Like or dislike Bella Donna
 

We do so many lists of favorites, least favorite, best lyrics, best music, etc., it's hard to keep track of who likes/dislikes which tunes & why. I'm going to do a thread every few days on a specific song. I'll probably go in the order they are on the albums.

Please post your thoughts & opinions on the song - do you like it or dislike it? Why?

So, to start:

Bella Donna

I adore this song. The piano intro grabs me right away. I think the harmonies are some of the best she & the girls have ever done. I can overlook the goofy "phoney/pony" lyric because I love the music & vocal so much.

I know some dislike "face becomes thin" but I don't. I don't take it literally, like someone losing weight. I think of it in connection with the "tired/disappears" line; it's heartbreaking - a woman turns around one day & years have gone by & she's old & sad & alone.

I also like the guitar "whining" in certain parts, esp. live when Stevie would sing along with it.

The few live versions that exist are pretty true to the studio version & I would love to hear Stevie do this song live again.

I love this song! Why hasn't it been done live recently? She could still totally nail the vocals today.

It is not one of those songs that I am amazed with or have to listen too every few days or something. But, it is a beautiful song that I enjoy listening to whenever I have the album on. I'm just saying that I seldom play just this song or specifically want to listen to this song.

I love it too. I think the music is gorgeous and I love how she sings "oooh, my bella donna." And the line "the lady's feeling like the moon that she loved" more than makes up for phoney/pony.

Pffft
 

WTH kind of question is this? Of course I adore Bella Donna. It's exquisite. :nod:

When this song started playing after I bought Bella Donna, I knew the album was going to be good.

This one is in my top ten list alllll the time.

She should have opened with it in Vegas. It would have been awesome.

This was one of my least favorites the first time I heard it. It took quite a few listens before it grew on me, and now it's one of my top 3 on the album.

One of my top 10 Stevie songs ever and one of the reasons I fell in love with her. I love everything about this song, from the lyrics to the beautiful piano melodies, to the metaphors (not that I understand every one of them). Hell I don't mind hearing about ponies and trapezes :p And this song in particular, after reading what it means to Stevie, holds a special place in my heart. So many times I've said to myself over and over, "Come in out of the darkness". It is probably the most personal song to me of all of her songs lyrics wise. So much of what she is saying is relevant to my own life, it's almost as if she's telling my story. I would die to see it live. "Don't change, baby please don't change...." That voice!! *swoon*

I like it and can overlook some of the lyrics because of the emotion in her vocals and some great lyrics.

"No speed limit...this is the fast lane...It's just the way that it is here" easily makes up for the phoney poney line.

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

Makes up for face becomes thin.

I love this song...I cant put my finger on it...but every time I play the record I listen to it twice and then the rest of the CD. There is something about it...
No speed limits...this is the fast lane...it's just the way that it is here...I love that line!

Ditto, that. Well, it didn't take quite a few listens, maybe, like, 6? I still think the lyrics are pretty darn bad, but I do like the song. Her pronunciation and inflections are awesome. I love the way she sings "Belladonna" all low and separate. I also love the way she says "foh thuh nothuhn stah". etc. and the way she sings "but you'll nevah scaeeeh me". That "scaehy" is awesomely strange.

My favorite is

"Whoa and the lady's feeling just like the moooooooon that she loved!!!"

:blob2: I :blob2: LOVE :blob2: IT!!! :blob2:

And thank you Amber so much for spelling these lines out EXACTLY the way they sound. You know I've noticed you have a real talent fuh this. :xoxo:

This song is so deep. The way she sings it, the piano, the lyrics. It's really a gorgeous song. It's not my favorite from the album but it's definitely a very good song.

Belladonna (Top 20)
 

As soon as i popped this into my cassette player and heard the piano and opening line "you can ride high atop your pony" I was in love with the album....amazing song

when she got to the "no speed limit ....this is the fast lane" I wet myself :cool:

I love how it has a climax in the middle of the song. A lot of Stevie's songs do not have it. When I listen to this, even today, I get chills. It's freakin' amazing.

I think it is perfect from start to finish, always have. I never even paid much attention to the lyrics. It's the intensity and her delivery that make it epic.

Definitely one of my all time favorite songs by anybody. The sweetly hoarse vocals, the moaning guitars, Roy Bittan's piano, the percussion and especially the way it builds and builds to a climax and just stops for a second right before "And the woman disappears..." That being said, what has always annoyed me is the line "You are in love with... and I'm ready to sail... It's just a feeling." WTF???? Triple non-sequitors. Sounds like someone smoking a doobie who lost her train of thought mid-sentence. :lol:

:) thanks sweetie. It is Stevie, just add some "H's" and a few extra vowels, and you're good to go! :woohoo:

I have always really really loved "Bella Donna." Stevie once said that "Rhiannon" is the one song she always plays when she sits down at her piano. "Bella Donna" is the one song I always play at my piano -- I can't walk by a keyboard without playing the opening. It's like being on autopilot; I'm not even totally aware I'm doing it. Just out comes "Bella Donna."

It's a perfect, ironic, sophisticated image, a great melody, a great vocal & great lyrics about being so enervated by your profession & wondering whether you will ever pep up again & feel & see with fresh eyes -- but also it's about pulling yourself together & making that decision to snap to, & knowing you have to do so in order to possibly save your life.

