. I’ve never been so proud of anything as I was of that night. It was a magical show, and I was thrilled, and it definitely kicked my solo career up.”
Though Fleetwood Mac was around for nearly a decade before SNL premiered in 1975, the same year Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham joined the band, they never performed on Saturday Night Live. Along with Nicks, Buckingham performed on SNL on February 6, 1982, as a solo artist, and Mick Fleetwood‘s Zoo band served as the musical guest on November 12, 1983.
“The Lighthouse” on ‘SNL’
In September, Nicks released the single “The Lighthouse,” which she will perform during her return to Saturday Night Live. Co-written with Magnus Birgersson, and Vincent Villuis and co-produced with Dave Cobb and Sheryl Crow, who also provided backing vocals and played bass and electric guitar on the track, “The Lighthouse” is Nicks’ first original song in four years and is a call to action following the overturn of Roe v. Wade in 2022, eliminating the right to abortion.
“The Lighthouse” took Nicks two years to complete. “It took a while because I was on the road,” shared Nicks. “Then early one morning I was watching the news on TV and a certain newscaster said something that felt like she was talking to me, explaining what the loss of Roe v. Wade would come to mean. I wrote the song the next morning and recorded it that night. That was September 6, 2022. I have been working on it ever since.”
Titled after what is often considered a beacon of hope, a lighthouse, the song breaks through anger with a message of empowerment, and throughout “The Lighthouse,” Nicks reveals the consequences of inaction and the importance of standing up for women’s rights and presumably a call to vote: Unless You Stand Up / And Take It Back / Try To See The Future / And Get Mad / It’s Slippin’ Through Your Fingers … I Wanna Be The Lighthouse / Bring All Of You Together / Bring It Out In A Song / Bring It Out.
“I find it very sad, at 76 years old, I had to see Roe v. Wade taken away,” said Nicks, who has talked about her abortion in 1979 with a child she conceived while dating the Eagles‘ Don Henley. “Two years ago, when I realized the consequences of women’s rights that are vanishing, I watched a lot of news, and I was like a sponge—it just went into me. All the stories that we tell about the necessity for women’s healthcare and the necessity for a safe and legal abortion option for women is absolutely necessary.”
Nicks, who is currently on tour and recently revealed a one-night show with Billy Joel in March of 2025, released her last full-length album 24 Karat Gold: Songs from the Vault in 2014, a collection of previously unreleased songs from her archives.
“Performing on Saturday Night Live is now as it was then,” said Nicks of her return to the show. “It’s just about the biggest thing you can do, bigger than a stadium show because it’s going to go out all over the world.”
She added, “So if you wanna talk about being nervous about something. It doesn’t matter how many shows you’ve done or how much you practice, you’re going to be nervous,” she adds. “You can never say that Saturday Night Live does not help you to gain lots of new followers, younger people, older people, etc. And so to be asked to do it again … has thrown me into an absolute nervous frenzy, but I’m really excited.”
How to Watch Stevie Nicks on ‘SNL’
Watch Nicks’ return to Saturday Night Live on October 12, on NBC or streamed live on Peacock at 11:30 p.m. ET.
Photo: Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images For The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
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