Cryptic Stevie Lyrics...

[BlackWidow]

I remember Stevie giving an on air Interview for The Wild Heart Tour on MTV. The Interviewer asked her why her lyrics seemed so cryptic? "Like only you or the person you wrote about would know what you really meant"
What are some lines from Stevie songs you would love to know more about?
Here are a few of mine...

1.Storms: "She said every night he will break your heart" - Christine about Mick?
2.Welcome To The Room Sara: "In the never forgotten words of another one of your friends" Frontline badmouthed Stevie?
3.Silver Girl:"The papers she never signed"....what were those mysterious papers?

You get the idea...:rolleyes:

[catinthedark]

beautiful child: "you fell in love when i was only 10..."

[SapphireSister]

This could take me all night but the first one that comes to mind is "Don't take me to the tower, and take my child away".

[crtrofthenight]

I heard a long time ago that Beautiful Child was written about a relationship she had with an older man...."You (older man) fell in love when I (Stevie) was only ten". ..which implies he was already in a relationship when she was just a "child"...Can anyone confirm this with me? Has she ever talked about the song in an interview? Thanks.

[Red]

I heard a long time ago that Beautiful Child was written about a relationship she had with an older man...."You (older man) fell in love when I (Stevie) was only ten". ..which implies he was already in a relationship when she was just a "child"...Can anyone confirm this with me? Has she ever talked about the song in an interview? Thanks.

I've never heard this, but it sure makes a lot of sense!:nod:

[foxyluva]

I heard a long time ago that Beautiful Child was written about a relationship she had with an older man...."You (older man) fell in love when I (Stevie) was only ten". ..which implies he was already in a relationship when she was just a "child"...Can anyone confirm this with me? Has she ever talked about the song in an interview? Thanks.

Oh My! I hope not!!! That sounds awfully wrong :laugh:

I would love to know if "Thrown Down" is really about Stevie and Lindsey rekindling their love affair during The Dance tour. I would also love to know exactly what it was that Rupert Hine did to Stevie that mad it impossible for them to ever be together again....

[melaboo]

i believe some of her songs go beyond the mundane romances, she way beyond that. myths, ledgends and 'visions'

[Kelly]

I heard a long time ago that Beautiful Child was written about a relationship she had with an older man...."You (older man) fell in love when I (Stevie) was only ten". ..which implies he was already in a relationship when she was just a "child"...Can anyone confirm this with me? Has she ever talked about the song in an interview? Thanks.

Never heard that one.
Personally, I do not think the "only ten" line is literal.

[danax6]

Never heard that one.
Personally, I do not think the "only ten" line is literal.I agree, 'ten' certainly rhymes better with other words like say 'seventeen'. :laugh:

[JazmenFlowers]

3.Silver Girl:"The papers she never signed"....what were those mysterious papers?
my favorite line from Silver Girl. I always thought she meant wedding papers.

[skcin]

my favorite line from Silver Girl. I always thought she meant wedding papers.

I assumed it was a contact that Sheryl never signed, but marriage license makes sense too. :nod:


"You fell in love when I was only 10" really intrigues me too.

I'd like to know more about The Nightmare - yeah, yeah, cut & paste lyrics, blah blah blah. But I like it, so screw you. :D

Gate & Garden is one of my faves, not a clue wth she's talking about though.

And I'd like to know exactly who EFO is about. :D

[cliffdweller]

beautiful child: "you fell in love when i was only 10..."

:nod:


Others:
"They say you're not the man for me"

"I can turn all your music on, I can make you feel alive, I am gone but I'm never gone from you, it was just the first time---COME BACK!! Little boy"......


Who are these lines about?

[BlackWidow]

Oh My! I hope not!!! That sounds awfully wrong :laugh:

I would love to know if "Thrown Down" is really about Stevie and Lindsey rekindling their love affair during The Dance tour. I would also love to know exactly what it was that Rupert Hine did to Stevie that mad it impossible for them to ever be together again....
I WANT TO KNOW MORE ABOUT RUPERT HINE TOO!!!

[Oona]

one of my fave cryptical lyrics is frome one (of not my overall) fave SN items, "Space Needle"......."The tar people are back again, sad, very true". My only guess it is a referance to the users of black tar heroin and or any addictive substances both legal and not. I can almost see the mass of slow, shambling, shuffling mounds of what only vaguely resembles humanoid figures, each not visably clear where one begins and the other ends. Distorted faces hidden behind dripping masks, frozen in a perpetual silent scream, sliding along the streets, leaving toxic, sticky residue to capture the unaware and transform it into yet another one of its kind.......great stuff. If you have yet to hear Space Needle, be sure to do so. It's one of her most "real" songs. It is ultra depressing, full of engulfing, consuming apethy, the bitterness of dissapointments, loss of beauty of mind, soul and body, etc, etc. It's a heavy number, so you are in for a bumpy ride when you hear if for the first time

[BlackWidow]

This could take me all night but the first one that comes to mind is "Don't take me to the tower, and take my child away".
It is likely to be easier to use a fairytale as a metaphor than to explain that one...

[BlackWidow]

i believe some of her songs go beyond the mundane romances, she way beyond that. myths, ledgends and 'visions'
Even Lindsey said her songs are HYBRIDS of many subjects...

[BlackWidow]

:nod:


Others:
"They say you're not the man for me"

"I can turn all your music on, I can make you feel alive, I am gone but I'm never gone from you, it was just the first time---COME BACK!! Little boy"......


Who are these lines about?
I suspect Nothing Ever Changes is about Jimmy Iovine..She wrote a demo called Jimmy Come Back.

[crtrofthenight]

I don't think she used "ten" in BC just to rhyme with the next line....much hast gone by since then...she could have easily thought of something like ....you fell in love, but who knows when.... and then the next line....
she's often done lines that don't rhyme so I definitely think it's literal when whe mentions the age of ten... I think she's trying to give us a timeline of the difference in age here. I like all your ideas though!

[SapphireSister]

Let's also not forget that many of Stevie's metaphors in her songs are literary references and other obscure phrases (that she's come up with from God knows where) and can't be taken literally. We could sit here all day until we're blue in the face and we'd never come up with an answer because we don't know the specifics of the situation she's referring to (not to mention we might not always catch that she's using some obscure metaphor or literary reference). I think we try to make her lyrics literal but the bottom line is many of them can never be taken literally and she does this purposely. Damn she's good!

[David]

I'm fascinated by the line "She was dark at the top of the stairs" in "Sisters of the Moon." I want to know whether Stevie took the phrase from Inge.

[crystal baller]

I heard a long time ago that Beautiful Child was written about a relationship she had with an older man...."You (older man) fell in love when I (Stevie) was only ten". ..which implies he was already in a relationship when she was just a "child"...Can anyone confirm this with me? Has she ever talked about the song in an interview? Thanks. :nod: wow great interp! that line has always confused me but now that makes total sense, i could listen to BC all day long, it's my altime favorite since the first time i heard it.

[crystal baller]

I don't think she used "ten" in BC just to rhyme with the next line....much hast gone by since then...she could have easily thought of something like ....you fell in love, but who knows when.... and then the next line....
she's often done lines that don't rhyme so I definitely think it's literal when whe mentions the age of ten... I think she's trying to give us a timeline of the difference in age here. I like all your ideas though!
i agree 100% i feel like i understand the song better now, thanks. :nod:

[skcin]

Let's also not forget that many of Stevie's metaphors in her songs are literary references and other obscure phrases (that she's come up with from God knows where) and can't be taken literally. We could sit here all day until we're blue in the face and we'd never come up with an answer because we don't know the specifics of the situation she's referring to (not to mention we might not always catch that she's using some obscure metaphor or literary reference). I think we try to make her lyrics literal but the bottom line is many of them can never be taken literally and she does this purposely. Damn she's good!

Yeah, like you've never been to Emmiline. :rolleyes:




:laugh: Of course, I don't think that's an obscure reference, if I recall correctly she just made up the word.

[SapphireSister]

Yeah, like you've never been to Emmiline. :rolleyes:
:laugh: Of course, I don't think that's an obscure reference, if I recall correctly she just made up the word.
She did make it up, that's what she thought she heard on Sandy's demo. She's probably made up a lot of other things too because they sounded good to her but have no meaning or significance in the real world. After all, the woman's like totally blissed out lol. Someone should start a Stevie dictionary for all the words and phrases she's pulled out of her ass. I mean I love them and all don't get me wrong, they are just very out there sometimes.

[gypsysoul]

I've never thought 'Storms' was at all cryptic. I think it screams Lindsey.
Yes i know there have rumblings about it being inspired by Mick because Stevie said something but really; such a mournful lament about a man who had just dumped her for her best friend? I don't think so.

Stevie says she isn't someone who fights for a man and she would have too much self pride, I'd suggest, to be singing a song like this for man she only had a short fling with who had done that to her.
I don't care how magnanimous she is, no woman would'nt be upset by such a double betrayal.
Stevie said in the MoJO interview that there was an atmosphere between her and Mick for months in the studio (recording Tusk?)after their fling and one of the FM books says she was angry with him for what he did.
Also the fling was kept secret so I doubt Christine would be advising her about Mick.

What others, including Christine, have said however, is that Stevie was very upset about Lindsey not only taking up with Carol but also falling in love with her. Chrisitine has said "'stevie cried and cried."

I think Storms is a sad realization that something far more important than a fling with Mick is finally and really over.

The 'every night he will break your heart' is more likely a reference to the odd nights Stevie and Lindsey still spent together after their official breakup which both have alluded to. And Christine apparently was a confidante in respect of that relationship because they were sharing rooms etc

Stevie 'didn't deal with Lindsey,' she did 'love him from the start' and clearly not all the prayers did save them.

On Tusk I think Mick is the more impersonal 'great dark wing' in Sara.

[SapphireSister]

I've never thought 'Storms' was at all cryptic. I think it screams Lindsey.
Yes i know there have rumblings about it being inspired by Mick because Stevie said something but really; such a mournful lament about a man who had just dumped her for her best friend? I don't think so.

I'm not sure if you heard the radio interview she did last year but she specifically addressed Storms and confirmed it was about her relationship with Mick. I have it on a CD somewhere so I can try to upload it later.

[cliffdweller]

I suspect Nothing Ever Changes is about Jimmy Iovine..She wrote a demo called Jimmy Come Back.


Yeah, that's what I thought but I didn't know why I thought that :laugh:. But now that you mention it, "Jimmy Come Back" is all coming back to me now :D .

[jannieC]

Stevie said in the MoJO interview that there was an atmosphere between her and Mick for months in the studio (recording Tusk?)after their fling and one of the FM books says she was angry with him for what he did.
Also the fling was kept secret so I doubt Christine would be advising her about Mick.


I think Storms is a sad realization that something far more important than a fling with Mick is finally and really over.

I've always felt that Stevie's relationship with Mick was much more than a "fling". I remember her distinctly saying that Storms was all about Mick. I do think Mick was a true love for Stevie, as distasteful as that may be for some. :shrug:

[The Tower]

I'd like to know more about The Nightmare - yeah, yeah, cut & paste lyrics, blah blah blah. But I like it, so screw you. :D
If you asked Stevie what that crappy song is about through the Nicks Fix Q & A thingy, this would be her response:

"It's about a nightmare."

:rolleyes: *** Oy! ***

Gate & Garden is one of my faves, not a clue wth she's talking about though.
Stevie herself said she had no idea what the song was about in The Wild Heart press kit- so, if she doesn't know, then no one does....


Stevie's tendancy to just slop words and phrases together in an attempt to force imagery can be wearing at times- "Mirror, Mirror" and "The Nighmare" being the most notable examples.

[gypsysoul]

HI sapphire sister - oh, I don't dispute that Stevie has referenced storms to Mick.
Just as I know she has said that apparently Blue Denim (a song written after the Clinton inaugaration and which refers to losing someone again) was about her brother.

Or that Say you Will with it's references to electricity of love and fever dance, and a love that comes only once in a lifetime etc is actually about Christine!

Stevie has also spoken of her 2 year relationship with Mick.
And her 2 year relationship with Don Henley.
I can't dispute she said those things.
But I can question how if she was still with Lindsey in 1976 according to some interviews or 1977 in other interviews and Tusk was released in 1979 after a years recording - and if in her Tusk songs she is apparently addressing the demise of those 2 relationships - how on earth she managed to squeeze two separate 2 year relationships into at best 18 months!!

I was a Stevie fan before I was ever a FM fan but I'm afraid I take her interviews with a pinch of salt!

What I can see, is that the ending of the relationship with Mick hit Stevie hard for many reasons, not least that Henley had also walked. Life post LB was not proving as easy as Stevie might have hoped. In that respect I think Storms could well have been 'inspired' by Mick but I don't hear that in that song she is actually 'addressing' Mick.

[chiliD]

I heard a long time ago that Beautiful Child was written about a relationship she had with an older man...."You (older man) fell in love when I (Stevie) was only ten". ..which implies he was already in a relationship when she was just a "child"...Can anyone confirm this with me? Has she ever talked about the song in an interview? Thanks.


Ok, here's how *I* interpret that line...

Stevie was the 10-year old with a crush on an older man, but he fell in love with somebody else (his own age or thereabouts). Now, in the song, Stevie's telling that man, who is now assumingly alone, that she's not a child anymore, "pick me".

[danax6]

HI sapphire sister - oh, I don't dispute that Stevie has referenced storms to Mick.
Just as I know she has said that apparently Blue Denim (a song written after the Clinton inaugaration and which refers to losing someone again) was about her brother.

Or that Say you Will with it's references to electricity of love and fever dance, and a love that comes only once in a lifetime etc is actually about Christine!

Stevie has also spoken of her 2 year relationship with Mick.
And her 2 year relationship with Don Henley.
I can't dispute she said those things.
But I can question how if she was still with Lindsey in 1976 according to some interviews or 1977 in other interviews and Tusk was released in 1979 after a years recording - and if in her Tusk songs she is apparently addressing the demise of those 2 relationships - how on earth she managed to squeeze two separate 2 year relationships into at best 18 months!!

I was a Stevie fan before I was ever a FM fan but I'm afraid I take her interviews with a pinch of salt!

What I can see, is that the ending of the relationship with Mick hit Stevie hard for many reasons, not least that Henley had also walked. Life post LB was not proving as easy as Stevie might have hoped. In that respect I think Storms could well have been 'inspired' by Mick but I don't hear that in that song she is actually 'addressing' Mick.And don't forget her August 24, 1977 journal entry:

"One more time, on the plane. As usual, Lindsey is his usual asshole self. I am slowly coming to the conclusion that Lindsey and I are at an end. So sad to see good love go bad..."

Slowly? Almost a year and a half after they supposedly broke up during the recording of Rumours?

How are we to make any sense of it if Stevie even can't? :p

[danax6]

I'm not sure if you heard the radio interview she did last year but she specifically addressed Storms and confirmed it was about her relationship with Mick. I have it on a CD somewhere so I can try to upload it later.So? Stand Back is about a welfare line...apparantly. I don't think there are many people around that believe that story either. ;)

[strandinthewind]

So? Stand Back is about a welfare line...apparantly. I don't think there are many people around that believe that story either. ;)

She said:

To be standing in a line . . . like a welfare line . . . to be standing in a line waiting to get money or something . . . to be standing in a line waiting . . . you'll be standing in a line. It was another angry song! (laughs)

www.inherownwords.com

So, she analogized it to a welfare line in the sense that you would have to wait if not beg for something from someone perhaps angry with you. That casts a different light on it than it merely being a welfare line :shrug:

Interestingly, there was some discussion awhile back that SB is about LB not coming to her rescue when she married Kim. It was a pretty cool discussion on Nancy's board I believe. The gist of it was she did not hear from LB in the middle of her room, but there is way more to it than that if anyone cares to look it up on www.buckinghamnicks.net

[strandinthewind]

I'm fascinated by the line "She was dark at the top of the stairs" in "Sisters of the Moon." I want to know whether Stevie took the phrase from Inge.

There was an interview in the 70's where she said she was referring to her alter ego - her sister of the moon - who was calling to her because she (Stevie) looked in the mirror and was horrified by how thin she had gotten and though she would die. So, she asked her stronger stage persona to be her sister and help her.

I think GDW and SOTM are both about the alter ego and they are very deep poetry for that.

[danax6]

Interestingly, there was some discussion awhile back that SB is about LB not coming to her rescue when she married Kim. It was a pretty cool discussion on Nancy's board I believe. The gist of it was she did not hear from LB in the middle of her room, but there is way more to it than that if anyone cares to look it up on www.buckinghamnicks.netYes. Coincidentally, that's what I believe also. For crying out loud, the woman wrote it on her wedding night...she was waiting for someone to rescue her, be that Lindsey or whoever. By her own words, it's an angry song...you are not supposed to be angry on your wedding night, so that says enough about the circumstances surrounding that god awful decision. 'in the middle of my room, I did not hear from you'. In my opinion, she needed to be saved, she knew it was a recipe for disaster.

[SapphireSister]

So? Stand Back is about a welfare line...apparantly. I don't think there are many people around that believe that story either. ;)
Really? I do. As Jason stated above she said herself it was a reference to a welfare line and used it in the song as a metaphor, not in the literal sense. Why is that so hard to believe? It makes perfect sense to me metaphorically. And she never said the whole song was about a welfare line, that was just one line in the song.

So basically you can determine for yourself whether or not you believe Stevie's own words that come out of her mouth. In this situation I heard her say Storms was about Mick (at least part of it) so I chose to believe it and you can chose to believe whatever you want. I don't know if I believe everything she says but I do believe her when she says Storms was inspired by her relationship with Mick Fleetwood.

I also want to make the point that more times than not there are multiple themes and ideas going on in Stevie's songs. In other words, Storms isn't totally about Mick nor is Stand Back strictly about someone "standing in a line". Everything is not always cohesive in her lyrics so there may not be an explanation as to "one thing" that a particular song is about.

[SapphireSister]

There was an interview in the 70's where she said she was referring to her alter ego - her sister of the moon - who was calling to her because she (Stevie) looked in the mirror and was horrified by how thin she had gotten and though she would die. So, she asked her stronger stage persona to be her sister and help her.

I think GDW and SOTM are both about the alter ego and they are very deep poetry for that.
Yep, and the song Bella Donna goes along with that theme as well and she's said the same thing when talking about the song in interviews. Here are the lyrics I'm talking about:

"And the woman may be awestruck
And the woman may truly care
but the woman is so tired...
So the woman dissappears...

Come in out of the darkness...
And you say...
and your face becomes thin
You never thought it could"

There is the alter ego to the beautiful woman, the Bella Donna...

[danax6]

I don't know if I believe everything she says but I do believe her when she says Storms was inspired by her relationship with Mick Fleetwood.
Oh, don't get me wrong, I believe there is a little Mick in Storms also, at least the beginning of the song. I was just pointing out that not everything she says can be taken for the gospel truth, but I guess we can repeat that till we're blue in the face. :nod:

[David]

There was an interview in the 70's where she said she was referring to her alter ego - her sister of the moon - who was calling to her because she (Stevie) looked in the mirror and was horrified by how thin she had gotten and though she would die. So, she asked her stronger stage persona to be her sister and help her.Yes, I love that. That was from the 1979 Innerview at her Vilma Banky mansion after the band played L.A. But I'd like to ask Stevie whether she read the title of the Inge play & swiped it for her song (because it is certainly a cool image & well worth swiping).

That was a fascinating way Stevie had of coping with physical illness, exhaustion & mental distress: create a double, who can admonish you, steer you back on track, deal with your disappointed parents, & even get sick in your stead. It reminds me of "The Sandman" of E.T.A. Hoffmann, which I doubt Stevie has read, but I like thinking about the parallels.

[amber]

Yes, I love that. That was from the 1979 Innerview at her Vilma Banky mansion after the band played L.A. But I'd like to ask Stevie whether she read the title of the Inge play & swiped it for her song (because it is certainly a cool image & well worth swiping).
I highly doubt it.

That was a fascinating way Stevie had of coping with physical illness, exhaustion & mental distress: create a double, who can admonish you, steer you back on track, deal with your disappointed parents, & even get sick in your stead. It reminds me of "The Sandman" of E.T.A. Hoffmann, which I doubt Stevie has read, but I like thinking about the parallels.

What else would a Gemini do? There is another person in there! Might as well make it useful. It's that other person and need for variety that made her think she could do so many things at once in the first place. It would usually take two people to accomplish what she did. :shrug: But there is actually only one physical person - thus the mental distress and physical exhaustion. It's hard to be one and work for two. :nod: I dunno, it makes sense to me. :laugh:

My friend with Stevie's birthday has three kids, was/is married, got her degree, Masters, and now her PhD while having these kids, teaches in the day and night, flies to L.A. for her PhD, all while maintaining many friends and a social life, and millions of activities for her kids (ages 13, 8, and 4). She also takes vacations, and was constantly arguing with her soon to be ex husband. She is my age. It's fricking amazing, I tells ya, only 2 people in one could accomplish that! Same with Stevels.


But really I wanted to say: Love your sig.! :nod:

[ELIUD]

That was a fascinating way Stevie had of coping with physical illness, exhaustion & mental distress: create a double, who can admonish you, steer you back on track, deal with your disappointed parents, & even get sick in your stead. It reminds me of "The Sandman" of E.T.A. Hoffmann, which I doubt Stevie has read, but I like thinking about the parallels.

It reminds [i]me[/] of the movie "The Other" from the 70s. The dead twin that kept visiting the little boy long after he fell into a well. Oops ruined a good surprise ending.

[BlackWidow]

Here's one:
No Spken Word - "That disastrous sound"

[BlackWidow]

one of my fave cryptical lyrics is frome one (of not my overall) fave SN items, "Space Needle"......."The tar people are back again, sad, very true". My only guess it is a referance to the users of black tar heroin and or any addictive substances both legal and not. I can almost see the mass of slow, shambling, shuffling mounds of what only vaguely resembles humanoid figures, each not visably clear where one begins and the other ends. Distorted faces hidden behind dripping masks, frozen in a perpetual silent scream, sliding along the streets, leaving toxic, sticky residue to capture the unaware and transform it into yet another one of its kind.......great stuff. If you have yet to hear Space Needle, be sure to do so. It's one of her most "real" songs. It is ultra depressing, full of engulfing, consuming apethy, the bitterness of dissapointments, loss of beauty of mind, soul and body, etc, etc. It's a heavy number, so you are in for a bumpy ride when you hear if for the first time
Glad it got bumped off TISL!!!

[BlackWidow]

I'm not sure if you heard the radio interview she did last year but she specifically addressed Storms and confirmed it was about her relationship with Mick. I have it on a CD somewhere so I can try to upload it later.
This is true...:woohoo:

[BlackWidow]

I've always felt that Stevie's relationship with Mick was much more than a "fling". I remember her distinctly saying that Storms was all about Mick. I do think Mick was a true love for Stevie, as distasteful as that may be for some. :shrug:
I agree..She loved him!!!:nod:

[BlackWidow]

If you asked Stevie what that crappy song is about through the Nicks Fix Q & A thingy, this would be her response:

"It's about a nightmare."

:rolleyes: *** Oy! ***


Stevie herself said she had no idea what the song was about in The Wild Heart press kit- so, if she doesn't know, then no one does....


Stevie's tendancy to just slop words and phrases together in an attempt to force imagery can be wearing at times- "Mirror, Mirror" and "The Nighmare" being the most notable examples.
You got some points there...

[BlackWidow]

So? Stand Back is about a welfare line...apparantly. I don't think there are many people around that believe that story either. ;)
I think Stand Back is about her marriage to Kim Anderson...

[BlackWidow]

Yes. Coincidentally, that's what I believe also. For crying out loud, the woman wrote it on her wedding night...she was waiting for someone to rescue her, be that Lindsey or whoever. By her own words, it's an angry song...you are not supposed to be angry on your wedding night, so that says enough about the circumstances surrounding that god awful decision. 'in the middle of my room, I did not hear from you'. In my opinion, she needed to be saved, she knew it was a recipe for disaster.
Yep..It is a cry for help!!!!:nod:

[strandinthewind]

Yes, I love that. That was from the 1979 Innerview at her Vilma Banky mansion after the band played L.A. But I'd like to ask Stevie whether she read the title of the Inge play & swiped it for her song (because it is certainly a cool image & well worth swiping).

That was a fascinating way Stevie had of coping with physical illness, exhaustion & mental distress: create a double, who can admonish you, steer you back on track, deal with your disappointed parents, & even get sick in your stead. It reminds me of "The Sandman" of E.T.A. Hoffmann, which I doubt Stevie has read, but I like thinking about the parallels.

Ha! Lovely Eyes! Lovely Eyes! :eek:

The Sandman is IMO way darker than the image La Nicks cast of her alter self. But, I think the similarities are there and I would not be surprised if she had read it.

Did you know that Freud took the eyes stealing to mean castration - leave it to ole Sigmund :laugh:

I also think The Portrait of Dorian Grey is in those songs as well - even if slight.

[amber]

Did you know that Freud took the eyes stealing to mean castration - leave it to ole Sigmund :laugh:
Oh, that coked up, well respected asshole....

I also think The Portrait of Dorian Grey is in those songs as well - even if slight.
Nice, very nice. I had included that in my interpretations as well. Specious, maybe, but it can be fun to give Stevie depth she *perhaps* didn't realize she had. And I think the Portrait of Dorian Gray interp is very apt. And it seems like the reference is one Stevie may have been thinking about. JMO, of course.

[strandinthewind]

^^^^


Freud was a prick - no pun intended :cool:

As for La Nicks - I think her interviews suggest she is fairly well read and she certainly incorporates lots of classical literature in her songs. So, I would not be surprised if she had that depth already.

[UndoingTheLaces]

I believe Mick talked about Beautiful Child in his book. He was the person she's singing about. He is older than her and was with his first wife around the time that Stevie was ten years old. When she says "you fell in love when I was only ten" she does not mean he fell in love with her. He had his first love with another woman at that time period. And "you say it will be harder in the morning, I wait for you to say 'just go'" refers to their eventual breakup.

One thing I've always wondered about. Is Imperial Hotel a real place? Is the song about her and did she really run away to a hotel to get away from a bad relationship. I do love how the ending is almost a callback to Storms "...and not all the prayers in the world could save us" and "Don't cry baby, I can save you".