It's a strong ballad that opens & sets the tone not just for the whole album but for Stevie's solo career in general (& the reasons she went solo). It's one of Stevie's all-time best songs.

I've always imagined that the "ready to sail" image had something to do with Stevie heading down to South America after the Tusk tour to try to make sense of her career & her emotional life. I like to believe she took a ship down to Chile or Argentina (I forgot which country she stayed in). She went down to stay with some nuns in a convent somewhere, or visited them.

But also of course sailing forth figuratively into the horizon of a new life & a new way of being & doing. Stevie wanted to change. Being a Fleetwood Mac superstar for five years had left her unable to find her center.

I agree, wth kind of question is this? I'll make this easy. There are very, very, very few songs of Stevie's I don't like. They're Stevie so.. I don't like L&L. Other than that, it's all good. I LOVE Street Angel. The whole thing.

Bella Donna is actually the song that made me adore Stevie. It wasn't Edge of Seventeen, or Rhiannon...it was Bella Donna. I had just gotten TVBOFM, and Stevie's songs happened to be my favorite. So one day, I'm in Art class, and my teacher brings in his cds. I skim thru them, and see Stevie Nicks Bella Donna, and get all excited (and to be honest...at this time, I didn't even know she had a solo career :eek: ) and was eager to listen to it. So he tells me it's his wife's and she won't care if I take it. So it goes home with me!

I get home...I put the cd in, and of course Bella Donna is the opening song. From the moment the words Bella Donna came out of Stevie's mouth, she had me hooked. I just loved the way she sang it...don't know why, just did and still do. And that was my favorite song on the album for the longest time (I didn't get to hear Leather and Lace and Outside the Rain till months later, because they always skipped so I never bothered with them). And it would still be my favorite if I had never heard LAL...

So to sum up my rambling...yes I LOVE Bella Donna. I think it's one of Stevie's "musical masterpieces," and why she doesn't do it in concert today, baffles me.

I do love it - though I love the lyrics more than the music. :sorry: They are definitely some of my favourite Stevie lyrics (But the woman is so tired... oohhhh.... So the woman disappears...). Heartbreaking.

Kimberly, I love your avatar, and when I read your comment, I couldn't help but read it in Stewy's voice! :lol:

I love, love, love Bella Donna! The song and the album!!!

I used to not like this song very much, but the more I listened to it the more I fell in love with it. :blob1:

lol I also used to be annoyed and perplexed by that line too! Then one day it all made sense to me. So many puzzles in Stevie's lyrics! Her odd phrasing also confuses things.

COME IN OUT OF THE DARKNESS YOU ARE IN LOVE WITH, AND I"M READY TO SAIL

It's always been one of my favorites of her songs. I love the lyrics, the music, everything about it. And I went crazy over the live version. I didn't hear that live version until like 6 or 7 years ago when I heard the full HBO concert on tape cassette. I was so bummed they left out a few songs on the concert video. What an absolutely horrible thing to do to us die-hard fans!! ;) I mean, can you just imagine being able to *see* her sing that along with hearing it? I think we'd all faint afterwards!

I forget...did she do Blue Lamp too on that show too (the radio show version that had Bella Donna, Angel, and what else....How Still My Love???) I love the Blue Lamp live versions too.

that line has never bothered me.. it's obviously symbolic... it fits perfectly in "Bella Donna", imo

Love it. Love the vocal, the guitar, and the lyrics that many posters make fun of.

- Jake

Ah... what an interesting twist. I still don't know WTF it means, but it makes it a little less murky. :)

LUV, LUV this song, i'm not too keen on the riding high atop your pony part, but i LUV the rest of the lyrics, the music~ i think stevie sounds flawless & very young on it~ it's a delish song!!! :nod: ~

I take that line as meaning "Hey, shake off the gloom and let's get going, It's only a feeling...it's not real."

After buying Timespace, i was aching for more Stevie. So I went and bought the whole back catalogue in full. I played in all day, in order. I knew I was in love after the first verse of Bella Donna. Even now, that songs gets me every time.To me, the lyrics are beautiful, I just dont think of them "not making sense". LOVE IT.

~Nicki

p.s. I'm young so...theres more to the HBO concert? Where? I need to hear this!!!! Help me out?

I also love this song so much. I was very pleased to see that it was done on the bella donna tour. When I heard it live I was like, this song plays so well. i have no idea why she doesnt do itlive anymore.

I love Bella Donna too. Very beautiful song. I always wanted her to do Wild Heart live too. I like it more than Bella Donna.

Bella Donna is my Fav album and I would die if she did it live again...

I was a teenager and went to the Wherehouse to buy Bella Donna the day it was released .This was back in the days before any internet so the only song I had heard was SDMYHA before the LP came out and I already had Blue Lamp as the Heavy Metal soundtrack had been released a week or so before..As I got ready to drive over to the Wherehouse I heard Edge on the radio and was stunned after I recovered I got to the Wherehouse and they were playing the song Bella Donna .I thought this has been so worth the wait as I got the album and got in line.

I bought Bella Donna at the local drug store in town..when i first came out...I fell in love w/ Think About It..and Im still in love with it...

Bella Donna is my most fav SN album..and always will be

You have no idea how I read that at first. :laugh: