Has Anyone Ever Written Anything for You

She wrote this after Joe Walsh decided to give her a reality check. He drove her down to Boulder , CO...a very long drive, and told her a story along the way of a little girl who died, and was hit by a car...and she was very saddened by this story..and said " i knew he was gonna tell me something that would really freak me out." So when they got to this park, he brought her to a little drinking fountain that said "To Emma Kristin, and all of those who cant, or arent big enough to get a drink." ---Joe Walsh's little girl was Emma Kristin. She said she was very touched by this story, this reality check about whats important, that she went home, sat down at her piano and wrote this song "in about 5 minutes."

To be totally dancing around the subject, of course I wrote it [the song] for every person, because I always write my songs for everyone, but... yes, it was written for one person and it was written as a song for somebody that had written a song for somebody else. And it was like, 'Okay, you wrote this for that person. Now I'm gonna write this for you.' ~Stevie Nicks, Interview 1986

[Regarding the line, 'Poets, Priests of Nothing, Legends'] It means all of the rock and roll stars in the world that I know. They're all poets and they're all priests of nothing and they're all legends.

It's like, they are poets. But they don't push themselves to their limits. 'Priests of nothing' means they don't try hard enough. They don't do with what they have what I feel they could do. And so whenever I get involved with any of them, I tend to become like their manager and their agent. You know, 'Why don't we get out your piano and plug it in and write a song or something? Or arrange this for me.'

It's like, I even know that if I could even just get them to the piano, if I could just lure them with a glass of wine and some carrots and stuff and just like get them to the piano, that they'll be home free and so will I because I'll get to stand there and watch them be brilliant, and probably write something, and they will be knocked out because they're doing what they do, and they forget that have a job, you know.

I'm not a priest of nothing. I'm a priestess of way too much. My problem is the other extreme. It's like, 'How many rooms can she clean? How many hospitals can she visit? Children can she take care of? Meals can she cook? Shows can she do? Fittings can she go for? Make-up hours? You know, it's like I try to fit the impossible into twenty-four hours. And all of the poets, the priests of nothing... they're sleeping. ~Stevie Nicks, Jim Ladd Innerview 1986

[On the Timespace album liner notes] I put 'best of' on it, but it's really my favorite songs, my 'space in time,' the personal hits in my heart. I figured if I was going to pull them out, it was time to explain why they were written. So I typed two pages about every song, what experience caused me to write it. ...

I tried to read Has Anyone Ever Written Anything About You to my parents, and we all choked up---my father, who will not shed a tear, walked out of the room to compose himself. ~The Denver Post Sunday, August 11, 1991

Written for Joe Walsh Inspired by Joe Walsh

[After meeting Joe Walsh] I remember thinking, I can never be far from this person again... he is my soul. He seemed to be in a lot of pain, though hid it well. But finally, a few days later, (we were in Denver), he rented a jeep and drove me up into the snow covered hills of Colorado... for about two hours... He wouldn't tell me where we were going... but he did tell me a story of a little daughter that he had lost. To Joe, she was more than a child... she was three and a half... and she could relate to him.

I guess I had been complaining about alot of things going on on the road, and he decided to make me aware of how unimportant my problems were, if they were compared to worse sorrows. So he told me that he had taken his little girl to this magic park whenever he could, and the only thing she EVER complained about was that she was too little to reach up to the drinking fountain.

As we drove up to this beautiful park, (it was snowing a little bit), he came around to open my door and help me down, and when I looked up and saw the park... his baby's park, and I burst into tears saying, 'You built a drinking fountain here for her... didn't you?' I was right, under a huge beautiful hanging tree, was a tiny silver drinking fountain... I left Joe to get to it, and on it, it said, 'dedicated to HER and all others who were too small to get a drink.'

So he wrote a song for her [Emma's Song] and I wrote a song for him... 'This is your song...' I said... to the people... but it was Joe's song. Thank you, Joe, for the most committed song I ever wrote... But more than that, thank you for inspiring me in so many ways. Nothing in my life ever seems as dark anymore since we took that drive. ~Stevie Nicks Timespace liner notes, 1992

And sometimes...when they ask her about the men in her life... she says, 'well, they are poets...and yet they are priests of nothing... aah, but they are legends.' And I thought that there was a... connection. ~Live version ending to Has Anyone Ever Written Anything for You/Live From Red Rocks, 1986

Has Anyone Ever Written Anything For You. Probably um, in my own way this is probably my most intense song. What happened with this song is uh, I was, we went on the Wild Heart Tour in like, I guess it was 1984, something like that. Joe Walsh was opening for me and we became friends. And I was very uptight about something that was going on and, I don't even remember what it was. But Joe felt that is was important in the scheme of our lives to tell me a story that would make me rise above all of it.

And so, we were in Denver and he rented a jeep and he drove me up to Boulder, which is like an hour and a half, and told me this story on the way of a little girl that was killed in an accident in the morning on her way to nursery school. His little girl, in Boulder. And he kinda drove up to this park and I knew something, I knew he was gonna show me something that was gonna freak me out 'cause I was already totally upset by the time we got to Boulder. And we walked across this park and there was this little silver drinking fountain, and it said uh, 'To Emma Kristen, for all those who can't, or aren't big enough to get a drink.'

And something about this story touched me so deeply that I went home to me house in Phoenix, I got out of the car, I walked into the front entryway, where my Bosendorfer piano is, I sat down at the piano and I wrote this song. And I wrote it in about five minutes, the whole thing. So that is what this song is about. ~Stevie Nicks, MTV Storytellers, 1998

By far Stevies greatest song, has many meanings depending on how you choose to listen to the lyrics, as Stevie once said this song will mean something differant to everyone who hears it

marquicerise did a great job by posting all Stevie's comments about this song. But I have recently read an Interview with Nicks in which she's revealing some new things about this track: Reporter: There’s a moving story behind Has Anyone Ever Written Anything For You? from 1985’s Rock A Little. You’d driven to the mountains with The Eagles’ Joe Walsh, and he showed you the silver fountain he’d built in memory of the three-year-old daughter he lost… Stevie Nicks: Yes, [it] was written for Joe and Emma Kristen. The drive was in Boulder, Colorado. I was having a hard time and Joe was opening for me, but I soon realised how little I had to complain about. We made the trip there and he told me the whole story about how Emma had been killed by a drunk driver on the way to nursery school. Joe had been married to a woman named Stephanie, but they couldn’t survive what had happened and broke up. My song was for Stephanie, too, I think. It was for all of us. It was about the whole tragic story and how the insidious stupidity of some drunk asshole driving into a Porsche tore so many lives apart. ........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ And this part of Interview comes from this site: mojo4music.com/articles/stories/stevie-nicks-interviewed/ Personally I recommend this one - great Intreview :D

This is one of the saddest songs i have heard after "Song for Emma"-Joe Walsh. Both beautiful songs with beautiful lyrics and truely heart wrenching.

Wow.

I learned more about Joe Walsh than Stevie Nicks here. I always loved this song (as a writer, never spring this song on any partner unless you damn well sure love them) but this adds a whole new dimension to the experience. Magnificent song, so tender and heartfelt and know I know why.