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Old 12-04-2017, 05:28 PM
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aleuzzi aleuzzi is offline
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Originally Posted by bombaysaffires View Post
Not always. Dreams, on paper, is one of the most coherent and structurally balanced things she's ever done. Rhiannon on paper is fine, so is Landslide. (see a pattern here? Mr. Grammar Police had more influence on her stuff then). (actually, I also think she was still trying to prove herself as a songwriter then, and tried harder, before thinking she was a goddess and every word that she wrote was gold. Ask the hoteliers in Italy). (oh, and one more add-- Don Henley was just as harsh in correcting her songs as Lindsey. She describes working on L&L when going with him and playing versions for him and says he would tell her, "it's not good enough, fix it". She used to say in interviews how she strove for her work to be good enough for the Eagles. Very different mindset today).

Back to the point at hand-- Storms is totally coherent and fine on paper. Beautiful Child. Sleeping Angel. Garbo. Fall From Grace is good on paper. I could go on.

Part of it is, after she's played and rehearsed a song so many times and done so many takes in the studio, she gets bored and starts fiddling around with the lyrics and improvising things, and then suddenly words pop in that don't make as much sense. But too late, that's the take that gets used for the album.

Also, people misquote her lyrics. Sometimes she has to pause in a line for a breath or to fit with the beat of the music, and people are too stupid to understand this. For example, on Dreams she sings "listen carefully to the sound" and then pauses, then "of your loneliness..etc etc". The thought she is expressing doesn't stop at "sound" it's very clear the thought is "listen carefully to the sound of your loneliness".For some reason people get this on this song, but don't get it on other songs.

The one that drives me absolutely batsh&t crazy is Think About It because people refuse to understand this concept. On TAI, she sings "and the heart says danger" then sings "and the heart says whateverrrrrr" and the pauses for a breath, before finishing the line with "it is that you want from me, I am just one small part of forever." Sooooo many journalists clearly don't listen to the whole line, even one recently where the chick is supposedly a big Stevie fan. They just go on and and on about 'omg that's such a Stevie Nicks line where she sings 'the heart says, whatever." THAT IS NOT THE LINE people. The freaking line is "and the heart says, whatever it is that you want from me, I am just one small part of forever". She just pauses for a break. But then that doesn't fit their narrative that "omg she's such a kook and listen to her wacky lyrics!"

Listen, she's got plenty of wacky lyrics that you don't need to go making sh&t up.

"Don't hide behind your hair that way"
"Sometimes the real color of my skin, my eyes without any shadow"
"and the dream says I want you, and the dream is gone.....well at least there is a dream left"
"would you say stop for a second so that you could think for a minute I think you should think for a moment" (ok that's not how it is on the record but it is pretty hilarious how it flummoxes her in live performances)
Of course there are exceptions. And her earlier songs are, on the whole, far more concrete than ones written after 1978. "I Don't Wanna Know"; "Dreams"; "Crystal"; "Rhiannon" "Landslide"; "Silver Springs"; "That's Alright" "Storms"; "Leather and Lace"; "After the Glitter Fades"; "Are You Mine"; and "Beautiful Child" are well- and comparatively conventionally-constructed songs with mostly strong folk leanings.

This doesn't mean I dislike the abstractness of much of her other work. I enjoy the lyrics and mood of "Gold Dust Woman" even when Stevie's explanation of its meaning changed radically over time. At first it was, by her admission in a 1978 interview, about girl groupies and their wicked jealousy for the attentions Stevie and Christine got from other rock stars. Years later, the silver spoon and dust references were enough for her to claim it's about cocaine. Her songs allow for these kinds of jumps in interpretation. They're not terribly concrete but they evoke a lot of personal feeling. They sometimes work like spells or incantations. Other times, they are deliberately-concealed evasions to protect herself: "read between my lines"...I consider "Sara" one of these.
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