It was just one of those things. A vowel sound was ever-so-slightly altered by a Southern accent, leading one word to sound like another. More specifically, a long “a” became a short “e,” changing the entire meaning of one word. Thus, a poetic song title was born.
Iconic musician Stevie Nicks had just gone solo from her band Fleetwood Mac when she found herself chatting with Tom Petty’s first wife, Jane Benyo. Digging into their relationship, a topic Nicks certainly liked writing about, she asked Jane how old she was when she and Petty met. But the simple answer was misunderstood due to that vowel miscommunication. Accents can be funny that way.
Just a slight twang
Benyo said they had met at the “age of seventeen.” Nicks heard, “edge of seventeen,” and an absolute classic hit song was born. The story, which has been posted over time on social media and verified by Nicks herself, has gone viral yet again after an Instagram handle called RockBlog (@rockblog101) re-shared it.
RockBlog posted a photo of Nicks playing the piano next to another picture of her with Petty and his beloved guitar. The top of the post reads, “When Stevie Nicks met Tom Petty’s wife, she asked when they met. She said ‘The age of seventeen.’ But with her Southern accent, Nicks heard ‘edge of seventeen.’ She’d never heard the phrase before, but it stuck with her and inspired the song.”
The song, of course, refers to her massive hit “Edge of Seventeen,” which debuted on Nicks’s first solo album Bella Donna in 1981. It was released as a single early the next year with the title, “Edge of Seventeen (Just Like the White Winged Dove).” It went on to become one of her biggest solo releases, climbing all the way to 11 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.
How it all happened
Now, when it comes to Nicks and romance, there’s always a bit of backstory. In this case, after relationships with Fleetwood Mac bandmates Lindsey Buckingham and Mick Fleetwood, it was time to spread her proverbial wings.
She later dated renowned music producer Jimmy Iovine, who just happened to be co-producing Tom Petty (and the Heartbreakers’) third album, Damn the Torpedoes. That’s how Nicks met Petty and his first wife, and if that series of events hadn’t occurred, the song would have likely had a different title.
Nicks herself told the story as well. “The immediate inspiration is from Jane Petty, who is Tom’s wife, because she told me that when she met Tom he was, she said, ‘at the age of seventeen’ but she has this incredible southern drawl so it sounded like ‘edge of seventeen’ and I said, ‘Jane, (I’m writing it on the menu, right! I’m going…) I’m writing a song called ‘Edge of Seventeen.’ And she laughs, you know, she didn’t ever think I was ever serious. So it started out about Tom and Jane basically, who I have no idea what they were at 17, but I made it up.”
White winged dove
But the song itself changed in meaning too. The “white winged dove” part came along after John Lennon died. Nicks has explained on multiple occasions that the song was written for both Lennon (who had been close to Iovine) and for her Uncle John, who passed away while she held his hand. She quotes and explains lyrics from the song on VH1 Storytellers: “So when it says ‘I went running down the hall, searching for somebody. Upstairs and down the hall, I did not hear an answer. But I did hear the call of the night bird,’ that’s what that means.”
Regardless of its origins, it’s considered one of the best songs of all time, coming in at 217 on Rolling Stone‘s “Greatest 500 Songs of All Time.”
Imagine what the title would have been if Jane Petty had been Irish.
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