“To me, the white-winged dove was for John Lennon the dove of peace, and for my uncle, it was the white-winged dove who lives in the saguaro cactus-that’s how I found out about the white-winged dove, and it does make a sound like ‘whooo, whooo, whooo.’ I read that somewhere in Phoenix and thought I would use that in this song.” “It became a song about violent death, which was very scary to me because at that point no one in my family had died,” said Nicks elaborating on the meaning of the line. The phrase “white-winged dove” in the chorus ties into the idea of the spirit leaving one’s body and affected Nicks while writing the song because of the way Lennon and her uncle died. “When I came back to Phoenix I started to write this song.” “White-Winged Dove” “I didn’t know John Lennon, but I knew Jimmy Iovine, who worked with John quite a bit in the ’70s, and heard all the loving stories that Jimmy told about him,” shared Nicks. Jimmy Iovine, who produced Bella Donna and was Nicks’ boyfriend at the time, was distraught over his friend Lennon’s death, while Nicks felt helpless in comforting him and had to fly back home to Phoenix to be by her uncle’s side before his death. The verse, words from a poet and a voice from a choir, refer to the late Beatle. On December 8, 1980, Stevie Nicks was in Australia, the day Lennon was shot and killed in New York City. ‘I hear the call of the nightbird singing, come away, come away.’” John Lennon (Photo: Michael Putland) Lennon The white-winged dove in the song is a spirit that is leaving a body, and I felt a great loss at how both Johns were taken. He was home and my aunt had some music softly playing, and it was a perfect place for the spirit to go away.

“The part that says ‘I went today… maybe I will go again… tomorrow’ refers to seeing him the day before he died. “‘And the days go by like a strand in the wind,’ that’s how fast those days were going by during my uncle’s illness, and it was so upsetting to me,” said Nicks of the lyrics in a 1981 interview.

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