“You Can’t Fix This” is a 2013 song credited to Stevie Nicks, Dave Grohl, Taylor Hawkins, and Rami Jaffee. It appears as the third track on Sound City: Real to Reel, the companion album to Grohl’s documentary about Sound City Studios in Los Angeles. The album was created as a tribute to the studio’s history and its distinctive analog recording sound.
The song began as a poem Stevie Nicks wrote after the death of her eighteen-year-old godson, Glen Parrish Jr. Parrish died after being found unresponsive at a fraternity-house party at UCLA. Nicks later explained that the tragedy inspired the song’s sorrowful subject: the helplessness of watching someone make destructive choices and realizing that love cannot always prevent the consequences.
Dave Grohl had invited Nicks to contribute a song to the Sound City project. She brought him the poem, and the two decided to develop it together despite its painful subject. Grohl, Taylor Hawkins, and Rami Jaffee helped shape the poem into a full rock song. The finished recording combines Nicks’s dramatic, emotional vocal with Grohl’s instrumental direction, Hawkins’s drumming, and Jaffee’s keyboard work. Its sound recalls the moody, atmospheric side of Nicks’s work with Fleetwood Mac while also carrying the heavier, more forceful character associated with Grohl and the Foo Fighters.
The track became part of the live identity of the Sound City Players, the rotating group of musicians Grohl assembled around the documentary and its soundtrack. In early 2013, Nicks performed the song with Grohl and the Players at concerts and on The Late Show with David Letterman. Before one performance, she described the song’s origin and dedicated it to the memory of her godson. The performance provided a somber moment within an otherwise celebratory concert.
In that context, the song stands apart from the more upbeat collaborations on Sound City: Real to Reel. It connects the documentary’s interest in musicians creating together with Nicks’s long-standing ability to turn grief, memory, and troubled relationships into poetic rock songs. “You Can’t Fix This” is both a collaboration between major rock musicians and an intimate reflection on loss, regret, and the limits of rescue.
Stevie Nicks, Dave Grohl, Taylor Hawkins, and Rami Jaffee - You Can’t Fix This Lyrics
We don't talk much about it
It goes back so many years
All the times we almost didn't make it
We stayed clear
Dancing with the devil
Call it respect, call it fear
But we never allowed the devil
To come to the party
We were careful in our own way
We walk through the darkness
We made a pact not to dance with the devil
Even when the devil seemed to have a heart
He said we'd never be sorry
For what we'd done
And we never allowed the devil
To come to the party
You can't fix this, you lost a friend
Hearts breaking, right and left
Friendships break like glass
And the devil pours another glass
It's so easy
The devil pours a glass of Champagne
Asks someone new to dance
It's so easy to ruin people's lives
He twirls around and starts to laugh
Tear up the invitation
Hear the bells ring on the hour
He twirls around and he laughs
He said we'd never be sorry
For what we'd done
And we never allowed the devil
To come to the party
You can't fix this, you lost a friend
Hearts breaking, right and left
Friendships break like glass
And the devil pours another glass
No, we never allowed the devil
To come to the party
Yes, we said that we would never be sorry
For what we'd done
Never go to the party
If you think you won't come home
Never dance with the devil
You can't fix this, you lost a friend
He will burn you down
Hearts breaking, right and left
Well, never dance with the devil
You can't fix this, you lost a friend
He will burn you down
Hearts breaking, right and left
Never dance with the devil
You can't fix this, you lost a friend
He will burn you down
You can't fix this, you lost a friend
Don't ever dance with the devil
You can't fix this, you lost a friend
He will burn you down
You can't fix this
You can't fix this
You can't fix this
You can't fix this
You can't fix this