I wrote a song once called "Blue Calm" about losing a friend to AIDS and my favorite line was inspired by that line in Storms. It went:

Save him...
I cried, "save him"
but not all the ribbons and words in the world
could save him

It has a very different meaning than what Stevie is talking about in Storms, the "saving" is more literal here. But I was very fond of that song. I need to make a good recording of it.

[melaboo]

stevies a high prestess, shes lived many lives and her lyrics could relate to anything!!!
shes intelligent and most of her songs go way above all of us...theyre personal, powerful lyrics....well, thats what i think

[Kelly]

I'm not sure if you heard the radio interview she did last year but she specifically addressed Storms and confirmed it was about her relationship with Mick. I have it on a CD somewhere so I can try to upload it later.


I agree with Gypsysoul...Stevie saying one thing in an interview doesnt really confirm anything for me. Even if she says its about Lindsey. :laugh: She changes her tune so much on what songs are about.....

[Kelly]

I believe Mick talked about Beautiful Child in his book. He was the person she's singing about. He is older than her and was with his first wife around the time that Stevie was ten years old. When she says "you fell in love when I was only ten" she does not mean he fell in love with her. He had his first love with another woman at that time period. And "you say it will be harder in the morning, I wait for you to say 'just go'" refers to their eventual breakup.

One thing I've always wondered about. Is Imperial Hotel a real place? Is the song about her and did she really run away to a hotel to get away from a bad relationship. I do love how the ending is almost a callback to Storms "...and not all the prayers in the world could save us" and "Don't cry baby, I can save you".

I wrote a song once called "Blue Calm" about losing a friend to AIDS and my favorite line was inspired by that line in Storms. It went:

Save him...
I cried, "save him"
but not all the ribbons and words in the world
could save him

It has a very different meaning than what Stevie is talking about in Storms, the "saving" is more literal here. But I was very fond of that song. I need to make a good recording of it.


In the book I have Mick did not say he was the "Beautiful Child". :shrug: There are only a few quotes about this song from Stevie. "it was about a relationship that could never be"..from the Atlanta radio interview from SYW. She said it was "one of the the most difficult songs to sing every night" over on the Nicksfix.
This song seems like it could have been written even before her relationship with Mick if you read some of her other quotes about it, which I do not have here to post. In one she says she wrote it "three years ago", dating it to possibly even 1976.

[DeeGeMe]

Now y'all know I"m a chiffon head from way back and I love Stevie endlessly but when I read the title of this thread I thought we'd be discussing the few lines in Stevie songs that aren't cryptic--it would be a much shorter discussion because frankly, I think about 90% of what she writes is incredibly cryptic. And that would be what I love about her the most--I can make her songs mean anything to me that I want to because there are so many possible interpretations.

Having said that, the BC discussion/theory makes total sense!

[skcin]

I believe Mick talked about Beautiful Child in his book. He was the person she's singing about. He is older than her and was with his first wife around the time that Stevie was ten years old. When she says "you fell in love when I was only ten" she does not mean he fell in love with her. He had his first love with another woman at that time period.


Are you talking about Mick's "My 25 Years in FM?" I don't remember that being in there. Plus, Mick's only a year or two older than Stevie (if I recall correctly) and I don't think he'd been dating Jenny since he was 12 or 13. Someone correct me, I may be wrong. But this doesn't make any sense to me. :sorry:

when I read the title of this thread I thought we'd be discussing the few lines in Stevie songs that aren't cryptic--it would be a much shorter discussion because frankly, I think about 90% of what she writes is incredibly cryptic.

You know what's funny - I swear I was going to post the exact same thing. :laugh:

[cliffdweller]

What else would a Gemini do? There is another person in there! Might as well make it useful. It's that other person and need for variety that made her think she could do so many things at once in the first place. It would usually take two people to accomplish what she did. :shrug: But there is actually only one physical person - thus the mental distress and physical exhaustion. It's hard to be one and work for two. :nod: I dunno, it makes sense to me. :laugh:

This made me also think of her solo career while being in Fleetwood Mac...you know, having to be two people all the time. It just plays into the Gemini thing even more. Stevie could never have been in just one band. She's a Gemini dammit, she'd get waaaay too bored. Trust me I know, my hubby's a Gemini and he usually has to be in at least 3 bands at at all times :rolleyes: :laugh:.

[BlackWidow]

Are you talking about Mick's "My 25 Years in FM?" I don't remember that being in there. Plus, Mick's only a year or two older than Stevie (if I recall correctly) and I don't think he'd been dating Jenny since he was 12 or 13. Someone correct me, I may be wrong. But this doesn't make any sense to me. :sorry:



You know what's funny - I swear I was going to post the exact same thing. :laugh:
You are correct regarding the TIME FRAME!!!:wavey:

[BlackWidow]

This made me also think of her solo career while being in Fleetwood Mac...you know, having to be two people all the time. It just plays into the Gemini thing even more. Stevie could never have been in just one band. She's a Gemini dammit, she'd get waaaay too bored. Trust me I know, my hubby's a Gemini and he usually has to be in at least 3 bands at at all times :rolleyes: :laugh:.
Very true..I'm a Gemini too..so I am very keyed into her!:D ;)

[David]

Now y'all know I"m a chiffon head from way back and I love Stevie endlessly but when I read the title of this thread I thought we'd be discussing the few lines in Stevie songs that aren't cryptic--it would be a much shorter discussion because frankly, I think about 90% of what she writes is incredibly cryptic. And that would be what I love about her the most--I can make her songs mean anything to me that I want to because there are so many possible interpretations.That's precisely why I love reading poetry in Farsi & Volapük! Since I neither read nor write either of those languages, I can make those poems mean absolutely anything I wish. :thumbsup:

[cliffdweller]

That's precisely why I love reading poetry in Farsi & Volapük! Since I neither read nor write either of those languages, I can make those poems mean absolutely anything I wish. :thumbsup:


Cute, wiseass :cool:

:laugh:

[David]

Cute, wiseass :cool:

:laugh:
I'm just trying to understand.
:] :blob2: :blob1: :wavey:
Plus I get to use some smilies I often avoid.

[TheWILDheart]

I think GDW and SOTM are both about the alter ego and they are very deep poetry for that.

Gold Dust Woman is about Drugs!! "Rock on gold dust woman, take your silver spoon, dig your grave"

In the 70's, people used to line up cocain using the wrong end of a tea spoon. Hence, Gold Dust Woman.

[michelle2677]

the first few line in dreams always confuse me

"now there you go again, you say-you want your freedom. Well who am I to keep you you down"

I'm assuming she's speaking for someone else. They are saying that about her, but who knows.

in "gypsy" why she says:
"to the gypsy that remains, and faces freedom with a little fear
I have no fear" I thought you just said you you had a little fear??

in the 3rd verse of the smile at you (angry version)
"and now you feel the light-you run from the darkness
you never saw the change, that woman's softness"

if he's with someone else now, is stevie the darkness?
whose softness? hers? the other woman's? She is usually talking about her self changing- a la landslide etc.

The whole first verse of "If Anyone Falls" but of course we are back to the whole Rupert thing :D

[David]

the first few line in dreams always confuse me

"now there you go again, you say-you want your freedom. Well who am I to keep you you down"
Very interesting points. And yet there is serious question in my mind as to whether Stevie even wrote the song "Dreams." :confused: :sorry: :nod:

[strandinthewind]

Gold Dust Woman is about Drugs!! "Rock on gold dust woman, take your silver spoon, dig your grave"

In the 70's, people used to line up cocain using the wrong end of a tea spoon. Hence, Gold Dust Woman.

Baby don't leave me - I'm down on my knees - beggin you to please --- that's about drugs? I do not see that - I so see it being real Stevie crying out to her innocence not to leave her to be a ruler and a bad lover. I do, however, think the coke is in there somewhere. I do not think the gold dust is all the coke - I think it is her seeing her alter ego spreading her music and making money (which bought the drugs) - hence she was spreading her gold dust. At www.inherownwords.com - La Nicks says its about groupies - go figure :laugh:

[strandinthewind]

the first few line in dreams always confuse me

"now there you go again, you say-you want your freedom. Well who am I to keep you you down"

I'm assuming she's speaking for someone else. They are saying that about her, but who knows . . .

Many people think she is speaking from LB's point of view. In other words, she is mimicing LB saying Now there you go again Stevie you want your freedom - who am I to keep you down. After all, La Nicks left him. Interestingly, I think the "have you any dreams you's like to sell" is a powerful dig at LB in that she could be saying my songs are the hits and this was our dream.

[Phoenix]

[QUOTE=skcin]

I'd like to know more about The Nightmare - yeah, yeah, cut & paste lyrics, blah blah blah. But I like it, so screw you. :D


:laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :thumbsup:

[David]

Interestingly, I think the "have you any dreams you's like to sell" is a powerful dig at LB in that she could be saying my songs are the hits and this was our dream.When she wrote "Dreams," she had had only one hit in her life--"Rhiannon."

Of course, that was exactly one more than Lindsey had had! :lol:

Neither one of them was exactly a hit machine at that time.

[strandinthewind]

When she wrote "Dreams," she had had only one hit in her life--"Rhiannon."

Of course, that was exactly one more than Lindsey had had! :lol:

Neither one of them was exactly a hit machine at that time.

True, but she was emerging at that time as the front person and certainly she made a splash in the press due to her looks and stage antics. I get that she got somewhat bad reviews, but she was emerging.

Interestingly, that line could be LB cursing her about selling their dreams of a duo to be part of FM and the whole big time rock and roll scene.

[David]

True, but she was emerging at that time as the front person and certainly she made a splash in the press due to her looks and stage antics. I get that she got somewhat bad reviews, but she was emerging.I think she got mostly good reviews for live performing in those years. It wasn't until the 1977 tour when you'd see an occasional concert review taking Stevie apart for either a) sounding bored, or b) sounding hoarse or sick.

In fact, the first major bad review of Stevie's live performances with Mac that I can recall is the Rolling Stone review of the first night of the Madison Square Garden show on June 29, 1977. I forgot who wrote the review, but he said that she twirled with "all the grace of a drunken sailor" & that she wound up sounding like Linda Blair's Regan--"only with Regan's exquisite control."

Can anyone think of a major bad review of a Stevie performance that predates that one?

[strandinthewind]

This one:

Rolling Stone
March 24, 1977
Issue 235
by Cameron Crowe
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

THE TRUE LIFE CONFESSIONS OF FLEETWOOD MAC:
The Long Hard Drive from British Blues to California Gold

**** it...

Peter Green didn't want his 30,000 [pounds] a year. The money was royalties from his work with his old blues band, Fleetwood Mac. He'd quit the band in 1970, saying he wanted to live a Christian life. He gave his money away and eventually took various menial jobs, including one as a gravedigger.

But now, as more and more people acquaint themselves with Fleetwood Mac and dig back to old reissues, this money keeps arriving. He tries to get rid of it, but it's all just a bother. "I want to lead a new life," he would say. "I don't want to be followed around by the past".

When Green could tolerate it no longer, he paid his accountant a visit, brandishing a pump-action 22 shotgun. He wanted the money stopped. Soon Green was standing in Marlebone Court in London, listening calmly as the judge read this verdict. Peter Green, blues-guitar-star-turned-ascetic, was ordered committed to a mental institution.

After ten years and a particularly lean time just before the group's 1975 smash, Fleetwood Mac, broke loose, everybody loves this quiet little British-American band that could. Fleetwood Mac's music has evolved into a sophisticated pop and rock sound that's just right for the Seventies, thanks primarily to two women, old-timer Christine McVie and newcomer Stevie Nicks. The group's latest album is being shipped out in greater quantities than any other record in the history of Warner Bros. There are, of course, reasons for Warner's optimism: Fleetwood Mac produced three hit singles ("Over my head" and "Say you love me" by McVie; "Rhiannon" by Nicks), sold 4 million units, has danced around the top half of the album charts for over 80 weeks and is Warner's all-time best seller.

And adding to everyone's enthusiasm were shows like the one at LA's Universal Amphitheater last fall. There, in front of an adorning crowd that included Elton John and two princesses of Iran, FM looked like they were feeling good. New energy was being supplied by Stevie Nicks and the other most recent addition Lindsey Buckingham. What with Buckingham prowling around the stage, dropping feisty lead runs into all the right places, and singer Nicks playing the whirling dervish Welsh witch Rhiannon, the group's dignified reserve was clearly a thing of the past.

Even drummer Mick Fleetwood finally ventured out from behind his drum kit to play the African talking drum on "World Turning". And Christine McVie, Fleetwood Mac's brandy-voiced keyboardist of six years, recently overcoming a phobia against talking to the audience. Only John McVie, perhaps in the grand tradition of bassists, remains impassive and faultlessly proficient.

But one would soon learn that their minds were elsewhere - namely, in the tiny studio across town from the Amphitheater, where they were still struggling to finish their very latefollow LP, a trouble child, called Rumours.

Work on the album began in February '76, immediately after the group had introduced their new lineup on a marathon six-month cross-country tour. Traveling to the Record Plant Studios in Sausalito, just north of San Francisco, FM had walked straight into an emotional holocaust. Christine and John McVie, married for almost 8 years, had recently split up and weren't talking to each other. Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham were about to do likewise. And Mick Fleetwood certainly wasn't talking to anybody. The father of two children, he and his wife Jenny were in the midst of divorce proceedings.

"Everybody was pretty weirded out", Christine McVie explained. "Somehow Mick was there, the figurehead: "We must carry on... let's be mature about this, sort it out. - Somehow we waded through it."

