Who Has Given Up ??

[michelej1]

Things are about Stevie, for instance some of us long said that the UTS intro was about her and it turns out it was. But you have to look for these connections. Sometimes it seems that non-shippers, who say they are disgusted by SNL, go as far out of their way to look for romance that’s not there than shippers do. Hearing that song intro from Lindsey would not have made me think about Stevie, unless I was going to the concert waiting to hear hints of Stevie.

Don’t get me wrong, I remember coming back from concerts and me relaying what the new lyrics were and I would report penny arcade of Edgar Allan Poe and then we would begin to connect that to Stevie lyrics. But I was *looking* for that. If you go and you aren’t looking to hear something then I don’t think a song about a dream that died would make me think, “oh he’s trying to capitalize on the SNL fanaticism.”

[David]

Originally Posted by michelej1

Things are about Stevie, for instance some of us long said that the UTS intro was about her and it turns out it was. But you have to look for these connections. Sometimes it seems that non-shippers, who say they are disgusted by SNL, go as far out of their way to look for romance that’s not there than shippers do.

The thing that always drove me temperamentally away from my friend Nancy's board of relationship-centered interpretations wasn't the fiction of the relationship itself but the insistence on anywhere and everywhere reading autobiography into every lyric. It always made me think back to my college lit courses in authorial intent and Wimsatt and Beardsley's intentional fallacy, and how it's overshooting to continually assume that a songwriter's lyrics are either deeply personal or even autobiographically factual at all. There's no internal (internal to the song) evidence that "Did she make you break down?" is a second-person address to Lindsey Buckingham in the real world. Stevie might have said that it was—I don't know—but it doesn't necessarily follow that, just because we know real-world Stevie sent real-world Lindsey packing and he took it hard, the lyric itself relates that real-world reaction in any way. But the shippers and others project and project. By virtue of sheer amount, some projecting is probably actually factual. But it's the constant projecting that alienates me. Does every little phrase in a Stevie Nicks lyric that touches on passionate emotional ambivalence have to do with Lindsey? Shipper reactions are fictions about fictions. Of course, Stevie's mode of writing lends itself to such responses, and that's also why I don't think Stevie is one of the great writers: she never seems to stand back from her characters and observe them with any detachment or irony. The emotions they are experiencing are always and completely the emotions that we listeners are supposed to be connecting to with total ingenuousness. It's all very unsophisticated.

[michelej1]

Originally Posted by David

Of course, Stevie's mode of writing lends itself to such responses, and that's also why I don't think Stevie is one of the great writers: she never seems to stand back from her characters and observe them with any detachment or irony. The emotions they are experiencing are always and completely the emotions that we listeners are supposed to be connecting to with total ingenuousness. It's all very unsophisticated.

What I love about SYLM is that he doesn't love her and Christine manages to convey that on one hand, tucking reality neatly beneath frothy romance. The song conveys two contradictory messages in my mind: what she would like to be the truth and what is the truth. I've always thought that was very clever.

Stevie ... thinking about what you wrote, I've thought that EFO does have a certain detachment. I see the protagonist as fooling herself. She exudes false bravado. She taunts. He adores her. They do it everywhere they can, every time they can get away. Get away! (much like Paul's alleged "get back" to Yoko). But none of it's true and she's really dying inside. The lyrics always gave me the impression of an outside narrator looking in, detached, shrewd, sad, witnessing someone else's delusion. But we listeners, what are we supposed to feel? Are we cheering the affair? I think yes, in a way. The pounding disco music says triumph. We dance as "the other woman" chortles. We support her. I don't know if we are necessarily supposed to be connecting to the despair.

Anne Lindbergh once described Charles feeding their daughter. He would dangle a cherry in her face and when she would look up at it, mouth ajar, he'd stick a vegetable in her mouth. I think that's what EFO does.

I mean, I don't think it's the sophisticated song you requested, but I think it conveys more than what's on the shallow surface, because it strikes me as both celebration and doom.

[bombaysaffires]

Originally Posted by michelej1

What I love about SYLM is that he doesn't love her and Christine manages to convey that on one hand, tucking reality neatly beneath frothy romance. The song conveys two contradictory messages in my mind: what she would like to be the truth and what is the truth. I've always thought that was very clever.

