Being that “Midnight Sky” already so patently ripped off many key elements from Stevie Nicks’ seminal 1981 hit, “Edge of Seventeen,” it was probably only an eventuality that Cyrus would call upon the witchy woman herself to dress it up anew and repurpose it for a remix edition that’s already been circulating as a mashup on YouTube anyway. Having embraced more fully her Joan Jett femullet and taken to covering Blondie’s “Heart of Glass,” Cyrus’ concentrated effort to build a time machine back to the 80s–a period when women in music actually seemed to be more self-assured during an era when men still ran the show–is becoming more and more intensified.
And maybe it’s only fitting that she wants to get “back to the past,” since one of the most iconic pop culture moments from the 80s centered on a DeLorean-based time machine (foolishly trying to get to the future… though at least they only got as far as 2015, perhaps an omen that everything was going to take a dive the following year).
Leaving Nicks’ signature riff to commence the opening of the song, the intro notes to “Midnight Sky” are then interwoven at the six second mark as Cyrus begins her tale of redemption and freedom, having been released from the ropes she was tied in (and not in the kinky literal way she liked) by Liam Hemsworth for so many years. Just under one minute in and Nicks’ voice finally joins in to belt out that chilling, “Just like the white-winged dove sings a song/Sounds like she’s singin’.”
From this moment, it’s a back and forth sort of “rap battle” (white girl style) as each woman sings their verses, with Miley occasionally joining in on Stevie’s vocals and vice versa–which is a big deal considering Nicks can dance circles around anyone else lyrically, so for her to agree to sing some little pop ditty is a major coup for someone like Cyrus, who seems to be questioning her idols of late–namely Madonna (though the M did once deign to appear with Cyrus for her first dabbling in an MTV Unplugged session back in 2014).
Taking the viscerality down a notch at the halfway point of the song, Cyrus goes a capella for a moment to sing, “I was born to run/I don’t belong to anyone/Oh no…” with Nicks jumping in to add, “I don’t need to be loved by you.” The moment has a special poignancy as it’s widely known that Nicks has often mentioned that she’s been adamant throughout her entire life that she was always going to put her career–her music–first, and that if it meant the tradeoff of not “having a man,” so be it.
Cyrus, in divorcing Hemsworth and embracing her pansexual declarations, seems to be saying the exact same thing at this moment in time, and it’s likely that her forthcoming album, Plastic Hearts (scrapping her She Is Here and She Is Everything projects that were to round out She Is Coming from 2019), will be further proof of her own Nicks-inspired approach to life without love (of a heteronormative brainwashing variety).
Together, the two make a case for buying a copy of Women Who Run With the Wolves before defecting outside to howl at the full moon of a midnight sky, or one at the edge of midnight.
