Songbird Lyric Question
 

"most of all I wish it from myself"

How do you read this line?

Does she mean "I wish you all the love in the world but I specifically wish that love comes from me and me alone"?

Does she mean "I wish you all the love in the world, and I want you to know this wish is coming from me"?

Does she mean "I wish you all the love in the world and, regardless of who gives it to you, I want to emphasize that this wish is from me even if the love isn't"?

Does she mean something else?

This is an exceelent question!!

She is explaining: I do indeed wish you all the love in the world... but seriously and more importantly, you have all of my love too.


Funny side note: My friend Todd, blurted out and the "myself" line, (in jest) "What a selfish bitch!"

gay man joking... :laugh::wavey:

This IS an excellent and brilliant question. I used to ponder this myself many moons ago when I would watch the Mirage concert. Everyone will have a different interpretation but here is mine. Love is powerful. There is a feeling of being in love and a feeling of being loved. We all want to be in love and be loved. The feeling of being in love is much more powerful than the feeling of being loved. Being in love makes you do crazy things. It can be an intoxicating feeling. The lyric by itself can be seen as selfish. However that is not the case. She is exclaiming that most of all she wishes it for herself. The power of being in love is a giving feeling. She is not saying she wants to be loved. She wishes him all the love in the world. But most of all she wishes it for herself. Its the power of love she is describing. Her giving him love gives her that loving feeling.
So that is how I see what she is exclaiming in the song.

I have watched countless Songbird performances and here is how you can tell a great Fleetwood Mac crowd from a mediocre crowd. When she sings this line a good FM crowd bursts into applause. They do that at the LA Forum and several other places. They get that line. They want Christine to be happy with love and they are showing her love back.

Years ago, there was a ledge thread dedicated to discussing ungrammatical lines from various songs. Someone cited this line. I’m an English teacher and should know if it’s ungrammatical or not, but I don’t. I’ve always loved the expressiveness of the line. The naked, vulnerable admission that a single, humble declaration of love is as great (or greater) than a grander, more general one.

And yet as distant as the mountain tops... :nod:

Wait? Is the line "I wish it *from* myself" or is it "I wish it *for* myself"?

If the former, I find the line non-sensical; and I suspect it was initially written as "for myself" (which is coherent but seems selfish) and then changed to "from myself" [which does not seem selfish (or at least seems less selfish), but is incoherent].

The way I read it, it makes no sense to say to someone, "I wish you well, but most of all I want to stress that these well-wishes are coming from me."

Well yeah, of course they are coming from you. You're the one saying them. From whom else would they be coming?

As I say above, I suspect the problem arose from revising the initial line from "for" to "from" out of considerations of optics.

You are 100% correct. In concert it sounds like she says for myself but she can be sticking to the word from. My point would remain the same i.e. the best kind of love is giving. Giving love to someone is a much more powerful feeling than receiving love from someone. So she is wishing for this.

What a selfish ego maniac! She could use some lessons from the other band members about this kind of thing. :laugh:

If she in fact sings "from myself" on record but "for myself" in concert, that would support my theory that she initially wrote "for" and revised to "from."

i've never heard a version where it sounds like she's saying 'for myself.' does anyone know of a clear example so i could check it out?

is it possible it's just her accent that makes it sound that way?? I have to say imo that just seems very odd, to write all those words of giving to someone else, and then just to suddenly turn around and say 'oh well, actually i want all that love for ME' at the end of the song.

>>>>>>>The way I read it, it makes no sense to say to someone, "I wish you well, but most of all I want to stress that these well-wishes are coming from me."


i kind of think this makes perfect sense. you can wish someone all good and lovely things in their life, good luck, good health, good whatever... but imo it's not weird to then stress that you *especially* wish all these things from yourself.

am i alone in this opinion? lol

--Lis

Other alternative lyrics Christine considered during that long, sleepless night while she waited for the studio to open:

"But most of all, I wish it vis-à-vis myself"

"But most of all, I wish it hither-thither"

"But most of all, I just wish I had a tape recorder so I could just record this bloody song and go to bed."

That's been my interpretation too.

"Hopefully you get all the love in the world that's out there, but especially know that I love you"

But I agree with OP that it's a slightly awkward phrase that mightn't work outside the bounds of lyrics/poetry.

I listened to the Mirage Songbird and she definitely sings from myself.