Stevie ... thinking about what you wrote, I've thought that EFO does have a certain detachment. I see the protagonist as fooling herself. She exudes false bravado. She taunts. He adores her. They do it everywhere they can, every time they can get away. Get away!(much like Paul's alleged "get back" to Yoko). But none of it's true and she's really dying inside. The lyrics always gave me the impression of an outside narrator looking in, detached, shrewd, sad, witnessing someone else's delusion. But we listeners, what are we supposed to feel? Are we cheering the affair? I think yes, in a way. The pounding disco music says triumph. We dance as "the other woman" chortles. We support her. I don't know if we are necessarily supposed to be connecting to the despair.

Anne Lindbergh once described Charles feeding their daughter. He would dangle a cherry in her face and when she would look up at it, mouth ajar, he'd stick a vegetable in her mouth. I think that's what EFO does.

I mean, I don't think it's the sophisticated song you requested, but I think it conveys more than what's on the shallow surface, because it strikes me as both celebration and doom.

I honestly think the second "get away" is just an aural flourish, i.e. there needs to be an additional couple of syllables at the end of the line which isn't enough to express a new thought so she repeats the "get away", like an echo. I think reading it as otherwise is over thinking it.

[michelej1]

Originally Posted by bombaysaffires

I honestly think the second "get away" is just an aural flourish, i.e. there needs to be an additional couple of syllables at the end of the line which isn't enough to express a new thought so she repeats the "get away", like an echo. I think reading it as otherwise is over thinking it.

I take it as meaning both things. Every time we can get away and telling the wife to step off. I don't mind overthinking.

[Street_Dreamer]

I know in the big scope of things, my opinion really doesn't matter. I just cannot accept the current lineup. The firing of previous members of the band like Danny, Dave Walker and Bob Weston made sense given the circumstances. The other members left on their own accord including Peter, Jeremy and Bob Welch. The same holds true for Lindsey, Christine, Stevie, Rick and the short period that Billy left the band.

The circumstances surrounding Lindsey's firing doesn't sit well with me. Of all the Rumours group, he was the only one who wanted to make a new album and tour for the past several years. It would be fine if he wanted to walk away on his own terms but that obviously didn't happen. The fact that he was ousted by one member of the band wasn't right. With the recent news where the truth of his firing came out shows what cowards they all are. This was a chance for the band to properly bookend everything and end on a beautiful note. Instead we have this. It has stained and tarnished Fleetwood Mac's legacy.

Lindsey deserved better. Fans deserved better. It is so disheartening and so sad that this will be how the band ends. Sorry Peter, Bob B., Jeremy, Danny, Bob Weston, Dave W., Bob Welch, Billy, Rick, Bekka and Dave M. You all made beautiful music and will be remembered positively for your contributions to the band and for not trying to oust anyone for your own selfish reasons.

[button-lip]

Originally Posted by Street_Dreamer

I know in the big scope of things, my opinion really doesn't matter. I just cannot accept the current lineup. The firing of previous members of the band like Danny, Dave Walker and Bob Weston made sense given the circumstances. The other members left on their own accord including Peter, Jeremy and Bob Welch. The same holds true for Lindsey, Christine, Stevie, Rick and the short period that Billy left the band.

The circumstances surrounding Lindsey's firing doesn't sit well with me. Of all the Rumours group, he was the only one who wanted to make a new album and tour for the past several years. It would be fine if he wanted to walk away on his own terms but that obviously didn't happen. The fact that he was ousted by one member of the band wasn't right. With the recent news where the truth of his firing came out shows what cowards they all are. This was a chance for the band to properly bookend everything and end on a beautiful note. Instead we have this. It has stained and tarnished Fleetwood Mac's legacy.

Lindsey deserved better. Fans deserved better. It is so disheartening and so sad that this will be how the band ends. Sorry Peter, Bob B., Jeremy, Danny, Bob Weston, Dave W., Bob Welch, Billy, Rick, Bekka and Dave M. You all made beautiful music and will be remembered positively for your contributions to the band and for not trying to oust anyone for your own selfish reasons.

Beautifully said. Every word of it. Too bad some people here get bored easily and quit reading. That’s why they start with phrases like: “he left the band”, “he must have done something”, “he was pushing Stevie for a new album”, and other crap they can come up with.

We deserved better. At least some of us. And they didn’t care.

[lovethemac1]

Originally Posted by Street_Dreamer

I know in the big scope of things, my opinion really doesn't matter. I just cannot accept the current lineup. The firing of previous members of the band like Danny, Dave Walker and Bob Weston made sense given the circumstances. The other members left on their own accord including Peter, Jeremy and Bob Welch. The same holds true for Lindsey, Christine, Stevie, Rick and the short period that Billy left the band.

The circumstances surrounding Lindsey's firing doesn't sit well with me. Of all the Rumours group, he was the only one who wanted to make a new album and tour for the past several years. It would be fine if he wanted to walk away on his own terms but that obviously didn't happen. The fact that he was ousted by one member of the band wasn't right. With the recent news where the truth of his firing came out shows what cowards they all are. This was a chance for the band to properly bookend everything and end on a beautiful note. Instead we have this. It has stained and tarnished Fleetwood Mac's legacy.

Lindsey deserved better. Fans deserved better. It is so disheartening and so sad that this will be how the band ends. Sorry Peter, Bob B., Jeremy, Danny, Bob Weston, Dave W., Bob Welch, Billy, Rick, Bekka and Dave M. You all made beautiful music and will be remembered positively for your contributions to the band and for not trying to oust anyone for your own selfish reasons.

Beautifully written. Thank you.

[SteveMacD]

Originally Posted by Street_Dreamer

The other members left on their own accord including Peter, Jeremy and Bob Welch. The same holds true for Lindsey, Christine, Stevie, Rick and the short period that Billy left the band.

Can’t help but notice Dave Mason, Bekka, and Billy his second time in the band weren’t mentioned. They never got to tour in support of “Time” (their touring was prior to its release) because Mick disbanded Fleetwood Mac after he started working with Lindsey again. Mick took the path of least resistance to maximize his earning potential. Sound familiar?

The circumstances surrounding Lindsey's firing doesn't sit well with me. Of all the Rumours group, he was the only one who wanted to make a new album and tour for the past several years.

Seems like the last album of new material from any of them (unless you count the new Neil & Liam Finn album which featured Mick on a few songs) featured four of them and two of them toured to support it.

Let’s be honest, the problem is who doesn’t want to do another album, which might still be the case.

The fact that he was ousted by one member of the band wasn't right.

The reality is that she has all of the power because she played the game better than anyone else in the band.

[HomerMcvie]

Originally Posted by Street_Dreamer

I know in the big scope of things, my opinion really doesn't matter. I just cannot accept the current lineup. The firing of previous members of the band like Danny, Dave Walker and Bob Weston made sense given the circumstances. The other members left on their own accord including Peter, Jeremy and Bob Welch. The same holds true for Lindsey, Christine, Stevie, Rick and the short period that Billy left the band.

The circumstances surrounding Lindsey's firing doesn't sit well with me. Of all the Rumours group, he was the only one who wanted to make a new album and tour for the past several years. It would be fine if he wanted to walk away on his own terms but that obviously didn't happen. The fact that he was ousted by one member of the band wasn't right. With the recent news where the truth of his firing came out shows what cowards they all are. This was a chance for the band to properly bookend everything and end on a beautiful note. Instead we have this. It has stained and tarnished Fleetwood Mac's legacy.

Lindsey deserved better. Fans deserved better. It is so disheartening and so sad that this will be how the band ends. Sorry Peter, Bob B., Jeremy, Danny, Bob Weston, Dave W., Bob Welch, Billy, Rick, Bekka and Dave M. You all made beautiful music and will be remembered positively for your contributions to the band and for not trying to oust anyone for your own selfish reasons.

That was beautifully said. Money and HUGE egos overtook the band.

Stevie is worst thing that EVER happened to FM. Yet, for idiot Mick, the best thing. RIP, FM.

