Fleetwood Mac Was Sued By A Woman Who Claimed To Have Written One Of Their Biggest Songs

Highlights

• Carol Hinton's lawsuit against Fleetwood Mac claimed Stevie Nicks plagiarized her poem with hit tune "Sara".
• Stevie Nicks defended her songwriting and reached a agreement with Hinton, averting a trial and paying her $1500.
• Nicks stood company on her lyrics' originality, showing a demo of "Sara" from 1978 ahead of Hinton submitted her poem in 1979.

Fleetwood Mac has as much songwriting credibility as any rock band in historical past. Maybe much more. The band consisted of 3 top-tier musicians throughout the Seventies and 80s: Stevie Nicks, Lindsey Buckingham, and the late, great Christine McVie. In brief, they didn't want outside help when it came to penning radio staples and chart-topping singles.

That mentioned, a woman named Carol Hinton sued Fleetwood Mac in 1980, claiming that Stevie Nicks had stolen lyrics from her without giving proper credit score. The swimsuit dragged on for months, and Nicks was in the end pressured to clarify what happened during the songwriting procedure.

This piece will delve into the lawsuit, and without equal conclusion that the courts arrived at regarding the actual authorship of the Fleetwood Mac track in question.

Carol Hinton Believed The Lyrics To The Song 'Sara' Were Stolen From Her 1978 Poem

The timeline of occasions is important to figuring out the case for and towards Carol Hinton, so we will be able to chart issues out intimately. According to the Washington Post, Hinton, a Michigan native, wrote a poem known as "Sara" and submitted it to Warner Bros. for e-newsletter in November 1978.

Fleetwood Mac released their double album Tusk in October 1979, and the second single from the album, additionally titled "Sara", was released two months later. Hinton spotted that there were a lot of similarities between her poem and Fleetwood Mac's song of the same title, and famous that the Tusk album had been released at the document label Warner Bros. Inc.

At some level between December 1979 and May 1980, Hinton was able to get in touch with Fleetwood Mac songwriter Stevie Nicks, and speak about the truth that "Sara" the poem and the song had been shockingly similar. Nicks recounted the conversation, which happened over the phone, all the way through a Rolling Stone profile:

"There were some great similarities [in the lyrics], and I never said she didn’t write the words she wrote."

Hinton was unhappy with what Nicks had to say on the topic, so she decided to take legal motion towards Fleetwood Mac. She accused Nicks of stealing and repurposing the lyrics from her 1978 poem, and went as far as to suggest that the singer was ready to acquire get entry to to the poem due to her connections at Warner Bros.

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Hinton's lawsuit was filed in May 1980, and the court docket lawsuits would proceed till July 1981.

Carol Hinton Wanted Songwriting Royalties After 'Sara' Became A Top 10 Hit

The similarities between Carol Hinton's poem and Stevie Nicks' song are unmistakable, and that is something that Nicks was compelled to acknowledge. There are several traces within the poem which can be identical to the track's lyrics, with probably the most notable examples being:

- "Drowning in a sea of love"

- "When you build your house, call me"

The specificity of these words led many to think that Hinton had a robust case. She was angling to claim songwriting royalties for "Sara", which had develop into a worldwide damage by 1980, peaking at number seven on the Billboard Hot 100.

That being stated, Nicks was now not going to let someone lay declare to her music. She advised Rolling Stone that she was now not going to give up any of the royalties or songwriting credits to "Sara", and he or she'd reasonably pay out of her own pocket than be classified a musical thief:

"[Hinton] picked the wrong songwriter. To call me a thief about my first love, my songs, that’s going too far."

Nicks had an ace in the hole: a demo recording of "Sara" that she made in July 1978, well earlier than Hinton submitted her poem to Warner Bros. She additionally pointed to the differences in the subject material between her music and Hinton's poem.

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In her 2014 autobiography, Stevie Nicks printed that the tune was inspired by an affair that her boyfriend at the time, Fleetwood Mac drummer Mick Fleetwood, had with a woman named "Sara." The "Sara" in question was Nicks' easiest pal, Sara Recor. Hinton's poem, meanwhile, was showed to be about an unborn kid.

Carol Hinton Dropped The Suit After Stevie Nicks Agreed To Pay Her $1500

Stevie Nicks provided a detailed defense against Carol Hinton's lawsuit. Not handiest did she give you the aforementioned "Sara" demo relationship again to July 1978, but she known as upon the testimony of band individuals and fellow musicians like Eagles singer Don Henley to ascertain that they heard the demo shortly after it was made.

Despite this evidence, the court case drew on. Nicks' attorney, Mickey Shapiro, advised the Washington Post that the case was taking an emotional toll at the singer, and serving as a source of embarrassment given the pride she takes in her songwriting.

"Stevie feels very hurt by this. She sees her song as children. I think the case will be heard on its own merits."

It won't ever be made transparent whether Nicks would have won the case outright, as a result of she in the end determined to settle out of court with Hinton. She wanted to speed up the method, according to UPI Archives, and agreed to pay Hinton $1500 out of her personal pocket.

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When requested to provide an explanation for how her song and Hinton's poem wound up being so an identical, Nicks chalked it up to easy "karma." She additionally asserted that Hinton should not have accused her of stealing lyrics, as she could have achieved the same thing to Hinton given the time frame by which she recorded the demo:

"Don’t tell me I didn’t write the words I wrote."

"Sara" remains one of the most non-public songs in Stevie Nicks' catalog, and she or he would even revisit the title, and the subjects of the song, on the 1987 album minimize "Welcome to the Room... Sara." Tellingly, Nicks is indexed as the sole songwriter on both.

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