Stevie tells the story of Don advising her on "Dreams" again in her latest interview (the bolded parts are the interviewer's comments):Sometimes when I write a song, [...] I have a little overhead lightbulb thing that goes off, so then I’m never going to go back and change that even though a good example is Don Henley—I was going out with Don Henley when I was writing “Dreams,” and it says [sings], “When the rain washes you clean, you’ll know.” Well, he didn’t like that [sings]“washes you” [accent on “es”], and he wanted me to go, “When the rain washes you clean” [accent on “wash”]. And I’m like, “No, I don’t like it.” [laughs] And he’s like, “Well, wash-ES doesn’t sound good,” and I’m like, “Well, wash-ES is the way it’s gonna be.” So then you start getting into that with somebody, and we’re talking an ego [of] a fantastic songwriter here. So I’m arguing with Don Henley over this, you know? That’s why I really stayed away from writing songs with other people.
Especially men, I guess.
Well, yeah, and but then if you slip it over to women, then of course women are more sensitive. So then you’re really actually going to hurt somebody’s feelings. It didn’t hurt Don’s feelings that I didn’t like his idea. I think he just—he was like, way more famous than me, you know, Don Henley and the Eagles—so I think he probably just thought, “Well, you’re an idiot.” And just left it at that because certainly, me not liking the word “washes” is not going to wreck Don Henley’s confidence. But at the same time, it was a little thorn there for a moment.
It’s interesting that you say, “He was way more famous than me.” In retrospect—and it’s so strange to ask a question like this: “Do you guys ever sit there and consider who is more famous?”—but honestly, as time has gone by, wouldn’t you say it’s pretty much equaled out?
Well, maybe. But then, that was—well, when was “Dreams”? Was “Dreams” on the first or second record; I can never remember—whatever, when Lindsey and I drove to Los Angeles in 1971, “Witchy Woman” was on the radio, “One of These Nights” was on the radio, and we were totally inspired by them and by their amazing harmonies and amazing song craftsmanship. So in my little mind, this was two years—1976 is when it was, because that’s when I went out with Don—so in my mind, they had been famous for a good solid five, six years longer than than we had been famous. So I was listening to the Eagles long before I even knew if we’d make it or not. There’s bands that are famous—well it’s generations —five years before us, and then us, and there’s the five-years-after-us generation, and then there’s even older than that, which would be Eric Clapton and his generation, a little bit older than the Eagles generation. So that’s actually like a two-year-older generation, so each one of those generations brought up these amazing bands, so I, Stevie Nicks, would open for the Eagles in a second because they’re awesome and they were my big inspiration.