They returned to LA, but the tapes from their nine weeks in the Sausalito studio - many of them mangled by a "recording machine" that earned the nickname "Jaws" - sounded strange wherever they played them. They were almost resigned to starting all over when one of their crew found a cramped dubbing room in the porno district of Hollywood Boulevard, a studio that perfectly accommodated what they had recorded. A fully booked fall tour was canceled, and there, while films like Squirm and Dick City played next door, Fleetwood Mac started the mixing process. As the songs took shape, the album began to sound like True Confessions: the band's three writers - Christine McVie, Nicks, and Buckingham - were all writing about their crumbled relationships.

As they added finishing touches to an album more intimate than they had ever anticipated, the band firmly closed their studio doors. "It was clumsy sometimes," said John McVie. "I'm sitting there in the studio and I get a little lump in my throat especially when you turn around and the writer's sitting right there." So they asked that interviews be done separately.

I always did have a kind of candle shining for Peter Green. I mean, he was my god. I thought, "Give me one chance at him..." Christine McVie, who looks considerably younger than her 33 years, grew up alongside Fleetwood Mac on the British blues circuit. Mick Fleetwood and John McVie are loath to dwell on FM's many past lives, but sitting in this cluttered office adjoining the studio where she has just finished mixing Rumours, Christine is happy to play the keeper of the FM legacy.

She pours a tall glass of white wine and surprises even herself with a fan's diary that is by turns, melancholy and passionate. "I dearly remember the old days... FM had this one-of-a-kind charm. They were gregarious, charming and cheeky on-stage. Very cheeky. They'd have a good time. Peter Green just made the audience laugh at this funny little cocky Jewboy. Jeremy Spencer was really dirty on-stage. At the Marquee one night he put a dildo in his trousers, came out and did an impersonation of Cliff Richard. Half the women left, escorted by their boyfriends." Green had also created a dark, mystical aura about the band. "He had this tremendous, subtle power," says Christine.

By the time she made friends with the group, Christine Perfect was already a journeywoman blues-circuit rocker herself. As a "real tubby" teenager - she weighed 160 pounds at 16 - Christine and a girlfriend/singing partner snuck away from their strict parents in Birmingham and visited every talent agency they could find in London. Their act consisted of strumming guitars and warbling Everly Brothers hits. Their career, which was highlighted by a obe-song pub appearance backed by the Shadows, was cut short when their parents found them out. Christine was sent to art college in Birmingham where she joined a folk club. "We'd meet every Tuesday night, above a pub somewhere, and drink cheap beer. Whoever could, would play a folk song or violin, whatever they could do. Anyway, one night in strolls this devastatingly handsome man, who was from Birmingham University. It was Spencer Davis. I just fell in love with Spence. I swore I would get thin and go out with him.

"And I did."

Christine and Spencer began singing together, fronting the university's jazz band, but, she says, their relationship proved more musical than illicit. "Stevie Winwood was about 14, still in school and playing at a jazz club called the ChappelPub at lunchtime," Christine says. "He met Spencer Davis Group."

"I used to trail around religiously. Boy, they were so hot. Nothing was like that. Stevie Winwood played like I'd never heard anybody play before. It just gave me goose bumps. They were just a blues band, but a really, really great blues band. He [Winwood] could yell the blues. A 15-year-old boy. No one could believe it. The 19-20-year-old girls would have the hots for him."

Christine joined another blues band called Chicken Shack. The gruesome cover photo, showing severed fingers in a can, won as art award for their first album. Forty Blue Fingers Packed and Ready to Serve. "We had an underground following," Christine deadpans.

Chicken Shack did occasional gigs with Fleetwood Mac, and Christine, now, playing piano, was invited to guest on some of Fleetwood Mac's early sessions because she "played the blues the way Peter liked." She never had designs on any of the band, she says. Besides, both Green and McVie already had girlfriends.

Christine stops and slaps her forehead. "I'm forgetting a whole two-year episode with a Swedish guy I was engaged to. Ended up totally traumatizing my kitten who hated me evermore 'cause I just ran around the house screaming when he left me. I scared the **** out of it."

Caught up in her story-telling, Christine in not the same woman Stevie Nicks has characterized as "very private, very much to herself." She shakes her head, as if she's been talking too much. "I can't believe I'm remembering all these things." But, she continues, "I went to see Fleetwood Mac one night. John didn't have his girlfriend... He asked me if I wanted to have a drink and we sat down, had a few laughs, then they had to go on-stage. All the time I was kind of eyeballing ol' Greenie. After the concert was over, John came over and said, 'Shall I take you out to dinner sometime? I went, 'Whoa... I thought you were engaged or something.' He said, 'Nah, 'sall over.' I thought he was devastatingly attractive but it never occurred to me to look at him."

They went out for a time, then John McVie disappeared overseas for Fleetwood Mac's first American tour. "By this time I was really crazy about him," Christine recalls, "but I didn't know what was happening with him. Chicken Shack did a ten-day stint at the Blow-Up Club in Munich and I had this strange relationship with a crazy German DJ who wanted to whisk me off and marry me. I turned him down... and wrote John a big letter."

Fleetwood Mac returned from America and McVie proposed. They were married ten days later, mostly to please Christine's dying mother. But John and Christine didn't see much of each other. Both bands toured often and when she left Chicken Shack, she tried a disastrously unprepared solo tour and LP. Christine gladly retired to be John McVie’s old lady.

"I thought it was extremely romantic," she says. "Obviously a little bit of the glamour of what Fleetwood Mac was in those days rubbed off. It was almost like someone marrying a Beatle. You married one of the locks in the chain and you were part of them.

"We were very very happy. Very happy for probably three years and then the strain of me being in the same band as him started to take its toll. When you're in the same band as somebody, you're seeing them almost more than 24 hours a day. you start to see an awful lot of the bad side 'cause touring is no easy thing. There's a lot of drinking... John is not the most pleasant of people when he's drunk. Very belligerent. I was seeing more Hyde than Jekyll."

Peter Green, in a sudden plea for Christ, left the band in late '70, and Christine McVie came out of her retirement, adding keyboards to the band. Green's departure, says Christine, "was an out-of-the-blue shock to everybody. Peter had been quite happy and was starting to write this really incredible music like "Green Manalishi." It was like he was being lifted. He'd wrung the blues dry and already played 50 times better than most of the black guitarists."

In the midst of a German tour the group's first peak of popularity, Green fell in with some people Christine remembers as "jet-setters." The band had recorded a Green composition, "Black Magic Woman," and, ironically, the group he ran into were reportedly into black magic and the occult. They turned him on to acid. He left Fleetwood Mac on that same tour.

"Something snapped in him," Christine says, looking saddened. "He dropped this fatal tab of acid and withdrew. He still has this amazing power, but it's negative. You don't want him around. We've all cried a lot of tears over Peter. We've all spent so much energy talking him into more positive channels. He'll just sit there and laugh. "**** it..."

Not long ago, exasperated at being asked the perennial reunion question, Mick Fleetwood told an interviewer that sure, someday, maybe on an English tour, the original Fleetwood Mac might get on-stage one night.

Later, when the band arrived in London, Peter Green was waiting for them in the lobby of their hotel. Unannounced, Christine didn't recognize the flabby, slept-in figure carrying a disco-droning cassette machine. "I heard this voice say, Hello Chris, I turned around and see this rotund little guy with a big beer gut and pint in his hand. I couldn't believe it. I said, Aren't you embarrassed?, Nah, he says, **** it, what the hell." We gave him a room at the hotel for a few nights. He'd knock on your door, come in and just sit there on your bed. He wouldn't volunteer anything."

Jeremy Spencer left Fleetwood Mac a year after Peter Green, under vaguely similar circumstances. He stepped onto a Children of God bus in Hollywood and never returned. The writer met Spencer recently on a London Street, blank-eyed and selling Children of God books. His pitch: "I used to be in a group called Fleetwood Mac until I found..."

Christine meticulously recollects the details of all the ensuing clock-in/clock-out personnel changes during Fleetwood Mac's lean years between their Future Games and Fleetwood Mac LPs. But she places particular emphasis only on Bob Welch. "I have so much love for Bob," she says, "He is such a big part of the band. I don't really get off on what he's doing in Paris [Welch's current band]. When he quit, he was getting into a real feel of the kind of guitar playing that Peter used to have and Lindsey definitely has got a lot of. It's very nebulous quality, very difficult to explain. It's a question of what note not to play."

Welch's last LP with the groups was Heroes are Hard to Find, their first as a transplanted LA band. After breaking up with their manager they had moved to LA to start all over. The McVies lived in a small three-room in Malibu. It was there, on a portable Hohner piano in the bedroom that she wrote "Over my Head" and "Say you Love me."

"I don't struggle over my songs," she offers. "I write them quickly and I've never written a lot. I write what is required of me. For me, people like Joni Mitchell are making too much of a statement. I don't really write about myself, which puts me in a safe little cocoon... I'm a pretty basic love song writer."

Christine shrugs off the suddenly massive acceptance of Fleetwood Mac as "a lot of rewards for a lot of hard work." And it wasn't the flush of super-stardom, she stresses, that caused her to split with John McVie. She explains compassionately: "I broke up with John in the middle of a tour. I was aware of it being irresponsible. I had to do it for my sanity. It was either that or me ending up in a lunatic asylum. I still worry for him more than I would ever dare tell him. I still have a lot of love for John. Let's face it, as far as I'm concerned, it was him that stopped me loving him. He constantly tested what limits of endurance I would go to. He just went one step too far. If he knew that I cared and worried so much about him, I think he'd play on it."

"There's no doubt about the fact that he hasn't really been a happy man since I left him. I know that. Sure, I could make him happy tomorrow and say, yeah John, I'll come back to you. Then I would be miserable. I'm not that unselfish."

Then there were the Sausalito sessions. "Trauma," Christine groans. "Trau-ma." The sessions were like a cocktail party every night - people everywhere. We ended up staying in these weird hospital rooms... and of course John and me were not exactly the best of friends. Stevie and I spent a lot of time together. She was going through a bit of a hard time too because she was the one that axed it. Lindsey was pretty down about it for a while, then he just woke up one morning and said, **** this, I don't want to be unhappy, and started getting some girlfriends together.

Then Stevie couldn't handle it...

Almost immediately Christine McVie entered into a romance with Curry Grant, FM's strapping lighting director. They lived together for a year in Christine's home, above Sunset Strip. "I haven't been without a man in my life for... God, it must be 12 years. I can't imagine what it's like not to have an old man... but I have no intention of getting married. I don't think I'm in love..." She considers that for a few seconds. "I don't really know what the hell love is." Then, she suddenly adds, "I'm proud of having been John's wife." She still wears McVie's ring, but on another finger. Maybe we don't feel the same about each other anymore, but I wouldn't like to wipe that off board. John can't handle Curry too well, even though he's much more at ease with other women around me than I am with men in front of him. He's making an effort. But if I was the kind of girl who wandered in with a new boyfriend every week, enjoying my newfound freedom, I don't know how he could handle that."

Isn't she tempted to play the field?

"It would be a new experience," she says shyly, growing amused at the thought. "Sure, you know." She leans toward a telephone. "Kenny Loggins! Call me up. I'd love to have a load of dates. I haven't done that since I was at college. But it's really out of the question. I mean I hardly meet anybody. I'm so involved in the band."

Christine McVie's eyes light up with a revelation. "Seven more years until I'm forty. Then I'll start all over again..."

John McVie stares silently out across a windy Marina del Rey, a half-hour away from Hollywood. "Two choppy today," he mumbles. "We shouldn't take the boat out." Having had this 41-foot schooner a year now, he is brisk and expert at tidying it up, taking down the sail and draining out side compartments before we find seats outside, on the stern, to talk.

For years, McVie dreamt about buying a boat. With the success of Fleetwood Mac, he was able to get one of the best. And when Christine asked for a separation, he moved on board, storing away everything, but some sailing books, a radio, a television set and numerous statuettes of penguins.

McVie, who is 30, claims that he's "much more comfortable here than in a house anyway." But he seems oddly unhappy. He is a solemn man. If he is pleased with realizing one of his fantasies, his poker face doesn't show it.

One wonders what success has meant to him.

"This," he says quietly, knocking the stern of the boat, "the freedom to be here, rather than slogging your heart out in Hollywood. But this isn't... would you say this is a luxury? If there was a house with it, I'd say so. But this is half the price of a house."

John McVie, the Mac in Fleetwood Mac, started the band with Mick Fleetwood, Jeremy Spencer and Peter Green in '67. Before that he was a four-year charter member of John Mayall's Bluesbreakers. He has seen Fleetwood Mac through the complete musical spectrum - 6 guitarists, 3 label changes, innumerable tours, every album and many, many, times more bad than good.

If Fleetwood Mac had been a mediocre-selling album for the band, there would have been no desperation or breakup. If Buckingham or Nicks hadn't worked out, McVie would have dutifully helped find replacements. He's a strange creature to rock and roll: a patient man.

"Fleetwood Mac was doing fine before that album," he figures. "People are always asking me how does it feel to have made it. If that's the case, what do I do now? Now that I've made it. I hate that phrase." For once, his voice is audible above the din of the marina. "I didn't anticipate all the commotion around the last album," he says. "Not as much as 4 million sales. There's a lot of good albums we've done. It's just one of those things - the right album the right time. But that's the criteria of making it in this business: a big album. Then you get your own TV show, you go make a movie. It's not important. Being seen wearing a Gucci suit... that syndrome is so sad."

