Escape From Berlin

[MarkMc1990]

Why does “Doing the Best I Can” have “Escape From Berlin” appended to the title in parentheses? Does it have something to do with the Cold War?

[Macfan4life]

It has significant meaning because Stevie "escaped" from Betty Ford. It has cold war reference because escaping from Berlin was near impossible and you risked your life and would be shot. The Berlin wall came down late 1989 years after the song was written.
Stevie likes to forget but she bailed on Betty Ford. I remember the MTV news segment where it said she ran away (from Betty Ford) and was not talking to anyone. If you listen to this song and Welcome to the Room Sara she describes not being treated well. She stayed only 28 days. I think the minimum is 30 days detox. She could not even stay 2 more days to meet the minimum. But years later people forget this fact and everyone refers to it as a "successful" rehab. It may have been successful in the long run but she ran away and checked herself out early thus "Escaping from Berlin." It was her stigma against the place and in her mind the people that put her there "Of course it was a problem....Frontline baby." Frontline was her management company that insisted she go to Betty Ford. When she got out she took revenge and fired Frontline and then smeared them in the song Welcome to the room Sara. How nice. Stevie is very revengeful as we still see today. To imply Betty Ford was Berlin is funny but also pretty sad. But its such an intense song about really trying and its one of my favorites. Even the song implies she is "Trying" and doing the best that she can.

[MarkMc1990]

Thanks so much for the background and explanation! I never knew Stevie didn’t complete her rehab at Betty Ford. How did she get clean without it?

I really dig the song. It’s very dramatic and foreboding and has that late 80s production I love. I think the convenient irony of the song with that title being released in 1989, a very symbolic year and the same year the Berlin Wall finally came down, makes it a neat artifact of that point in history.

[Macfan4life]

Originally Posted by MarkMc1990

Thanks so much for the background and explanation! I never knew Stevie didn’t complete her rehab at Betty Ford. How did she get clean without it?

I really dig the song. It’s very dramatic and foreboding and has that late 80s production I love. I think the convenient irony of the song with that title being released in 1989, a very symbolic year and the same year the Berlin Wall finally came down, makes it a neat artifact of that point in history.

Yes I remember the wall coming down just over a half year after the song was released. But escaping from Berlin was quite the task to make it alive. Stevie writes like she is in a war camp
"You watch after her and your word is law (like a military police officer watching a prisoner)
She thought she was out there but nobody saw (hinting at escape looking beyond the wall)

She also admits in the song she is giving up on rehab
"I didn't win or lose....I just threw the cards"

[In Your Dreams]

In Stevie’s defense she did go into a hospital for 47 days to kick her klonopin addiction which she said made her stay in Betty Ford look like a cake walk. So this qualifies as a successful rehab and is probably what she references in later interviews. Since the Street Angel era she has been consistent in saying going on (and then getting off) klonopin was the worst thing that she ever had to go through.

[Macfan4life]

One of the reasons I love OSOTM is this blunt honesty Stevie expressed and this is just one example. Maybe the klonopin made a lapse of judgment or freed her to be herself. But the writing on the album is so revealing and blunt honest. She had no problems describing what Betty Ford was really like. It was not a positive experience. In her way "disaster was the only thing that she could depend on."

OUCH!

[bombaysaffires]

Stevie's first stint in rehab wasn't her idea. There was an intervention staged and she resented everyone involved (recall her always saying how she hates people telling her what to do). (The line "Did I come here on my own? Oh, I see") She fired her management as a result- Frontline Management which was Irving Azoff. (The line "Frontline, baby, well you held her prisoner after all these years" was about them, and the line "when you hang up that phone, you cease to exist').