Stevie Nicks wrote about a “famous friend” and a “big temptation” on tour with Tom Petty and Bob Dylan
In the 1980s, Stevie Nicks retired from promoting her music so she could tour Australia with Tom Petty and Bob Dylan. She didn’t perform with them – she later got in trouble with the Australian government for joining them on stage one night. Instead, Nicks was there to support Petty. Despite this, she worked on her own music while on tour. She wrote a song about a “great temptation” and spoke to her “famous friend” while touring with Petty and Dylan.
Stevie Nicks accompanied Tom Petty and Bob Dylan on tour as moral support
After successfully supporting Dylan with Farm Aid, Petty and the Heartbreakers joined him on a tour of Australia. However, it was difficult to convince Petty to leave.
“Tom was sitting there in the chair at his house and he was like, ‘I’m not going,'” Nicks said, according to the book Petty: The Biography by Warren Zanes. “I told him, ‘Oh yeah, you’re going! You can’t fire Bob Dylan! What, you call Bob and tell him it’s over!?’ Tom just says, ‘I’m not doing this.’”
Petty was struggling with marital problems and refused to go unless his wife came with him. She had no intention of going to Australia, so Nicks offered to go in her place.
“I turn around and I’m like, ‘Well, do you want me to go? Do you need a buddy, is that what you mean, someone to be with you and make you laugh and be there when you’re lonely?'” Nicks said. “‘That’s obviously what scares you on this tour, and you’re not scared of anything; you’re not afraid of alligators.” You know what the hell?”
She wrote a song about a boyfriend and a romantic interest
While on tour, Nicks wrote the song “Two Kinds of Love,” which she eventually duetted with Bruce Hornsby for her 1989 album. The other side of the mirror. In it she sings of a “great temptation”.
“Two kinds of love/One for the way you go/One for the way you love me/You’re a great temptation,” Nicks sings on the song.
She also writes about a conversation with a “famous friend”. Given their closeness to Dylan and Petty at the time of writing the song, it’s possible that the lyrics are a nod to one of them.
“Well I was talking to my famous friend last night/My third day is good, his second night/He says I don’t know how you do it, what you do, how you do it/Let the world in/Well , I say there’s no way out/Then I’ll just play through the game/Well, both of us, widow and a dove.”
In the book Stevie Nicks: Visions, Dreams and RumorsHer author Zoë Howe speculates that Nicks refers to her famous friend as a “temptation”.
Tom Petty once addressed rumors that he and Stevie Nicks were dating
Petty was one of Nick’s closest friends. Their friendship led to tabloid stories claiming they were in a relationship. Petty’s second wife, Dana York, even wondered if he would date her to hide his relationship with Nicks.
“So Dana thought I was full of shit for only using them while I was with Stevie Nicks,” he said. “Dana wasn’t from this world of ours. Trying to take someone who isn’t in show business and convince them that this bullshit goes on all the time, that it’s not real? It will take a minute.”
He confirmed that they never dated, only that they were close.
“Well, we were close…” Petty said. “We were never what you would call ‘an object’. But we certainly had our times.”
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https://www.cheatsheet.com/entertainment/stevie-nicks-wrote-famous-friend-great-temptation-tour-tom-petty-bob-dylan.html/ Stevie Nicks wrote about a “famous friend” and a “big temptation” on tour with Tom Petty and Bob Dylan
