Illume
 

About 3 months ago, i kept listening to this song and it's so good I put it on repeat. Stevie wrote some good stuff here.

Anyone know if this is personal or her just storytelling and when she wrote it.

It's based on her personal experiences from being in NYC on 9/11/02.

At her official website www.nicksfix.com - there is a journal entry about it. Many believe from what she said there and in diff. interviews over the last year or so that it is about her lighting a candle and nap champra incense at her house in LA and staring out of the window at the glitering coastline before she is taken back to 9/11 in NYC. IMO - her repeated reference tp nag champra is brilliant and seductive because this is the incense she had to burn in her hotel in NYC to keep the smell of death and destruction away. Others have a different view of the song, but it is according to her, about her personal experience by being in NYC on 9/11.

Awwesome song. I LOVE it!! In terms of tracklisting, it's Stevie's answer to the despair and angry frustration in Murrow. It was genius to put them both together!

"It's like a river.... it's never ending....
"It falls away... like a river..."

:laugh: :laugh: :laugh:

and this is funny?? how??:confused:

The events happened in 2001 not 2002. Dis. is laughing at ChiliD's typo not the actual event.

The only thing I don't like about this song is the misspelling and pronunciation of Nag ChampRa. It's Nag Champa incense, there's no "R."

Okay, I'll shut up now and go back to drownDing in the sea of love...

:wavey: :laugh:

Okay, you're excused, Lindsia.:laugh:

- Jake

THANK YOU!! I have this exact peeve....it really bugs me...especially now everyone, well not *everyone* is calling it Nag Champra....errr....hahaha..I have never seen a box of Nag ChampRA...so if someone can show me one...I'll quit my bitchin' :nod:

Oops...my bad. :distress:

My friend Larry and I have been fighting about the Nag Champa/Champra issue since the album came out...

I understand, at the least, that it is spelled wrong in the CD booklet, but I have never heard the offending R sung in the song.

When Stevie sings R's, she's usually pretty forceful about it (not to mention the way she sings H's). My friend always reads the lyrics while first listening to the album, so my point of our argument was that he was expecting to hear her sing the misspelling, and that's why he hears it that way.

I usually wait a few months until I have learned the song "by ear" before I read the lyrics. It's just more fun that way for me. You wouldn't believe some of the things I thought Lindsey was saying in "Murrow" before I read the lyrics... Also, in "Peacekeeper", I thought he was saying: "We make all of our SONS the same...", which makes for an entirely different meaning of the line: "They all explode just the same..." I was very disappointed to read "SUNS" in the lyric booklet. It kinda ruined the point of the song for me.

I thought Stevie said she was a "good swimmer" instead of a "cliff dweller" in illume, so don't feel bad!

And about the would nag champa thing- maybe they had to do that for copyright issues? :confused:

And I think it sounds like Champa to me. She just sort of breaks up the word.

It's champ-ra that she sings. Look in the lyric book.

Champ-A
Champ-A
Champ-A

I don't hear the R!!!!!!!

Infinity!

(Besides, Dissention, if we relied on the lyric book to be absolutely correct, we'd all be singing the lyrics to "Some Become Strangers" as the end of "Imperial Hotel", and the lyrics to "Imperial Hotel" would be at the end of "No Spoken Word".)

:laugh: :laugh: :laugh: That booklet is a friggin' mess. :laugh:

But she says champ-ra.

Alright folks....
 

Who sings nag champRa along with her? 'Fess up! :mad:

:lol:

I don't, I sing champa.

Re: Alright folks....
 

Me neither, I sing Children of the world, the forgotten champa.:cool:

- Jake

Personally, I think "champra" sounds more melodic... so I sing the same thing Stevie does. :)

I actually had to ask someone what that was!!:distress:

Yep...she says ChapRa alright...

I didn't look at the lyric booklet for a while either...but kept listening to that song...and finally I was like...it totally sounds like she's putting an R in there...it was at that point that I got the booklet out...and well...there it is: Champra...that's what I hear...

I do not have time to look right now, but I think her journal entries on her website (www.nicksfix.com :wavey: John!!!! ) that contain the original lyrics to this song say "champra."

:cool:

I can just picture the exchange between Stevie and Linds in the studio after the song was recorded:

Linds: Hey, I burned a stick of that smelly incense last night and it's actually called "Nag Champa."

Stevie: You can't make me change it. It's the poet that I am. You wouldn't correct Bob Dylan. It sounds soooooo beautiful.