So what's the motivation to be around it for more than 14 years?

"Playing bass," comes the ready reply. "I'm not a dedicated musician particularly, but it's the one thing I enjoy doing."

Would he soon consider retiring?

What would I do? Sit on the boat, but that would get as boring as sitting around the studio..."

One cautiously broaches the subject of his split with Christine. It must have been a major turning point...

"Yeah," McVie agrees. "It still affects me. I'm still adjusting to the fact that it's not John and Chris anymore. It goes up and down."

Feeling suddenly awkward, McVie stops and assembles a statement explaining himself. "Its difficult to tell someone, yeah, I'm this kind of person... the quiet thing is fine," he says softly. "If I had anything that I thought was world shaking or profound, I'd say something. I really can come up with anything on politics, state of society, the relation of music to society... it's just horse****. I play bass."

McVie sounds like his soft-spoken fellow member from the Bluesbreakers, Eric Clapton, in both philosophy and personality. (Christine McVie: "those two? They're like two peas out of the same pod").

Clapton has said he finds his personality by drinking...

"I drink too much, period," McVie bristles, "but when I've drunk too much, a personality comes out. It's not very pleasant to be around."

In the end, John McVie is a droll, likable gentleman with a sullen aura. Used to touring and recording with his wife and band, he is suddenly alone on his boat.

"He'll cheer up," an associate of the band says with a laugh. "He always does. Everyone's attitude is just leave him to himself. They know there's only one thing that could bring him around instantly: an affair with Linda Rondstandt."

McVie wistfully admits to this crush. Last year, suspiciously soon after learning that Fleetwood Mac would be on the Rock Music Awards show with Rondstandt as a fellow nominee, he bought an exquisitely tailored burgundy velvet, three-piece outfit. He wore it that night, and Fleetwood Mac won Rock Group of the Year, among other honors.

Rondstandt never showed up.

Mick Fleetwood's the tall menacing-looking one who is, for all purposes, the manager of the band. When former manager Clifford Davis burned his bridges by sending out a bogus band with the same name and owners of the name, Fleetwood Mac was too broke to find another. Decisions fell directly to Fleetwood and McVie, the original members and owners of the name. McVie held no ambitions as a businessman, but Fleetwood became obsessed with the music business. He grew to love the new responsibility of managing himself. Fleetwood retained a lawyer, Michael "Mickey" Shapiro, and together they guided the band's career.

Fleetwood is surely in his element this morning. We're sitting in the executive conference room at the tip of a private Warner's jet returning to LA from a last minute Fleetwood Mac benefit in Indiana for Birch Bayh.

"Everything has taken a very natural course," he reflects pleasantly. "We've never made records with the attitude of making hits. With us, it's potluck. The fact that they are is great. That's not just from the present lineup of the band, that's going back years and years. Like when Peter Green wrote "Albatross" [FM's first successful single in England]. Everyone thought it was a concerted effort. It was a complete accident that it was a hit. The BBC used it for some wildlife program and then someone put it on Top of The Tops and it was a hit. If Rumours was a radical failure, I'm sure we'd all be disturbed, but we wouldn't feel disillusioned."

Mick Fleetwood, like John McVie, cannot think of a time when he was ever frustrated with the band's stalled sales figures. After ten years, they value Fleetwood Mac more as a way of life than as a business investment. Success was a pleasant surprise. "You go to the office every day and you don't think about it in the end, you just go," Fleetwood explains. "That's what we were doing. Being part of Fleetwood Mac, playing through the ups and downs."

Fleetwood is resolute: "I could have never planned any of this. I don't even believe in making plans. They only create an atmosphere of disappointment. So, it's not a day-to-day situation with us, but there's always full potential of either great things happening. That is very important to me personally... Fleetwood Mac, from point one, has been like that. We'll always be able to move without breaking a leg... I definitely want to have a baby in the next four years. For sure, I want to have one or two children and I don't want to wait any further than, say, 34. This is all part of my plan. By that time I hope that I'll be living up in the mountains somewhere with a very pretty house and a piano and a tape recorder, just writing, and then going to New York every once in a while to shop. I love that too, but I mostly like to be in a really warm place with a bunch of animals, dogs and cats."

It's a long way from Peter Green.

Twenty-eight-year-old Stephanie "Stevie" Nicks is an endearing blend of beatnik poet and sassy rock and roller. One thing is for sure: success does not faze her. She has, in fact, lived around it much of her life. Until heart surgery forced him into early retirement two years ago, her father, Jess Nicks, was simultaneously executive vice-president of Greyhound and president of Armour Meats. Stevie, the only girl, was "the star in my family's sky."

Born in Phoenix and raised along her father's corporate climb in LA, New Mexico, Texas, Utah, and finally San Francisco, she nearly graduated from San Jose State with a degree in speech communication. Instead, she quit a few months early to go on the road in 1968 with an acid-rock band called Fritz.

"That did not amuse my parents too much," Stevie notes wryly. Just out of the shower and toweling off her mousy-brown-flecked-with green-tint hair on an antique couch in her Hollywood Hills duplex, she makes easy conversation. "They wanted me to do what I wanted to do. They were just worried I was going to get down to 80 pounds and be a miserable, burnt out 27-year-old."

Despite a senior citizen's penchant for detailing her various aches and pains - she's always got a sore throat or a cold - the one thing Stevie Nicks does not exude is weakness.

Through the three and a half year existence of Fritz, her all-male band members made a private agreement: hands off Stevie. That included Lindsey Buckingham, the slender, curly-haired bass player with whom she shared lead vocals.

"I think there was always something between me and Lindsey, but nobody in that band really wanted me as their girlfriend because I was just too ambitious for them. But they didn't want anybody else to have me either. If anybody in the band started spending any time with me, the other three would literally pick that person apart. To the death. They all thought I was in it for the attention. These guys didn't take me seriously at all. I was just a girl singer, and they hated the fact that I got a lot of credit."

Nicks flouts the memory, laughing with defiance, "They would kill themselves practicing for ten hours, and people would call up and say: 'We want to book that band with the little brownish-blondish-haired girl.' There was always just really weird things going on between us." Now she is charged up and scoots to the edge of her sofa to make her point: "I could never figure out why I stayed in that band. Now I know that was the preparation for Fleetwood Mac."

But it would be another two years between the inevitable breakup of Fritz and an invitation to join Fleetwood Mac. Stevie and Lindsey chose to stay together as a duo, calling themselves Buckingham Nicks. "We started spending a lot of time together working out songs. Pretty soon we started spending all our time together and... it just happened."

They moved down to LA, started knocking on doors, and eventually signed a contract with Polydor Records. They released an album and toured to good audience reaction. The band even developed a cult following in Birmingham, Alabama.

In New York, however, Polydor was not impressed and dropped them before they could finish a second album. Lindsey resorted to a phone-soliciting job. Stevie became a $1.50-an-hour waitress in a Beverly Hills singles restaurant.

Waiting on tables? What about mom and dad?

"I'd get money from them here and there," says Stevie, "but if I wanted to go back to school, if I wanted to move back home, then they would support me... If I was gonna be here in LA, doing my trip, I was gonna have to do it on my own."

They auditioned for Russ Regan, head of 20th Century records, who, Buckingham recalls, "thought we were a smash act but couldn't sign us" and Ode records president and artist's manager Lou Adler, who listened to half of one song and thanked them very much. Another manager recommended they learn the Top 40 and play steak and lobster houses.

When she visited home just seven months before joining Fleetwood Mac, her father was also discouraging. "He saw me getting skinnier and I wasn't very happy. He said, 'I think you better start setting some time limits here,' they saw, I really think, shades of my grandfather A.J. (Aaron Jeff Nicks). He was a country and western singer and he drank way too much. He was unhappy, trying to make it. He wanted to make it very badly. He turned into a very embittered person and he died that way."

In late 1974, Keith Olsen, engineer on the Buckingham Nicks LP, met with Mick Fleetwood. Olsen, pitching himself and his studio for the Fleetwood Mac account, presented Stevie and Lindsey's demo and his studio portfolio. Fleetwood listened to the album and made a mental note. When Bob Welch left Fleetwood Mac six weeks later, he looked up Stevie and Lindsey.

They went up to Mick Fleetwood's house in Laurel Canyon to talk. Buckingham offered to do an audition, but Fleetwood declined. Instead, he simply asked: 'Want to join?' The two looked at each other and said, 'Yes.'

"John and Mick," Buckingham says, "have always been open to having a lot of different people in the band - which is odd. I would never be able to do that. I would think it was real important to keep an identity. I remember being a kid - if a new member joined a group, I just didn't like that at all. But that openness is what's kept them going for so long."

But he and Nicks had one more commitment: a headlining concert in Birmingham. The show drew a screaming sellout crowd of more than 6000 fans who knew all the words to their songs. "We went out in style," says Buckingham.

Fleetwood went directly into the studio, reworking such Buckingham Nicks material as "Monday Morning," "Landslide," and a new song written originally on acoustic piano about a Welsh witch Stevie had read about named "Rhiannon." "Everything was already worked out," says Buckingham. He plucked up a belly-backed acoustic guitar and played the introduction to "Rhiannon."

The newest members of the band were happy with the album, but Stevie Nicks went through an anxious period of self-doubt. She can quote entire passages from a review in Rolling Stone that, she says, almost caused her to quit. "They said my singing was 'callow' and that really hurt my feelings." She began to think that maybe she wasn't that good, and that she had been asked into the band only because she was with Buckingham. "Time after time I would read: '...the raucous voice of Stevie Nicks and the golden-throated voice of Christine McVie, who's the only saving grace of the band.' When it comes to competition, I won't compete for a man and I won't compete for a place on that stage either. If I'm not wanted, I'll get out. I was bummed."

But the bum didn't last long: Fleetwood Mac immediately became a gold album and Christine's ethereal song, "Over my head," broke big in both pop and easy-listening radio. Nicks, who'd done harmonies on the track, felt better. And when "Rhiannon" found an even bigger audience, with its mainstream rock and roll getting both AM and FM airplay, she forgot all about quitting.

She also became Rhiannon, a witch in Welsh mythology. "I see her as a good witch," Stevie says. "Very positive. I sink into that whole trip when I'm on stage." With her diaphanous black outfits, her chiffon and lace, and a graceful way around the stage, she just as quickly became the band's first willing star/focal point.

There was, of course, a price for all this. Last year, during the ill-fated stretch in Sausalito, she separated from Buckingham after over six years.

"The best explanation is: try working with your secretary... in a raucous office... and then come home with her at night. See how long you could stand her. I could be no comfort to Lindsey when he needed comfort."

She cites an example from Sausalito. Lindsey was feeling depressed because he couldn't quite get some guitar parts down right. "So we'd go back to where we were staying and he would really need comfort from me, for me to say, 'it's all right, who cares about them?', you know, be an old lady."

One problem, "I was also pissed off because he hadn't gotten the guitar part on. So I'm trying to defend their point of view at the same time trying to make him feel better. It doesn't work. I couldn't be all those things."

Stevie has kept mostly to herself since the breakup with Lindsey. Outside of a short romance with drummer/singer Don Henley of The Eagles, she's spent her days either in the studio or at home writing and taping her songs. She icily denies talk of an affair with Paul Kantner.

"It's strange for me," she says in confidential tones, "I've never been a dater. I don't really like parties. I'm very alone now. I'm not one of those women who are just willing to go out and sit at the rainbow. In my position I could meet a lot of people just because of the band I'm in. Well, I don't want to meet anybody because of the band I'm in."

Stevie doesn't mind airing her personal life like this at all. "I don't care that everybody knows me and Chris and John and Lindsey and Mick all broke up," she declares. "Because we did. So that's fact. I just don't want people to pick up a magazine and go, 'oh, another interview from Fleetwood Mac,' if it's interesting, I'm not opposed to giving out information".

"On this album, all the songs that I wrote except maybe 'Gold Dust Woman' - and even that comes into it - are definitely about the people in the band... Chris' relationships, John's relationship, Mick's, Lindsey's and mine. They're all there and they're very honest and people will know exactly what I’m talking about... people will really enjoy listening to what happened since the last album".

The sun sets in Hollywood and Stevie lets her house darken along with it. "I'll tell you an interesting thing that hit me after the Rock Awards," she says. "We won the Best Group and the Best Album awards - that was very far out and everybody was really blessed out over that and we went to some party at the Hilton or something afterward and just stayed about 30 minutes. My brother Chris and I got in our limousine and came home. And it really struck me, driving home in the back seat of a black limousine. I was so lonely."

"I thought, 'Here I am, we just won these fantastic awards, we've just been on TV, everybody is singing our praises and here I am driving home in my black limousine,' terribly alone. Sort of knowing how it would feel to be Marilyn Monroe or something. It was a very strange feeling and I didn't like it at all."

Stevie Nicks opens her eyes very wide. "It scared me."

Lindsey Buckingham is no doubt the first member of Fleetwood Mac to list Brian Wilson as a major inspiration. Lindsey's California influence on the band is legitimate too. Born and raised in Palo Alto, Buckingham was "another jock in a family of swimming jocks." His brother Greg won a silver medal in the '68 Olympics. Late in high school Lindsey drifted into a rock and roll band and was sufficiently smitten to spoil family tradition. He quit the water polo team. "My coach went insane," Lindsey says. "He started screaming, 'you're nothing, you'll always be a nothing.'"