I hope history recognizes what a stupid egomaniac she is, and how she ruined the band's legacy. F**K HER.

[jbrownsjr]

Originally Posted by David

The thing that always drove me temperamentally away from my friend Nancy's board of relationship-centered interpretations wasn't the fiction of the relationship itself but the insistence on anywhere and everywhere reading autobiography into every lyric. It always made me think back to my college lit courses in authorial intent and Wimsatt and Beardsley's intentional fallacy, and how it's overshooting to continually assume that a songwriter's lyrics are either deeply personal or even autobiographically factual at all. There's no internal (internal to the song) evidence that "Did she make you break down?" is a second-person address to Lindsey Buckingham in the real world. Stevie might have said that it was—I don't know—but it doesn't necessarily follow that, just because we know real-world Stevie sent real-world Lindsey packing and he took it hard, the lyric itself relates that real-world reaction in any way. But the shippers and others project and project. By virtue of sheer amount, some projecting is probably actually factual. But it's the constant projecting that alienates me. Does every little phrase in a Stevie Nicks lyric that touches on passionate emotional ambivalence have to do with Lindsey? Shipper reactions are fictions about fictions. Of course, Stevie's mode of writing lends itself to such responses, and that's also why I don't think Stevie is one of the great writers: she never seems to stand back from her characters and observe them with any detachment or irony. The emotions they are experiencing are always and completely the emotions that we listeners are supposed to be connecting to with total ingenuousness. It's all very unsophisticated.

Honestly, this is how I felt as well. It became such a turn-off to me. Further, shippers would block out any talk of Christine and even began to hate her. Later on came the nasty things that they would say about her.

When she re-joined: The "Christine destroyed the band by returning!" surfaced.

[elle]

Originally Posted by jbrownsjr

Honestly, this is how I felt as well. It became such a turn-off to me. Further, shippers would block out any talk of Christine and even began to hate her. Later on came the nasty things that they would say about her.

When she re-joined: The "Christine destroyed the band by returning!" surfaced.

it's really the weirdest reasoning.

if they were so fragile that having all 5 together will "destroy" them, then something was very wrong in the first place.

[michelej1]

Originally Posted by elle

it's really the weirdest reasoning.

if they were so fragile that having all 5 together will "destroy" them, then something was very wrong in the first place.

Well, the relationship was always wrong. But the reason that having Christine back could interfere with it is that you always have a third person to turn to. Lindsay has said that Christine contributed to his break up with Stevie in the seventies. He said that they were shaky to begin with and maybe they would’ve made it, maybe they would not have, but having Christine, who was also divorcing, talking to Stevie sealed the break up.

This time, just having Christine back allowed both Lindsey and Stevie to turn away from each other. In the past, since SYW, they were stuck, forced to fight and compromise. Christine removed the forced compromise factor. I realized that she would from the beginning, but I thought that it would work in my favor, not against me. I thought that with Christine back we would get a new FM album, for example, because I thought it would make it 2 against 1. Michele

[MissJanet]

Originally Posted by jbrownsjr

Honestly, this is how I felt as well. It became such a turn-off to me. Further, shippers would block out any talk of Christine and even began to hate her. Later on came the nasty things that they would say about her.

When she re-joined: The "Christine destroyed the band by returning!" surfaced.

That was the last straw for me, too. I cannot see why some female fans feel the need to put Christine down to make their devotion to Stevie clear. And I have no doubt that Stevie would not appreciate that kind of behaviour.
The worst for me? Fanfiction writers writing NC17 fanfiction of Lindsey/Stevie - there is a line and they crossed it. I understand fandom, but that is just plain respectless and super creepy imho.

[jbrownsjr]

Originally Posted by MissJanet

That was the last straw for me, too. I cannot see why some female fans feel the need to put Christine down to make their devotion to Stevie clear. And I have no doubt that Stevie would not appreciate that kind of behaviour.
The worst for me? Fanfiction writers writing NC17 fanfiction of Lindsey/Stevie - there is a line and they crossed it. I understand fandom, but that is just plain respectless and super creepy imho.

Creepy was the word that used to pop into my head when reading their theories and stories.