Stevie Nicks Recorded One of Her Most Beautiful Songs Three Times-But It Was Never Released as a Single
Stevie Nicks had written and recorded many gorgeous ballads over her 50-year career, but one of them has a special place in her heart.
"Crystal," a folk-pop ballad Nicks penned in the early 1970s, has been recorded three different times, two of them with her then-beau/musical partner Lindsey Buckingham.
Known for its acoustic guitar intro and mystical lyrics about an all-encompassing love, "Crystal" first appeared on Nicks and Buckingham's self-titled 1973 debut album. Two years later, the song was reworked for the duo's first album as part of Fleetwood Mac. For both of those versions, Buckingham was the lead vocalist, with Nicks contributing backing and harmony vocals. "Crystal" was not released as a single either time, and in fact, Nicks resisted including it on the Fleetwood Mac album.
"John McVie wanted to put that on the Fleetwood Mac album," Nicks revealed in a 1981 interview with The Source. "And I didn't really because it took the place of a new song. Since I write so much, it's I don't need to keep putting old songs that take places of new songs, which means those new songs are backlogged for the next and for the next and for the next. But he was insistent."
Nicks agreed to include the song on Fleetwood Mac's "white" album after bandmate Christine McVie came up with a "mesmerizing" piano piece for the outro.
Rolling Stone once called "Crystal" "the ultimate Stevie-Lindsay song"-and indeed, Nicks has said she wrote it when things were "good" in that relationship.
"'Crystal' is a classic Stevie gem, a song about listening to your intuition across a mystical, Tolkien-esque backdrop of nature," the outlet shared. "We hear about the sea, clear water fountains, and - her favorite - mountains." It was also noted that Nicks wrote the song "years before she was famous, before all the shawls and white winged doves, for Buckingham, her new boyfriend and bandmate."
"Crystal" would reappear a third time, long after Nicks' personal relationship with Buckingham ended. In 1998, Nicks took the lead on a new recording of "Crystal" for the soundtrack to the movie Practical Magic, marking the first time she was the main vocalist on the song. The song was featured prominently in the film, giving it new exposure, but still, no Billboard love.
While "Crystal" has never been released as a commercial single, thus its lack of chart history, perhaps it will someday. The music legend didn't rule out re-recording the haunting ballad about crystalline dreams again in the future.
"It's funny, because ‘Crystal' was recorded three times," Nicks told Rolling Stonein 2024. "It was recorded for Buckingham Nicks and Fleetwood Mac, and then it was rerecorded for Practical Magic, with me and Sharon [Celani]. Maybe we should record it for a fourth time."
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This story was originally published May 28, 2026 at 6:14 AM.