Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham Reconnect to Reflect on “Frozen Love” and Each Other

After years of silence and a strained history, Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham appear to have found their way back to civility, if not full reconciliation. The former Fleetwood Mac bandmates and famously tumultuous exes reunited, at least in spirit, on a new episode of Song Exploder, where they reflected on the creation of “Frozen Love,” the final track from their 1973 album Buckingham Nicks.

While their interviews for the episode appear to have been conducted separately, Nicks revealed that she and Buckingham are, at long last, back on speaking terms. “Lindsey and I started talking about it last night,” she said during her segment. “This whole thing seems really like yesterday to us.”

In the episode, both musicians trace their shared history back to the Bay Area in 1966, when they first met as teenagers at Menlo-Atherton High School. They reconnected later as members of the local band Fritz, performing together as openers for Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin, a heady introduction to the rock world that laid the foundation for their creative chemistry.

Still, it wasn’t until producer Keith Olsen encouraged them to branch off as a duo that they began to truly define their musical identity. “Keith was extremely supportive, but Fritz was never able to secure a record deal,” Buckingham recalled. Nicks, meanwhile, described the split as “terrorizing,” explaining that it forced them to leave behind people they loved. “It was our first super disappointment in the music business,” she said, before adding, “But it was an invitation to greatness, and we both knew it.”

That bittersweet ending pushed them closer together, both personally and professionally. “It drove us together because we just couldn’t figure it out,” Nicks admitted. “And then we fell in love with each other, and that was it.”

The episode’s focus, “Frozen Love,” captures the volatile yet magnetic partnership that would later define Fleetwood Mac’s creative dynamic. Buckingham described their collaboration as a delicate balance: “I don’t think she craved my input on that level, and nor did I crave hers on the production level either. She understood that I was transforming things for her, and I understood that I wouldn’t have had anything to transform without the beautiful center that she’d given me.”

For Nicks, the song’s emotional weight remains vivid decades later. “It’s about two people that were in love, that had a lot of differences and saw the world slightly differently, but had this relationship that seemed to be like a gift,” she said. She compared it to the sweeping romance of Wuthering Heights or Great Expectations, “a modern-day love affair, tragedies and all. Because nobody really loves happy songs. Certainly, I didn’t, and neither really did Lindsey.”

Nicks also laughed about a lyrical slip that fans have long debated: “Hate gave you me for a lover,” which she clarified was supposed to be “Fate.” “When I hear myself sing that line, it sounds like I’m saying ‘hate,’” she joked. “So, that’s not good. I’m sorry, Lindsey. I’m calling him later.”

When Buckingham Nicks debuted in 1973, it barely made a commercial dent. Yet its legacy would prove pivotal. During the Song Exploder episode, Buckingham recounted the fateful moment that changed their lives. While at Sound City Studios, he heard “Frozen Love” blasting from another room. “I’m going, ‘What the hell?’” he remembered. “I open the door, and I see this tall guy standing there, rocking out to the song. And Keith says, ‘Oh, Lindsey, this is Mick Fleetwood.’”

That impromptu introduction led directly to the formation of the classic Fleetwood Mac lineup, which would go on to record Rumours (1977), one of the best-selling and most emotionally charged albums in music history.

The duo’s renewed communication comes after years of public tension. As recently as 2023, Nicks told Rolling Stone she had only spoken to Buckingham briefly at Christine McVie’s celebration of life, saying she had “dealt with Lindsey for as long as I could” and had given him “more than 300 million chances”.