Tuesday 27 July 2021

edge of seventeen

Released on the studio album Bella Donna—the debut solo recording from Stevie Nicks—on this date in 1981, the song also known by its parenthetical refrain “Just Like the White Winged Dove” was prompted as a means to express the grief the artist felt with the death of an uncle and the murder of John Lennon happening at the same time in December 1980. The title came from mishearing an answer from Tom Petty’s first wife about when they met due to her strong accent with opening lyrics coming from a caption in the menu of a restaurant in Arizona: “The white wing dove sings a song that sounds like she’s singing ooh, ooh, ooh. She makes her home here in the Great Saguaro cactus that provides shelter and protection.”