Quote:
Originally Posted by David
Norma Desmond, Miss Havisham, Sylvia Browne, Elizabeth Taylor. The references aren't very flattering—not the way they're intended.
Everything Stevie says and does is forced through her own gills. She romanticizes herself. She writes about other women real and fictional in the third person—Rhiannon, Mabel Normand, Garbo, Julia, Cecilia, sisters of the moon (or the moon and her sisters). But everybody knows those "characters" are really Stevie. That's why fans all interpret Stevie's hundreds of songs autobiographically. Those third-person princesses suffer just like Stevie. They're waifs with flowing golden hair trapped in ancient windswept castles, and it's all metaphorical for Stevie Nicks and her life circumstances. (Notice how the female faces in all the Maxfield Parrish paintings all look like the same girl?)
Back in her heyday, concert critics used to say the same thing about her in every review: "She has shed some, though far from all, of the spacey narcissism that has made her something of a caricature in rock," "Stripped of all her dying swan poses and faerie queen pretensions, Nicks was riveting," and so on. I know them all practically from memory. One of them wrote, "She is simply too flighty and fluttery to command a stage." The rock press accurately called out her narcissism back in the day, and we Macheads got really pissed off at them. (Treat yourself to the old reviews in the Blue Letter Archives.) But they were right. Stevie can't talk about anything without referring back to herself—the movies she loves, the movie stars she believes she resembles, the career choices other people make, the other members of Fleetwood Mac or Lady Antebellum or the Heartbreakers or any other band she takes a shine to, or those dozens of younger singer-songwriters she promotes in creepy ways, like Vanessa Carlton. Stevie thinks they're all younger versions of her.
She is obsessed with herself to a degree that seems to indicate a certain degree of pathology. It was compelling in a 30-year-old, but it seems twisted or creepy in a 70-year-old. Last year's 60 Minutes piece on Stevie and Chrissie Hynde was intended to celebrate two tough old rock stars, but the incongruity in their respective psychiatric health left me with a sour stomach and a crabbed fatigue. Chrissie sounded like a normal, healthy post-Freudian woman ("Why should I care if other people don't like the way I talk about my rape? I did some stupid sh|t when I was younger. I'm not here to give my critics the warm fuzzies."), and there was Stevie, locked in her self-worship, romanticizing her every golden curl, engaging in ditzy, pre-Freudian Barbie doll commentary. What other 60-year-old woman was moved beyond description by the Twilight movies? She has something wrong with her.
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Well said, as usual David.
I felt the same way about that 60 Minutes piece. I was also front row center for the 24 Karat Gold Tour, and the difference between Chrissie and Stevie's musical styles, personalities, and interactions with the crowd, was equally stark in that setting, and in exactly the way that you describe.
"She has something wrong with her." Yes, for sure she does. I think that it has a great deal to do with (1) the small mountain of cocaine she spent ten years shoveling into her face, (2) the brain rot that resulted, (3) the pharmacy of pills she ingested over the better part of a decade, (4) far, far too much money, and (5), a "team" (to use their corporate lingo) of handmaidens and homegirls that are probably a little bit overindulgent.
She's also old.
But the fact that she has something wrong with her isn't new. That paper that someone wrote for a college film class likening her to Norma Desmond (right down to her fashion sense) was done in the mid-90s, during the Street Angel-era. So that's been 25 years. In my view, the likeness between SN and Desmond began even earlier - around 1987 or so, after she had gotten off the blow, and record sales had slowed.
Jim from Boston (SaidSomething is his username) has some fantastic stories about serving her in restaurants during that time period. I will PM him to see if he would like to chime in for those who haven't heard them.
For me, the Desmond connection has always been part of the appeal and the make-up of the whole package. She is at least half, and perhaps wholly, off of her rocker, and has been for some time. Her relationship with reality or lack thereof is one of the many contradictions that play a part in her image, and keep people engaged. If we remain tuned in, we might be able to figure her out completely. I call it the Stevie Nicks Scavenger Hunt, and I think it's the puzzle that many fans are intent on putting together. Is she crazy? Or just rich and eccentric? Or both? Is she strong or fragile? Impassioned performer or just high as a bat? Gifted writer or lifter of Oscar Wilde, the Spinners, Joni Mitchel, et al? Controlling diva or, humble woman who is aware that she got lucky by virtue of destiny and Lindsey Buckingham? An artist living life on her own new-wave feminist terms or, a giant B. who is so insufferably self-involved that she was unable to maintain a marriage or have children?
I subscribe to the theory of "I don't know."