An accidental theft of a song written by Tom Petty would form one of Stevie Nicks‘ best songs.
The former Fleetwood Mac member and The Heartbreakers frontman had a decades-long friendship which lasted until Petty’s death in 2017. Despite the pair enjoying years of friendship, one incident where Nicks “accidentally” took a song from Petty’s to finish pile threatened the pair’s close bond. Nicks would recall the incident where she “stole” the song from demos in Petty’s possession. The Love is a Long Road hitmaker was apparently livid with the theft, though Nicks would say she meant no harm in taking the track. The song in question, Ooh My Love, originally had a riff similar to Runaway Trains, the Petty track which featured on his Let Me Up (I’ve Had Enough) album.
Nicks has not played Ooh My Love at any of her shows, apart from one at an “unknown venue” in 1994 according to Selist.FM. Safe to say, it’s not a regular of her setlists, nor will it ever be by the looks of it. Part of that may be because of where the song originated, and the embarrassing moment Nicks realised she had taken the song from Petty.
She said: “I stole that [Ooh My Love] from Tom Petty – accidentally! I picked up the wrong cassette at Tom’s one night, a tape of Mike Campbell’s instrumental demos. Tom would get them first, and then the ones he didn’t want, Mike sent them to me.
“I accidentally arrived home one night with a cassette — I thought it was mine, but it was Tom’s. It just said, 24 Demos From Mike Campbell. It had the song that inspired Ooh My Love, which became Runaway Train[s] for Tom.”
Nicks was so delighted with the influence of the song that she brought it to Fleetwood Mac and “sang my lyrics over it.” Once the band had finished recording, Nicks would opt to share the results with Petty, who soon realised where the track was from.
Nicks continued: “I loved it so much, I called Tom and said, ‘Listen to this!’ What an idiot, right? Let’s play him the song you stole over the phone! Tom just starts screaming at me on the other end of the phone.
“I’m realising, ‘How stupid are you, Stevie?’ So I had to go in the next day and tell Fleetwood Mac, ‘Guess what, we can’t do this song.’ ‘Why can’t we do it?’ ‘Because I stole it from Tom Petty, and I’m absolutely a total criminal and a thief.'”
Though the song in its Runaway Trains-like form would not release, Nicks did piece it back together for her solo album, The Other Side of the Mirror, years later. She added: “Then way later, years down the road, I sat down at the piano and tried to recall it.
“In the shadow of the castle walls… of course, I don’t know near as many chords as Mike Campbell does. All I remembered was that distant enchanted melody. … Me and Tom and Mike Campbell, we’re like quintessentially three parts of one person.”