Linds: But-

Stevie: Oy.

Linds: I-

Stevie: Want more than 40 dates?

Linds: Uh...

Stevie: Now, about the mixer...

I'd never heard of it before the song, either.
What was that Ambien/sleeping pill that I thought was a cocktail?:)

- unworldlyJake

LMAO!!!!!
 

:lol:

I can actually see this in my head. BWAH!!!

Stevie: You know what, Lindsey, Rhiannon burned nag champra.

*crickets chirping*

Lindsey: Uh huh. Where is my guitar?!!?!? HEY, WHERE IS MY TURNER!?!? RAAAAAAAAAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Does anyone like this stuff? I saw it at this mystical shop one day and thought of Stevie when I saw it, so I bought some and when I burned it, I did not care for it. And I like some insense (spelling?), but I guess I am just more of a candle person. This Nag Champa stuff was way too powerful! I'd rather smell a lit cigar (which I actually love the smell of!)

I love it. There are so many scents to choose from, which one did you buy?

Re: LMAO!!!!!
 

:laugh: :laugh: :laugh:

Stevie: Rhiannon is in all of us. She surrounds us and her spirit emrges when Nag Champra is burned.

Linds: ****, the seventies were good to you.

I don't know. Mine doesn't say anything on it. I guess original, is that a scent? None of the boxes hade any scents on them, so I assume they didn't carry all the scents and just had "original". What kind are there?

Yeah, there is an original scent.

Go here for the other scents:

http://www.nagchampa.com/incense/superhitincense.htm

My fave is Sai Ram. :)

In her journal entries on her website (www.nicksfix.com) , she says champa - to wit:

S. Nicks

Thursday Night
Back at the beach

Illume
Says the candle that I burn
A reflection in the window
All the way to point Dune
A cliff dweller from the old school-

I like the coastal cities
I like the lights
I like the way the ocean blends
Into the city at night
Like living on a working river
The coastline is glittering-
Like a diamond snake-
In a black sky

And I am alone with my thoughts
And how we could make it-
And what we have all been through
And all of the trauma-
With the smell of Nag Champa
Like a kiss- like a stranger-
What we have seen on this journey
Are what legends are made of-

I will not take you for granted
My friend, my dear one, my love-
I wouldn’t trade you for jade…
Or for diamonds~
I need you to be there~
Please~
Remember when I am haunted
That I was just scared-
And when I remember
That day in my life-
I will remember that you-
Were there-

Stevie Nicks
Oct. 11th, 2001

___________________________________

My question is who is she talking about - who was there?

Also, the journal indicate she was at her house in LA when she wrote this.

I think she's referring to everyone in NY that day. Human life in general. :)

I think that too. I also thought maybe it was the heroic firemen, police officers, etc. But, I think you are right and it is more general than that :cool:

Quite honestly, without knowing the history you guys presented; I was imagining her alone in her house, driving down the coast, burning incense looking at the sunset, thinking about a lover that she just couldn't get together with no matter how hard she tried. And it cost her a lot of emotion either way she went with it. So she's finally alone and sort of telling this person, hey this is where I am at this moment.


Just my very first impression and I thought it was a beautiful concept.

Shows my imagination will run to the romance factor!! :laugh:

I LOVE Nag Champa (the original scent in the blue box)!!

It is seriously the ONLY incense I will burn now...I think it is actually less harsh and smelly than regular incense...it also calms me...so I love the stuff...

I also turned my ex-boyfriend into a Nag snob and now it's all he'll burn as well lol...

Champa/Champra, makes no difference to me. I didn't even know what it was till I found out here on The Ledge. "Illume" is stil one of my favorite songs from SYW. Up there with "Red Rover". I've seen posts where Ledgies despise both of these songs. I guess it's one of those things where you either hate it or love it.

I do hear her singing "champRa", and I will never go with any theory here other than copyright issues. Yes, Stevie throws extra letters in words sometimes ("drownDing", as mentioned...which is a very common slip, BTW), but the fact that it's printed in the booklet with an R is what makes this different.

Just out of curiosity, then what the heck did you think the secondary song title, "9/11" meant?

Cheap,cheap,cheap
 

Nag Champa, Nag ChampRa......Nag ChamBra.....however you want to pronounce it LOL!

click this link for the real deal

http://www.incensemania.com

LOL, I was thinking the same thing when I read that post, but in his defense, Stevie does have the subtitle "Escape from Berlin" that has nothing to do with the Cold War. :shrug:

- Jake