And he was nothing for a while, when that band went psychedelic and became Fritz. Buckingham couldn't master mind-blowing lead guitar and was put on bass for the next three and a half years. "I was just a young kid who thought it was really neat that we were in a band," he says. Then he teamed up with Nicks, and finally they joined Fleetwood Mac.

Now, Buckingham lopes into the house of a mutual friend, looking a little dazed. Listening to the radio on the way over he'd finally heard himself singing the just released single, "Go your own way." "It sounded real weird," he shrugs. "I just want it to be so good that I got paranoid. I have to relax, get this whole time behind us..."

Ten months devoted to Fleetwood Mac's album has left Buckingham spindly and studio wan. He gives a rundown of how a group can spend so long taping 45 minutes of music: "there's one track on the album that started out as a one song in Sausalito. We decided it needed a bridge, so we cut a bridge and edited it into the rest of the song. We didn't get a vocal and left it for a long time in a bunch of pieces. It almost went off the album. Then we listened back and decided we liked the bridge, but didn't like the rest of the song. So I wrote verses for that bridge, which was originally not in the song and edited those in. We saved the ending. The ending was the only thing left from the original track. We ended up calling it "The Chain," because it was a bunch of pieces."

His face lights up as he realizes that it's all behind him now. "I feel really lucky that I've had the opportunity to go through some of the heartaches and **** we've been through the past year. it's had a profound effect on me. I feel a lot older. I feel like I've learned a whole lot by taking on a large responsibility slightly unaided." Buckingham laughs to himself. "Being in this band really ****s up relationships with chicks. Since Stevie, I have found that to be true. I could meet someone that I really like, have maybe a few days to get it together and that's about it. The rest of the time I'm too into Fleetwood Mac".

Buckingham has overcome the breakup with Nicks. "It was a little lonely there for a while," he admits. "The thought of being on my own really terrified me. But then I realized being alone is a really cleansing thing... as I began to feel myself again. I'm surprised we lasted as long as we did."

Buckingham doesn't object to the confessional tone of Rumours either. "I'm not ashamed of my personal life," he proclaims. "Just 'cause you're in the public eye doesn't mean you don't go through the same bull****."

Lindsey Buckingham sets down the guitar. "Tonight I just want to get drunk," he announces. "I know the exact place too. They let me throw the foos..."

The two doormen at Kowloon's Chines restaurant greet Buckingham and his party warmly. They know him as the young gentleman who leaves a big mess and a bigger tip.

"Do you know who he is?" one doorman asks the other.

The other doorman nods casually. "He's an actor or something. I think he plays in a soap opera..."

____________________________________________________________

Interestingly, she alludes in this article of her being noticed, etc.

Also, the "callow" comments must have predated this and likely occured on the FM FM tour.

[Johnny Stew]

Can anyone think of a major bad review of a Stevie performance that predates that one?Weren't there earlier concert reviews stating that Stevie's voice was raucous and callow?

[David]

This one:

Rolling Stone
March 24, 1977
Issue 235
by Cameron Crowe
That's the big pre-tour cover story, strand. I'm thinking of the concert reviews. I can't think of a negative review of Stevie in a major publication before the Madison Square Garden gig.

[David]

Weren't there earlier concert reviews stating that Stevie's voice was raucous and callow?I don't think so. I think the "callow" & "raucous" epithets were from the Rolling Stone review of the 1975 album.

[Johnny Stew]

I don't think so. I think the "callow" & "raucous" epithets were from the Rolling Stone review of the 1975 album.How strange that they'd describe the mellow, wistful voice singing "Rhiannon" and "Landslide" on that album, as being "callow" and "raucous."

[strandinthewind]

How strange that they'd describe the mellow, wistful voice singing "Rhiannon" and "Landslide" on that album, as being "callow" and "raucous."

I know - I do not get that. I always thought they were refering to La Nicks' sometimes outof conrol stage voice.

[David]

How strange that they'd describe the mellow, wistful voice singing "Rhiannon" and "Landslide" on that album, as being "callow" and "raucous."
I thought her vocals on the white album were callow before I became a big fan & adapted to stevie's unique voice.

[strandinthewind]

I think Rhiannon was much to complex to be immature sounding.

Landslide on the other hand, does sound slightly immature because her voice sounds so whistful and youthful. But, I am unsure that effect was not desired.

[David]

I think Rhiannon was much to complex to be immature sounding.

Landslide on the other hand, does sound slightly immature because her voice sounds so whistful and youthful. But, I am unsure that effect was not desired.
I think the specific "callow" quality noted by the RS reviewer in 1975 was the slightly Bonnie Tylerish gin wobble in the back of Stevie's throat. i don't know where that came from--she didn't do it on her 1973 album & she didn't do it on Rumours in 1977. It sounded sorta like an older gal with throat cancer.

[Johnny Stew]

But wouldn't that be considered "weathered" rather than "callow"? When I think "callow," I think of some of Sheryl Crow's early vocals, where her voice seems thin and reedy.

[David]

But wouldn't that be considered "weathered" rather than "callow"? When I think "callow," I think of some of Sheryl Crow's early vocals, where her voice seems thin and reedy.
Naw, I think "callow" & "raucous" describe it. when she drops down to a lower decibel (like on landslide or the verses on rhiannon), she loses some punch. it's like half of her vocal cords are working at that point. I think she was tired the day(s) she recorded those vocals. She had probably been yelling at keith olsen the whole day & then tried to track a vocal.

[catinthedark]

Many people think she is speaking from LB's point of view. In other words, she is mimicing LB saying Now there you go again Stevie you want your freedom - who am I to keep you down. After all, La Nicks left him. Interestingly, I think the "have you any dreams you's like to sell" is a powerful dig at LB in that she could be saying my songs are the hits and this was our dream.

"now there you go again. you say, you want your freedom. well who am i to keep you down?"

i've always taken this as stevie saying, "lindsey, you said you wanted freedom, as you've said many times before. well, you want it? i'm giving it to you. so don't turn around now and be all sad that i've dumped your ass. this is what you wanted. this is what i had to do."

she just says it a little more poetically. :nod:

[gina]

I would like to know what "aaahimmaikjvfuurencnsugkjn&#$!!ooHHasecAs**^%$#!!!" means on Sisters of the Moon , Mirage video.
:shrug:

[StreetAngel86]

my favorite line from Silver Girl. I always thought she meant wedding papers.

OMG JASON you took the word right outta my mouth.......GO MEATLOAF :laugh: however......i don't believe the song is {all} about Sheryl and that line in particular i always thought was about Stevie waaaay before i ever heard any reference to it being about Sheryl. I think Stevie's talking about HER marriage papers :nod:



I would love to know if "Thrown Down" is really about Stevie and Lindsey rekindling their love affair during The Dance tour.

:eek: Of course it is. don't you shatter ma dreams :laugh:

:nod:


Others:
"They say you're not the man for me"

"I can turn all your music on, I can make you feel alive, I am gone but I'm never gone from you, it was just the first time---COME BACK!! Little boy"......


Who are these lines about?


Lindsey :lol:

[danax6]

Many people think she is speaking from LB's point of view. In other words, she is mimicing LB saying Now there you go again Stevie you want your freedom - who am I to keep you down. After all, La Nicks left him. Interestingly, I think the "have you any dreams you's like to sell" is a powerful dig at LB in that she could be saying my songs are the hits and this was our dream.Personally, I think she was talking about other dreams. Nothing musically related at all. His dreams will end up being dreams of loneliness that will drive him mad. Definitely something personal.

You see, I think there was more to the Stevie dumped Lindsey story. Both in Dreams and in Silver Springs she makes it sound as if it was him that was leaving her. I don't think it was all that crystal clear that she walked out on him, I think it was a collision of a lot of factors and they just stopped existing as a couple, which got drawn out endlessly. She might have walked away after a fight or something, but I don't they they ever sat down with Stevie telling Lindsey, 'it's over, bye bye'.

[danax6]

Baby don't leave me - I'm down on my knees - beggin you to please --- that's about drugs? I do not see that - I so see it being real Stevie crying out to her innocence not to leave her to be a ruler and a bad lover. I do, however, think the coke is in there somewhere. I do not think the gold dust is all the coke - I think it is her seeing her alter ego spreading her music and making money (which bought the drugs) - hence she was spreading her gold dust. At www.inherownwords.com - La Nicks says its about groupies - go figure :laugh:I see your groupies theory and I will raise you a 'I wrote it when I was sick and recovering at home in Phoenix after surgery', which would mean she wrote it before she even joined Fleetwood Mac. :wavey:

[StreetAngel86]

HI sapphire sister - oh, I don't dispute that Stevie has referenced storms to Mick.
Just as I know she has said that apparently Blue Denim (a song written after the Clinton inaugaration and which refers to losing someone again) was about her brother.

Or that Say you Will with it's references to electricity of love and fever dance, and a love that comes only once in a lifetime etc is actually about Christine!

come on now, let's face facts people
we all know that what Stevie SAYS a song is about means SH!T
Blue Denim is NOT about Chris...........does he even have blue eyes? wotever we all know the only blue eyes Stevie cares for are Lindsey's :D
Say You Will..........WAY too many sexual connotations to be a platonic FRIENDSHIP ode to Christine song. This is about Lindsey too .........hell every song on SYW is about Lindsey..........sorry one track mind but i really believe that.

Storms on the other hand............i think it had elements of both mick & lindsey, the end i like is totally about Lindsey

[StreetAngel86]

Here's one:
No Spken Word - "That disastrous sound"

i wanna know that too............
i always get this image of her bedroom wall falling down :D
but i think maybe it's the door slamming shut

not so much cryptic
but i wanna know if the conversation in Love Is really happened
and when ;)

[strandinthewind]

"now there you go again. you say, you want your freedom. well who am i to keep you down?"

i've always taken this as stevie saying, "lindsey, you said you wanted freedom, as you've said many times before. well, you want it? i'm giving it to you. so don't turn around now and be all sad that i've dumped your ass. this is what you wanted. this is what i had to do."

she just says it a little more poetically. :nod:

I thought that to, but then she goes on and on about how LB never wanted the break up, etc. So, I think it makes more sense that she wanted her freedom. But, we really need to give her some truth serum and then interview her one day :laugh:

[BlackWidow]

the first few line in dreams always confuse me

"now there you go again, you say-you want your freedom. Well who am I to keep you you down"

I'm assuming she's speaking for someone else. They are saying that about her, but who knows.

in "gypsy" why she says:
"to the gypsy that remains, and faces freedom with a little fear
I have no fear" I thought you just said you you had a little fear??

in the 3rd verse of the smile at you (angry version)
"and now you feel the light-you run from the darkness
you never saw the change, that woman's softness"

if he's with someone else now, is stevie the darkness?
whose softness? hers? the other woman's? She is usually talking about her self changing- a la landslide etc.

The whole first verse of "If Anyone Falls" but of course we are back to the whole Rupert thing :D
Well..
First of all the lyrics are:
To the Gypsies (all of them) that remain, faces freedom with a little fear.
I HAVE NO FEAR (meaning herself)..I have only love.
If Anyone Falls was written about Glenn Parish.
Rupert Hine was Rooms On Fire

[BlackWidow]

i wanna know that too............
i always get this image of her bedroom wall falling down :D
but i think maybe it's the door slamming shut

not so much cryptic
but i wanna know if the conversation in Love Is really happened
and when ;)
I think "That disatrous sound" is the door slamming shut too..there is an effect on the song that sounds like that...:wavey:

[BlackWidow]

I would like to know what "aaahimmaikjvfuurencnsugkjn&#$!!ooHHasecAs**^%$#!!!" means on Sisters of the Moon , Mirage video.
:shrug:
It means "I AM THE QUEEN OF ROCK N ROLL MUTHERF*****!!!!!!!":D

[BlackWidow]

OMG JASON you took the word right outta my mouth.......GO MEATLOAF :laugh: however......i don't believe the song is {all} about Sheryl and that line in particular i always thought was about Stevie waaaay before i ever heard any reference to it being about Sheryl. I think Stevie's talking about HER marriage papers :nod:




:eek: Of course it is. don't you shatter ma dreams :laugh:




Lindsey :lol:
I bet it is about Stevie's marriage papers..good one!
It is about all the Silver Girls...

[skcin]

If Anyone Falls was written about Glenn Parish.



I've never heard that, only the Waddy story. What do you base that theory on, or did she mention it?

[David]

I've never heard that, only the Waddy story. What do you base that theory on, or did she mention it?
See, kelly thought this was my theory but it is not. I was joking about it on the dunders board & kelly didn't know I was paraphrasing something in a book. Parrish is quoted in the Ethlie Ann Vare book from 1984 as saying that "If Anyone Falls" is about him. Glen's girlfriend Nicole says something about it, too, but I can't remember what.

Maybe somebody here can actually look up the passage in question in that book & post it. Stevie fans are pretty weak on looking up stuff & posting it--instead they just generally lead off with, "I've heard that ..." or "I once read that ..." without specifying any source (even though we usually know what the source is anyway).

But the source of the "If Anyone Falls"<-->Glen Parrish putative link is definitely the Ethlie Ann Vare book. It wasn't by any means just a case of a fan or fans interpreting wildly. (However, it may have been a case of Glen Parrish interpreting wildly!)

