Stevie Nicks is essentially the queen of collaboration at this point, having written songs with, for, and about so many of the industry’s greats. Of course, it goes without saying that the same has happened the other way around.
Quite literally everyone from Prince to Joe Walsh has been among her artistic relationships, so it should come as no surprise that Jon Bon Jovi once wrote a song for Stevie Nicks and, with that, sang it with her too. The song in question is ‘Sometimes It’s a Bitch’.
Later, when reflecting on the song, Stevie Nicks said of hearing the material for the first time: “When I first heard this song, I really did not quite understand what Jon was trying to say, but over the two weeks that we sang it together (at my mike), I started to realise that Jon, without knowing it, had sort of taken a time machine back 18 years and watched my life, the good parts and the bad.”
Nicks continued: “It was not a love song, which of course, I had expected it to be; it was much more than that to me. Bon Jovi had picked up on the fact, before meeting me, that there was no way he could know what I had lived through without having lived through it with me, so he dreamed.”
Considering what exactly he imagined writing the song for her, Nicks said of the writing process: “He dreamed about what the notorious Stevie Nicks had been like and what it had all done to her… the indulgences, the lifestyle. I felt that if he knew nothing else about me, he knew I had a strong instinct to survive. Someday, maybe all the people who did not go through this with us will understand; that considering the generation we come from, we are very lucky to be alive.”
It’s an incredibly wholesome message, especially when you consider the juxtaposition of the lyrics from the title of the song, singing lines like, “You gotta take it as it comes/ Sometimes it don’t come easy” and “Sometimes it’s a bitch/ Sometimes it’s a breeze/ Sometimes love’s blind/ And sometimes it sees.”
Noticing the way that Stevie Nicks can play off other musicians and songwriters is a part of seeing her for the talent she is, and it seems that there are always new details to be learned about the amazing musician. Revisit the song, below.