Stevie Nicks Faced A Harsh Ultimatum When She Refused To Record This 1977 Classic

When Mick Fleetwood told Stevie Nicks that the band was replacing her song "Silver Springs" on the band's upcoming "Rumours" album with another song she wrote, called "I Don't Want to Know," she initially refused to sing it. However, she was met with an ultimatum: sing the song or quit the band. There were valid reasons for replacing the song, but there were also good reasons for Nicks to be upset about it.

Fleetwood said the song was too long, to which Nicks acquiesced, but it still stung. According to what Nicks said in an audio interview release called "Breaking the Chain," her long-time partner, nemesis, and bandmate Lindsey Buckingham was lobbying to put "I Don't Want to Know" on the record to replace "Silver Springs," but she felt "Silver Springs" was the better song for the album. 

Nicks wrote "I Don't Want to Know" before joining Fleetwood Mac when she was in the duo Buckingham Nicks, but according to People, she has called "Silver Springs" "probably the best song I've ever written." The track was relegated to the B-side of the single "Go Your Own Way," which was released ahead of 1977's "Rumours," but the song was barely noticed until decades later, even though "Go Your Own Way" went to No. 10. Nicks had also promised the royalties from "Silver Springs" to her mother, and its new release designation had Nicks rightly thinking it wasn't going to be much of a windfall for mom. Meanwhile, Nicks had a decision to make about whether she was willing to sing vocals on a song she didn't even want on the album.

Nicks said in a 1991 interview with Nicky Horme that after Mick Fleetwood basically told her that she had no choice in the matter, that "I Don't Want to Know" was going to be on "Rumours" and "Silver Springs" was not, "I started to scream bloody murder and probably said every horrifying mean thing that you could possibly say to another human being." She said that she told them she was "one-fifth of this band" and she didn't want to sing that song. The reply was that she could "take a hike" or she could refuse to sing it, but then only two tracks on the record would be hers. So, she did it, but she said, "I was real angry, but I learned to live with it for a long time." 

All these years later, it seems that Nicks was right about "Silver Springs" being the better song, at least as far as Billboard and Spotify are concerned. "Silver Springs" is now a fan favorite and, as of mid-2026, has nearly 464 million streams compared to 128 million for "I Don't Want to Know." And while the song that made it on Fleetwood Mac's drama-laced "Rumours" is nowhere to be found in the Billboard charts, "Silver Springs" popped up at No. 5 in the Adult Contemporary charts and No. 41 in radio hits in 1997, after a resurgence of interest in the band following an impassioned performance of the song in a televised Fleetwood Mac concert. 

The staying power of "Silver Springs" continued in 2025, when it showed up at No. 13 in the Hot Rock & Alternative chart and No. 18 in Digital Song Sales. Fortunately for Nicks, she didn't have to sing "I Don't Want to Know" at that reunion concert, as it wasn't included in the setlist.