[gina]

It means "I AM THE QUEEN OF ROCK N ROLL MUTHERF*****!!!!!!!":D
Oh....well no arguments there!

[David]

I see your groupies theory and I will raise you a 'I wrote it when I was sick and recovering at home in Phoenix after surgery', which would mean she wrote it before she even joined Fleetwood Mac. :wavey:
So you think her cyst removal surgery is the surgery she's talking about when she said this on the "Continuous History of Rock 'n' Roll" radio show in 1980?

"I wrote that [Gold Dust Woman] in Arizona when I was real sick ... that time, too ... after an operation ... under the Indian mountains. So you can kind of ... if you listen to it like that ... I mean, I was ... I had had an operation & I was in bed for five weeks. So I just played my guitar & looked up at the Camelback Mountain."

I don't know for sure whether this reference to an operation is the cyst removal. Is your theory that the cyst removal recuperation period lasted about five weeks, & that therefore the operation Stevie talks about as the background to "Gold Dust Woman" was the cyst removal operation prior to joining the band? At about this same time (these were the pre-endoscopic days) I had a ruptured appendix & appendectomy, & I was in bed for about five weeks, too.

I would entertain the possibility that GDW was written before Stevie joined FM, but I wouldn't say it's conclusive. However, GDW has that daemonic, chthonian quality--the female succubus preying on the male--that other pre-FM songs had, like Rhiannon & Sorcerer.

[BlackWidow]

I've never heard that, only the Waddy story. What do you base that theory on, or did she mention it?
I just remember her mentioning it alot during promotion of The Wild Heart...
I'm pretty sure it is dedicated to him on the WH Linear notes....
They had a falling out back in 1990. I think he was a USER!
He has sold many things of hers on Ebay and she was not happy about it.

[danax6]

I would entertain the possibility that GDW was written before Stevie joined FM, but I wouldn't say it's conclusive. However, GDW has that daemonic, chthonian quality--the female succubus preying on the male--that other pre-FM songs had, like Rhiannon & Sorcerer.Yes, I have always thought GDW fits in quite well with those songs, so that's why I figured she wrote it before Fleetwood Mac, although Sorcerer was written earlier than Rhiannon. So, in combination with that quote and the fact that Gold Dust Ave is right near where she claims she was recuperating when she wrote the song, I believe it was written before the crazier, cocaine filled groupie world that was Fleetwood Mac.

[BlackWidow]

Yes, I have always thought GDW fits in quite well with those songs, so that's why I figured she wrote it before Fleetwood Mac, although Sorcerer was written earlier than Rhiannon. So, in combination with that quote and the fact that Gold Dust Ave is right near where she claims she was recuperating when she wrote the song, I believe it was written before the crazier, cocaine filled groupie world that was Fleetwood Mac.
GDW is absolutely about her affair with cocaine.

[danax6]

GDW is absolutely about her affair with cocaine.Okay, sure.

[David]

Yes, I have always thought GDW fits in quite well with those songs, so that's why I figured she wrote it before Fleetwood Mac, although Sorcerer was written earlier than Rhiannon. So, in combination with that quote and the fact that Gold Dust Ave is right near where she claims she was recuperating when she wrote the song, I believe it was written before the crazier, cocaine filled groupie world that was Fleetwood Mac.
Well, you certainly have a good series of points there. The possibility is fascinating. I wish we had more data of some sort on the timing & composition of GDW--obviously one of Stevie's best songs of all time.

Here's something we might be able to check on: She claims she was recuperating in Phoenix. But we know she herself hadn't moved or bought a house or even rented an apartment in Phoenix in 1974 or probably even 1975 (remember how poor she was when she joined FM & she & Lindsey still lived in Los Angeles). So we could logically conclude that she would have recuperated at the home of her parents. So the question is, Did her parents live in Phoenix in 1974? Is there some way we can check that out? When Stevie left Fritz to try to make a go of Buckingham Nicks under Keith Olsen's pseudo-sponsorship (around 1971), where were Stevie's parents living? I know they were living in Arcadia in 1964-1965, & between that time & the time they lived in the Bay Area (when Stevie finished high school & started college), they moved to El Paso TX & then to Salt Lake City UT. Is this correct? Help me with the timeline here. I'm assuming her parents lived in the Bay Area when Stevie joined Fleetwood Mac, but maybe they had already moved back to Phoenix.

If they weren't in Phoenix when Stevie had this cyst surgery, doesn't it seem likely that she would have gone to stay with them wherever they actually were?

Also, what year are you thinking she had this surgery? We know Lindsey was down for most of the year with mono in 1972, after he & Stevie had moved to Los Angeles. And we know that they finally landed the Polydor deal (from the Anthem deal which fell through) in 1973 & recorded their album. Maybe Stevie had her cyst surgery in 1974. Or maybe the whole GDW thing occurred during her recuperation from breast implant surgery. How long would she have had to recuperate from major chest/abdominal surgery like that in the mid 1970s (bearing in mind that recuperative periods & hospital stays were all a lot longer back then than they are now)?

[skcin]

You know more about Stevie than anyone I've ever come into contact with, David. :shocked:
The only thing I can help you with is that it would probably would have been at least a few weeks of recup from breast aug. back then.

[David]

Yes, I have always thought GDW fits in quite well with those songs, so that's why I figured she wrote it before Fleetwood Mac, although Sorcerer was written earlier than Rhiannon. So, in combination with that quote and the fact that Gold Dust Ave is right near where she claims she was recuperating when she wrote the song, I believe it was written before the crazier, cocaine filled groupie world that was Fleetwood Mac.Two more questions:

1. Are we assuming that Rhiannon was written in October 1974 in Aspen? This is the story Stevie used to tell twenty-five years ago. But in recent years, her story & years have changed. I think both Rhiannon & Landslide originate from that time period, but this should be easy enough to check: just find out when the nationwide Greyhound bus strike occurred. Check the newspaper archives.

2. How long has Gold Dust Avenue in Phoenix (or Scottsdale) had that name? Is there some way we can check on the name of the street (or even whether there was such a street) at that approximate time? For example, the Nickses lived on Monrovia Avenue in Arcadia in 1964, but part of that street is now called E. Las Flores.

[David]

You know more about Stevie than anyone I've ever come into contact with, David. :shocked: I'm just trying to collate all the little factoids in my head from old books & articles & interviews & all that stuff, but my memory is very bad these days. I need help with all this mass of stuff. The members of the band don't seem any more able to remember dates & facts than the fans are, so the fans have to try to piece together disparate factoids to try to make sense of anything. For example, Vanessa & I are referring to an interview that KMET played in 1980 where Stevie briefly mentioned recuperating from (unspecified) surgery in Phoenix & writing GDW. I posted that interview audio file on the Ledge a few weeks ago. I hope everyone who wanted it got it.
The only thing I can help you with is that it would probably would have been at least a few weeks of recup from breast aug. back then.Makes sense to me, too. Of course, these days they push you out of the hospital room within hours--you could have your appendix removed, & you're back home the next day (suffering quite a bit, too). Whereas in the mid 1970s, I was a little kid who had an appendectomy & I was in the hospital for ten days, & recuperating at home for two or three weeks beyond that. Back then, they went in with a 4-inch incision with a scalpel whereas today they go in laparoscopically or endoscopically or whatever.

[danax6]

Two more questions:

1. Are we assuming that Rhiannon was written in October 1974 in Aspen? This is the story Stevie used to tell twenty-five years ago. But in recent years, her story & years have changed. I think both Rhiannon & Landslide originate from that time period, but this should be easy enough to check: just find out when the nationwide Greyhound bus strike occurred. Check the newspaper archives.The story of her and Lindsey arguing which leads to him taking the car and the dog changes from having happened in Aspen, when she had to take the bus and Greyhound was on strike, to when they were up in the condo in Sausalito, recording Rumours in 1976, where she took a plane back. I am not really sure what happened when. There are two big fight stories out there. Besides, even if we can confirm the Aspen story is correct, we still can't be sure she actually wrote it there. That is what she says though, but that doesn't really say anything either, ofcourse. I think it's 1974, because there are no BN demos and she was recording it with Lindsey and Richard around the time Mick wandered into the studio looking for a producer. "Yes, Stevie, I think Rhiannon is a beautiful name."

edited to add: I just remembered that according to Amazon, Triad, the novel Stevie claims inspired her to write Rhiannon, was first published in January 1973. So, she probably didn't write it earlier than that.


2. How long has Gold Dust Avenue in Phoenix (or Scottsdale) had that name? Is there some way we can check on the name of the street (or even whether there was such a street) at that approximate time? For example, the Nickses lived on Monrovia Avenue in Arcadia in 1964, but part of that street is now called E. Las Flores.Good one, I will definitely try to check that out.

[BlackWidow]

Well, you certainly have a good series of points there. The possibility is fascinating. I wish we had more data of some sort on the timing & composition of GDW--obviously one of Stevie's best songs of all time.

Here's something we might be able to check on: She claims she was recuperating in Phoenix. But we know she herself hadn't moved or bought a house or even rented an apartment in Phoenix in 1974 or probably even 1975 (remember how poor she was when she joined FM & she & Lindsey still lived in Los Angeles). So we could logically conclude that she would have recuperated at the home of her parents. So the question is, Did her parents live in Phoenix in 1974? Is there some way we can check that out? When Stevie left Fritz to try to make a go of Buckingham Nicks under Keith Olsen's pseudo-sponsorship (around 1971), where were Stevie's parents living? I know they were living in Arcadia in 1964-1965, & between that time & the time they lived in the Bay Area (when Stevie finished high school & started college), they moved to El Paso TX & then to Salt Lake City UT. Is this correct? Help me with the timeline here. I'm assuming her parents lived in the Bay Area when Stevie joined Fleetwood Mac, but maybe they had already moved back to Phoenix.

If they weren't in Phoenix when Stevie had this cyst surgery, doesn't it seem likely that she would have gone to stay with them wherever they actually were?

Also, what year are you thinking she had this surgery? We know Lindsey was down for most of the year with mono in 1972, after he & Stevie had moved to Los Angeles. And we know that they finally landed the Polydor deal (from the Anthem deal which fell through) in 1973 & recorded their album. Maybe Stevie had her cyst surgery in 1974. Or maybe the whole GDW thing occurred during her recuperation from breast implant surgery. How long would she have had to recuperate from major chest/abdominal surgery like that in the mid 1970s (bearing in mind that recuperative periods & hospital stays were all a lot longer back then than they are now)?
You guys are the new Charlies Angels lol..hard at work checking out all the clues..no..you guys are STEVIE'S ANGELS!!!!:angel:

[danax6]

Well, you certainly have a good series of points there. The possibility is fascinating. I wish we had more data of some sort on the timing & composition of GDW--obviously one of Stevie's best songs of all time.

Here's something we might be able to check on: She claims she was recuperating in Phoenix. But we know she herself hadn't moved or bought a house or even rented an apartment in Phoenix in 1974 or probably even 1975 (remember how poor she was when she joined FM & she & Lindsey still lived in Los Angeles). So we could logically conclude that she would have recuperated at the home of her parents. So the question is, Did her parents live in Phoenix in 1974? Is there some way we can check that out? When Stevie left Fritz to try to make a go of Buckingham Nicks under Keith Olsen's pseudo-sponsorship (around 1971), where were Stevie's parents living? I know they were living in Arcadia in 1964-1965, & between that time & the time they lived in the Bay Area (when Stevie finished high school & started college), they moved to El Paso TX & then to Salt Lake City UT. Is this correct? Help me with the timeline here. I'm assuming her parents lived in the Bay Area when Stevie joined Fleetwood Mac, but maybe they had already moved back to Phoenix. She herself said she was recuperating at her parents' house, yes. They had moved there from the Bay Area because her dad went higher up and got offered the position of executive vice president of the Greyhound Corp in Phoenix. Besides, in Lindsey's speech right before Big Love during AHI 2000 he talks about coming to this area, Phoenix, a lot when he and Stevie were 'trying to get their careers going', so the beginning of the 70's.


Also, what year are you thinking she had this surgery? We know Lindsey was down for most of the year with mono in 1972, after he & Stevie had moved to Los Angeles. And we know that they finally landed the Polydor deal (from the Anthem deal which fell through) in 1973 & recorded their album. Maybe Stevie had her cyst surgery in 1974. Or maybe the whole GDW thing occurred during her recuperation from breast implant surgery. How long would she have had to recuperate from major chest/abdominal surgery like that in the mid 1970s (bearing in mind that recuperative periods & hospital stays were all a lot longer back then than they are now)?Well, according to Stevie the surgery took place not long after the shooting of the BN cover, but I am not sure how accurate that is. She said she was so embarassed about showing the cover to her parents, she hid it under the bed at first and then forgot about it as 'she was rushed to the hospital'. I always believed she wrote it in 1974, but that would have to either have been a different surgery then, which is unlikely, or she simply mixed up things and she didn't actually have surgery soon after the shooting of the cover, which is also unlikely, because you can't make up a story like that up. :laugh: Oh, and they moved to LA in 1971, but returned home not long after because Lindsey came down with mono. During that time they recorded the demos for BN at his father's coffee plant. They moved back to LA in 1972.

