From Pattie Boyd To Shania Twain: Women Who Rocked The Music World With Their Love Lives

The great Dolly Parton, who knows quite a lot about love and music,once told the BBC, "Everybody's life is a soap opera. Everybody's life is a country western song. Depends on who's writing it." While she was talking about, of all people, Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, the statement could fit just about every great musical artist. Songwriters pull from their own lives to create their art, infusing each track with the love, joy, excitement, and pain they have felt. These are the tunes that keep fans dancing, singing, and, when appropriate, crying with broken hearts through the long, cold nights alone. 

Leading lives that feel like research for songs, these women are just as likely to break the hearts of their bandmates as they are to release songs that reach the top of the charts. Or, in some cases, they act as the muse behind some of the greatest rock songs of all time while driving genius musicians to work even harder to prove their love. Whatever the case, without these ladies, some of the greatest songs — and the deepest musical lore — may never have existed. And, to be honest, if they did still exist, they certainly wouldn't be as memorable. After all, you can't make good music without a lot of passion, and if there's one thing everyone can agree on, it's that these women brought the passion that created some amazing art.

Perhaps the greatest known love story in rock and roll, Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham's breakup led to the creation of one of the greatest albums of all time. It all started when Nicks joined Buckingham's high school band, and they started dating. The two ended up leaving that band and joining Fleetwood Mac. Just before the band began to record their eleventh album, 1977's "Rumors," Nicks and Buckingham split up. That's where things got very messy.

Nicks wrote "Dreams" about Buckingham, while also starting a brief affair with Mick Fleetwood, the drummer after whom the band was named. At the same time, Buckingham wrote "Go Your Own Way," a song Nicks took personal offense to, especially the line "Packing up, shacking up is all you want to do," which was reportedly Buckingham essentially accusing Nicks of sleeping with other men when they were together. Nicks later expressed her outrage to Rolling Stone, saying, "He knew it wasn't true. It was just an angry thing that he said. Every time those words would come out onstage, I wanted to go over and kill him." 

But, at the time, she took her anger out by writing "Silver Springs," the B-side to "Go Your Own Way," singing, "I'll follow you down 'til the sound of my voice can haunt you." All of the pain can be heard on "Rumors," which is why it continues to be one of the most iconic albums of all time. While "Silver Springs" was cut from the original release of the album (much to Nicks' disappointment), it did make it onto the 2001 re-release as a bonus track.

The always fashionable Shania Twain and music producer Robert John "Mutt" Lange met in June 1993 and were married before the end of the year. Together, they crafted Twain's hit album, "The Woman in Me," turning the country singer into a household name. The first single from the album, "Whose Bed Have Your Boots Been Under?," not only went gold after spending more than four months on the Billboard Hot Country Singles chart, but it also foretold the singer's future. Living busy celebrity lives, Twain and Lange hired Marie-Anne Thiébaud to take care of their home in Switzerland and act as Twain's personal assistant. Thiébaud herself was married to Nestlé executive Frédéric Thiébaud, and the two couples became friends. In 2008, the two seemingly happy couples suffered a blow when, out of nowhere, Lange asked Twain for a divorce. 

The singer would later tell Oprah about how she turned to Marie-Anne for consoling, explaining, "All Marie-Anne did through the whole thing was comfort me, telling me that everything's fine, and I believed her, and I accepted it as being genuine." But, as Twain would later learn, Marie-Anne and Lange had been having a secret affair. Heartbroken, Twain turned to Frédéric for comfort in the months that followed, first as a friend who knew exactly what she was going through, but then as someone she felt a deep connection to. The two wed in 2011, but that doesn't mean Twain has forgiven Lange and Marie-Anne: her 2017 album, "Now," is filled with tunes about what her former husband and former friend put her through. 

Most people will never have a classic song written about them. Some very special people may get one song dedicated to them. A precious few get two or three. Patti Boyd has at least 10. The former wife of George Harrison and Eric Clapton, Boyd's beauty is responsible for the Beatles' classics "I Need You" and "Something," as well as Clapton's "Layla" and "Wonderful Tonight," not to mention Rolling Stones bassist Ronnie Woods' "Mystifies Me." Boyd's legacy as a musical muse started when she showed up to play a schoolgirl in the Beatles movie "A Hard Day's Night," and Harrison was instantly smitten with her. 

The two soon married, but Harrison wasn't faithful to his bride, having an affair with fellow Beatle Ringo Starr's wife. At the same time, Harrison's good friend Eric Clapton couldn't hide his love for Boyd, who refuted his affection at first, but gave in after her marriage to Harrison collapsed. Amazingly, Harrison, Boyd, and Clapton all stayed good friends, even vacationing together shortly after Boyd left Harrison for Clapton. Toward the end of Harrison's life, he visited Boyd one final time, and the two had tea together. Boyd recalled the meeting to People, recalling how the "My Sweet Lord" singer, looking at Boyd's garden, commented, "The flowers are shivering." To Boyd, the moment captured who Harrison was, saying, "Only George would think flower shiver. It was so sweet."

The Mamas & the Papas lasted just three years, but in that time they released the classic songs "California Dreamin'," "Monday Monday," and "Creeque Alley." The driving force behind the band were husband and wife team John and the iconic Michelle Phillips, who began their romance while John was still married to his first wife. And it was the decay of their marriage that would break up the group. Striking while the iron was hot, the band released three albums over the course of a year. Making the amount of music they released in such a short period all the more impressive was that John fired Michelle from the band during that year because of her infidelities. 

The problems started when Michelle's affair with the band's lead singer, Denny Doherty, came to light. As Michelle recalled to Rolling Stone, when her husband learned about the affair, he told her, "You could do a lot of things to me, Mich, but you don't f— my tenor." Making matters worse, fellow member Cass Elliot was in love with Doherty, reportedly telling Michelle (via Mamamia), "I don't get it. You could have any man you want. Why would you take mine?" 

Still, the group worked through it. Or, at least they tried. When John learned that Michelle was also sleeping with Gene Clark from The Byrds, he fired her from the group, but soon welcomed her back when fans demanded her return. Still, things were never the same between the bandmates again, and the Mamas & the Papas broke up because, according to Michelle (via Strange Brew), "By the time Denny and I stopped our affair, once we were behaving, we had nothing to write about."

As legend has it, Dolly Partorepn wrote two legendary tunes — "Jolene" and "I Will Always Love You" — on the same day. Parton first started toying with "Jolene" early in her career, telling NPR about signing an autograph for a little red-haired girl named Jolene. When Parton heard the girl's name, "I said, 'Jolene. Jolene. Jolene. Jolene ... That is pretty. That sounds like a song." Years later, Parton realized that a local bank teller liked to flirt with her husband, which the two would joke about. Parton then created a heartbreaking song about a woman fearing that her husband is going to run off with another woman. 

Best remembered for Whitney Houston's cover, "I Will Always Love You" was Parton's love letter to Porter Wagoner, the man who discovered her but, as time went on, was holding her back from reaching her full potential. While their relationship was very much a platonic one based on musical collaboration, Parton nevertheless had deep affection and respect for Wagoner. She recalled the process of writing the song to the Tennessean: "How am I gonna make him understand how much I appreciate everything, but that I have to go? So I went home and I thought, 'Well, what do you do best? You write songs.' So I sat down and I wrote this song."

Parton played the song for Wagoner, who she says cried when he heard it and agreed to let her out of her contract so long as he was allowed to produce one more album with her, and that "I Will Always Love You" would be on it. In 2007, The Grand Ole Opry held a concert celebrating Wagoner, ending the evening with Parton singing "I Will Always Love You" to him.