Why is Stevie Nicks’ song called “Edge Of Seventeen”?

She continued: “My cousin John Nicks and I were in the room when he died. It was just me and John there. That was part of the song when I was running down the halls looking for someone – I thought, where’s mom? Where is his wife and the rest of the family?” giving meaning to the lyrics, “Suddenly there was no one / Left standing in the hall.”

But another part of the song captures a more collective pain. Written in December 1980, the song was partly inspired by the assassination of John Lennon, a death that shook Nicks and the wider music community. “This was a very scary and sad moment for all of us in the rock and roll business, it scared us all to death that an idiot could be so disturbed as to wait outside your block, never knowing you and to shoot you dead, Nicks said. For her, the “white-winged dove” represents him, stating, “The white dove was John Lennon and peace.”

But while the song honors these two men, who both died within weeks of each other, its meaning remains somewhat ambiguous, allowing listeners to form their own connection to the decades-old track. So much of this open interpretation comes down to the song’s title, as the lyrics “on the edge of seventeen” bring a new contemplation of youth, age, rebellion and innocence.

Only she could answer the questions of why that line was there or why Nicks decided to title the song after it. But the answer to where it got its name is well known.

Who came up with the title for ‘Edge of Seventeen’?

Technically, the answer to the question of who titled “Edge Of Seventeenit’s Stevie Nicks, but the phrase came from a misunderstanding. One day, while hanging out with Tom Petty’s wife Jane, Nicks misheard her. When she told the Fleetwood Mac singer the story of how the couple met, Jane said she was “at the age of seventeen”. But Nicks misheard it as “the edge of seventeen,” surprised by the poetry and power of such a simple phrase.

In a 1981 interview with Los Angeles disc jockey Robert W Morgan, Nicks said he told Jane, “She has to be ‘fringe.’ “The Edge of Seventeen” is perfect. I’m going to write a song.” That song was originally intended to be about the Petty couple and their love story, but after being struck with grief by the death of her uncle and John Lennon, the song found a new focus but kept the title .

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