Happy Birthday Stevie Nicks! Love you lots.
"Tusk" gave the band two Top40 hits, the eponymously named tribal dance song that peaked at #8 and the Stevie Nicks penned and performed "Sara" that went one better peaking at #7 in the fall and winter of 1979.
The original length of the song was nearly 16 minutes, but the album track was cut to 6:22 with the single version clocking in at 4:37, lengthy for a singles track but radio stations played the longer version quite often.
Nicks has stated the song was about her friend, Sara who went on to marry Mick Fleetwood. It was also the subject of a copyright complaint by a songwriter who had submitted a song called "Sara" to Warner Brothers in 1978. Stevie was able to produce evidence that she had written and recorded the track in July, 1978 before the complainants song was submitted to Warner. That cleared Nicks and her song, the case was dropped and no plagiarism had occurred.
The dreamy and glistening sound of "Sara" using brushes on the snare drum perfectly complimented Stevie's lyrics sung in a dreamy reverie. The song came about when Nicks was dating Don Henley and subsequently became pregnant with his child. In 1991 much to Stevie's consternation he confirmed that she had an abortion and writing the song was therapeutic for her. In 2014, Nicks confirmed Henley's claim and that the child would have been named Sara.
