Stevie Nicks wrote “Landslide” in about five minutes three months before she joined Fleetwood Mac. No joke. “I wrote ‘Landslide’ in 1973, when I was 27, and I did already feel old in a lot of ways. I’d been working as a waitress and a cleaning lady for years. I was tired.” – New York Times
Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks were recording as a duo using the name Buckingham-Nicks before they were asked to join Fleetwood Mac. They planned to include “Landslide” on what would have been their second album. Stevie wrote “Landslide” and “Rhiannon,” while Buckingham was on the road with the Everly Brothers on backing guitar.
“My dad did have something to do with it, but he absolutely thinks that he was the whole complete reason it was ever written. I guess it was about September 1974, I was home at my dad and Mom’s house in Phoenix, and my father said, ‘You know, you really put a lot of time into this [her singing career], maybe you should give this six more months, and if you want to go back to school, we’ll pay for it. Basically, you can do whatever you want and we’ll pay for it. I have wonderful parents, and I went, ‘cool, I can do that.’
“Lindsey and I went up to Aspen, and we went to somebody’s incredible house, and they had a piano, and I had my guitar with me, and I went into their living room, looking out over the incredible Aspen skyway, and I wrote ‘Landslide.’ Three months later, Mick Fleetwood called. On New Year’s Eve, 1974, called and asked us to join Fleetwood Mac. So it was three months. I still had three more months to go to beat my six-month goal that my dad gave me.” – inherownwords.com