[BlackWidow]

my favorite line from Silver Girl. I always thought she meant wedding papers.
"She was a Silver Girl..insane far beyond her years!"
http://www.nicksfix.com/rockstyle1.jpg

[StreetAngel86]

I bet it is about Stevie's marriage papers..good one!
It is about all the Silver Girls...

so you think Stevie is the Silver Girl too.........ur awesome :D

[Ghost_Tracker]

Oh My! I hope not!!! That sounds awfully wrong :laugh:

I would love to know if "Thrown Down" is really about Stevie and Lindsey rekindling their love affair during The Dance tour. I would also love to know exactly what it was that Rupert Hine did to Stevie that mad it impossible for them to ever be together again....


I'm taking a WILD guess here -

Is it possible that Stevie still had hopes of having children at that point, and that he couldn't? Or that he wanted to and she couldn't?

[Ghost_Tracker]

Gate & Garden is one of my faves, not a clue wth she's talking about though.




I believe I know what this song is about -
Here's a hint - i.m.o. this is Stevie's "raciest" song.
It's got a lot of suggestive symbolism in it -
read the lyrics from that perspective and you'll get it.
It's my belief that "Running Through the Garden" refers to this song -
It's (in part) about her Gate and Garden, 20 years later...
("There are too many flowers to cut down.")

[Ghost_Tracker]

I'm still trying to figure out "Sable on Blonde!" :shocked: :rolleyes:

Does anyone have any thoughts on this one?

i.m.o. this is Stevie's most complex song, or at least one of them.

[paperflowers]

Baby don't leave me - I'm down on my knees - beggin you to please --- that's about drugs? I do not see that - I so see it being real Stevie crying out to her innocence not to leave her to be a ruler and a bad lover. I do, however, think the coke is in there somewhere. I do not think the gold dust is all the coke - I think it is her seeing her alter ego spreading her music and making money (which bought the drugs) - hence she was spreading her gold dust. At www.inherownwords.com - La Nicks says its about groupies - go figure :laugh:


“Gold dust” to me is an allusion to the luxury and decadence of the time. The “woman" is not Stevie but some hanger-on groupie loosey goosey type ( so she kinda told a wee bit of the truth) who LB hooked up with or maybe CarolAnn (not sure on the timeline on when he took up with her). So Stevie is saying “Rock on--gold dust woman Take your silver spoon, And dig your grave.”, in a sarcastic manner. In other words, yeah u go girl…you little coke head..have a ball with him and his money. So this "gold dust woman" this "black widow" "dragon of a woman" is chasing after LB and being a tad snarky Stevie gives lb a “Heartless challenge” at the choices he makes, “Pick your path and I'll pray.”
LB is naturally the “lousy lover” and “ruler”, but he is also the “Sunrise” who loves to go down. Sexual? Perhaps only that she adds “you don’t want to see it” when she does this song live, referring to the dark even angry side of Lb. Stevie the “ancient queen” often refers to herself in third person as in this stanza just change the she to I:
Did I make you cry
Make you break down
Shatter your illusions of love
Is it over now--do you know how
Pick up the pieces and go home

[paperflowers]

I'm taking a WILD guess here -

Is it possible that Stevie still had hopes of having children at that point, and that he couldn't? Or that he wanted to and she couldn't?


Did Rupert not have a child at about the exact time and the odds on reason for of thier split or am I crazy?

[StreetAngel86]

I believe I know what this song is about -
Here's a hint - i.m.o. this is Stevie's "raciest" song.
It's got a lot of suggestive symbolism in it -
read the lyrics from that perspective and you'll get it.
It's my belief that "Running Through the Garden" refers to this song -
It's (in part) about her Gate and Garden, 20 years later...
("There are too many flowers to cut down.")

oh god. gimme a vallium :eek: :lol:
dont taint RTTG....................as for G&Gi think you should share your insight ;) line for line :shocked:

[Kelly]

I'm taking a WILD guess here -

Is it possible that Stevie still had hopes of having children at that point, and that he couldn't? Or that he wanted to and she couldn't?

Considering his wife got pregnant not long after his affair with Stevie, I would venture a guess Rupert could have kids.

[David]

Considering his wife got pregnant not long after his affair with Stevie, I would venture a guess Rupert could have kids.
Is it possible that Stevie got his wife pregnant? :shrug:

[BlackWidow]

I'm taking a WILD guess here -

Is it possible that Stevie still had hopes of having children at that point, and that he couldn't? Or that he wanted to and she couldn't?
Speaking of children and marriage....

'Why I had To Marry My Best Friends Husband'
(Woman's Own, 1990)


When her best friend Robin died leaving a baby son, Fleetwood Mac's Stevie Nicks ignored the advice of family and friends and married Robin's grieving partner. But it only led to further heartbreak. Alan Jackson reports.

She seems to have everything a woman could want - fame, beauty, wealth and a staggeringly successful career Stevie Nicks is both a highly successful solo artist and member of the supergroup Fleetwood Mac, who breeze into Britain next week to play to stadium crowds in London and Manchester.
Yet the title of the band's latest chart-topping album, Behind The Mask, is oddly appropriate to 42-year-old Stevie. For her public success hides the private heart-break of a woman who has coped with cocaine addiction, a string of broken relationships and even a disastrous marriage to her best friend's husband.
And it wasn't fame and fortune that soured the 'American Dream'. She and handsome musician boyfriend Lindsey Buckingham became one of rock's most celebrated couples in the 70s. Yet the cracks in their relationship were evident long before super-stardom came their way.
Lindsey left Fleetwood Mac three years ago and Stevie now says, "He and I were about as compatible as a boa constrictor and a rat. But we've had our final words. We will never be able to work together again - we'll ever even speak again, which is very sad. In any relationship you come down to a point where you say things that you can never take back, and we've said them. It breaks my heart."
Despite their love for each other, she and Lindsey were in daily conflict too long before being chosen from hundreds of hopefuls to join the band. "Rich and famous or starving and poor, we went through the same problems," she sighs. "He always wanted me to himself, but someone had to go out and earn some money. All he wanted to do was play his music. "When I came home I'd always get a slight cold shoulder. He wouldn't quite trust me about where I'd been or what I'd been doing. When we broke up, two years after joining Fleetwood Mac, it was like living a nightmare."
For Lindsey, excelling at his music was a continual struggle. But it came easy for Stevie. And as her vocals and songwriting began to play an ever-increasing part in the band's success, a wedge was driven between them.
"He felt I should have to work much harder at it," she says, "I tried asking, 'Lindsey, how can I change?' But everything about me seemed to bug him. My laughter, the way I could deal with a lot of difficult things, all made him cringe. So I changed when I was around him. I became mouse-like and would never dare offer a suggestion."
Their break-up came as fellow band members Christine and John McVie were also splitting up, but they all remained committed to holding Fleetwood Mac together. The pressure to maintain the band's phenomenal level of success while working through their personal problems weighed heavy on everyone, but for Stevie there was the added pressure involved in taking the first tentative steps of her own parallel solo career. Also, unbeknown to her, the most heart-breaking and bizarre chapter of her life was about to begin.
It started when she was told that her childhood girlfriend Robin was dying of leukaemia. Unusually for someone with the disease, Robin had still managed to become pregnant by her husband Kim and, knowing how slight her chances of conceiving had been, she refused all medical treatment during her confinement. Instead she reconciled herself to the fact that she would have to sacrifice any hope of life in order to give birth.
Having spent many painful hours at Robin's bedside, this resolve led Stevie to make one of the biggest mistakes of her life.
Three days after giving birth to son Matthew, a tiny, premature baby weighing just 1 ½ lb, Robin died. Distraught, Stevie made a vow to honour the memory of her best friend by marrying Kim and bringing up their son as her son.
"I went crazy - absolutely crazy when Robin died. The only thing I could think of to do was try to take the load off Kim by marrying him and helping raise their son.
"I think in her heart Robin knew I would go after Kim," Stevie continues. "I had known her for 20 years and him for five, and I felt this baby belonged to me almost as much as it did to them."
Friends and family found themselves unable to share Stevie and Kim's logic... "A lot of people refused to come to my wedding - they thought I'd lost my mind, which I obviously had at the time."
In the early days of the marriage, their shared emotions and the demands of providing round-the-clock care for Matthew united the couple. But as time went on, Stevie became more and more convinced or the mistake she'd made. At times she even doubted that Kim could distinguish between herself and Robin.
"Having been friends from the ages of 14 to 35 we talked the same and had similar mannerisms - so much so that, in a dim light, it was hard to tell us apart." The relationship quickly deteriorated. Kim began to keep Stevie away from Matthew, and Stevie realised she'd married someone she didn't even know.
Uncertain of what to do next she walked into the nursery one day to check on Matthew. "I had got used to going in and finding the cradle rocking without anyone being there and I always knew that it was Robin," she says/ " But on this occasion it wasn't rocking, nor the next day either, and that was when I realised she had finally left.
"Somehow, I knew she was telling me, 'You'd better get out of this right now. Kim will take good care of Matthew, but this is not what God meant for you, Stevie.'"
Stevie hasn't seen either Kim or Matthew since their divorce but prays for the opportunity to see Matthew once more when he is a bit older. "I hope he'll come to me and I'll be able to hand him things that were his mother's and say, 'This was her - look how wonderful she was.'"
The trauma of her broken marriage coincided with spectacular solo success for Stevie in America. When other members of Fleetwood Mac came off tour to enjoy the rewards of their multi-platinum record sales, she would be thrown into another round of recording, promoting and touring.
Like some other high achievers in the 80s, Stevie found herself depending on drugs to see her through her busy schedule. "Eventually, I was working so hard that I lost the belief that I could carry on without them," she says.
It was then, in 1986, that she checked herself into the Betty Ford Clinic in Palm Springs. "Other people can advise you to do it, but you're the one who has to make the decision. You have to walk through those doors alone."
Happily for Stevie, the gruelling schedule of therapy, group discussions and manual work cured her, and she has gone on to reach new heights in her career. But the woman who has become one of the legends of rock knows that the financial rewards of her success can never buy her the family she would so dearly love.
"I've probably got about two years left in which I could have a baby, but my diary's booked solid," she says sadly. "Then again, if it were to happen with somebody I cared about, everything else would take a back seat."
Being a night owl and workaholic doesn't help. "I love being awake at night when there's nobody around. It's the only time I ever feel really free. So being involved in my life is difficult for any man, unless he understands that the way I am isn't a personal thing against him - I'm just busy.
"I'll say, 'Okay, I'm going to sleep with you for 20 minutes until you go to sleep, and then I'm going to get up again. If you can live with that, then I can live with you!" At that, Stevie Nicks gives a deep, throaty laugh. She's a woman who has lived - and loved - so much, and has no time for regrets. "I wouldn't change a minute of my life. I've been to the very bottom and the very top and, if nothing else, I've ended up with a well-rounded personality!"

[nightbird89]

I remember Stevie giving an on air Interview for The Wild Heart Tour on MTV. The Interviewer asked her why her lyrics seemed so cryptic? "Like only you or the person you wrote about would know what you really meant"
What are some lines from Stevie songs you would love to know more about?
Here are a few of mine...

1.Storms: "She said every night he will break your heart" - Christine about Mick?
2.Welcome To The Room Sara: "In the never forgotten words of another one of your friends" Frontline badmouthed Stevie?
3.Silver Girl:"The papers she never signed"....what were those mysterious papers?

You get the idea...:rolleyes:
He was no more...than a baby then. Whos she talking about?

[BlackWidow]

He was no more...than a baby then. Whos she talking about?
Lindsey...I think.

[nightbird89]

Lindsey...I think.
In Edge? I highly doubt it... But who noes? Personally, I think she was pretty much past lindsey by then.

[BlackWidow]

In Edge? I highly doubt it... But who noes? Personally, I think she was pretty much past lindsey by then.
It's another hybrid song....:lol:
She will never be past Lindsey.

[michelle2677]

Very interesting points. And yet there is serious question in my mind as to whether Stevie even wrote the song "Dreams." :confused: :sorry: :nod:

who do you think wrote it?? or maybe parts of it??


strand-I always thought it was from Liddy's point of view also about "now there you go again......"
and agree with you on him being upset about ruining their duo because he thought they would be just fine without the mac. Glad they joined though!! :D

[BlackWidow]

who do you think wrote it?? or maybe parts of it??


strand-I always thought it was from Liddy's point of view also about "now there you go again......"
and agree with you on him being upset about ruining their duo because he thought they would be just fine without the mac. Glad they joined though!! :D
Of course she wrote DREAMS...
http://www.nicksfix.com/aug24b.jpg

[BlackWidow]

I'm fascinated by the line "She was dark at the top of the stairs" in "Sisters of the Moon." I want to know whether Stevie took the phrase from Inge.
..and she uses "black widow" once again....;)

[michelle2677]

He was no more...than a baby then. Whos she talking about?

I thought the only two people edge was about were John Lennon and her uncle that died. I always assumed the beginning was about John and the end about her uncle and they kind of tied in together.

in edge I never got

"but the sea, changes colors but the sea, does not change"

WTF??:shrug:

[BlackWidow]

I thought the only two people edge was about were John Lennon and her uncle that died. I always assumed the beginning was about John and the end about her uncle and they kind of tied in together.

in edge I never got

"but the sea, changes colors but the sea, does not change"

WTF??:shrug:
It means if you died your hair a different color..It would not change who you are or your essence. The sea changes color..but the sea does not change.
It is constant.