When Stevie Nicks' mother died in December, the singer was left paralyzed with grief. What ended up taking her mind (at least temporarily) off of the stark reality of that loss? Binge viewing "Game of Thrones."
As the 65-year-old told the Herald Scotland, she "didn't leave the house for almost five months" after her mother passed. She spent some time editing a documentary about the making of hew new album "In Your Dreams," then caught pneumonia. It was time for some rest, so she settled in with "the entire first season" of the hit HBO show.
"So that was great," she said. "That certainly took my mind off everything."
But the marathon viewing didn't just distract her; it channeled her muse back into her work and inspired her to write several "Game"-related poems.
"I've written a bunch of poetry about it," she said. "One (poem) for each of the characters. On Jon Snow... on Arya... On Cersei and Jaime." And along the way she felt a real bond with the mind of "Thrones" author George R.R. Martin, saying she'd love to write music for the show.
"(He's) my age and it blows my mind that he's able to create this vast, interlinked world," she said. "As a songwriter I write little movies. But I can't imagine sitting down and writing even one small book. But then probably someone like him couldn't imagine writing 'Edge of Seventeen' or 'Rhiannon' — couldn't write a whole little life in two verses and a chorus."
Nicks also spoke about being devastated by the death of Cory Monteith ("Glee" had dedicated a show to Nicks' band Fleetwood Mac's seminal album "Rumours" in season two, and she got to know some of the cast at that time). Monteith died of a combination of heroin and alcohol in July. Abusing heroin, she said, quickly takes over your life, until you're just "throwing it away. And you have somebody like Cory who had the world at his feet, and his fingertips."