Like or Dislike: Nightbird
 

Most voted to do The Wild Heart next, so I'll get it started.

Personally, this has never been a big favorite of mine. The harmonies are beautiful, but the lyrics are pretty bad (with the exception of the chorus & the last verse.) Stevie loves blankets? :laugh: I think I know what she meant - being all nice & warm & protected in your home with your friends & family; keeping warm bundled up in front of the fire when it's cold outside - but still. "The blankets that I love" does not do it for me. I don't mind "boots all summer long" but "the real color of my skin" is odd. I think this song is about Robin dying, and I get what she was trying to express, but I don't feel it.

The music - eh. All I hear is the synthesizer (it takes over the song), and the drum machine sounds almost identical to Stand Back. That bothers me for some reason.

Her SNL live performance of this with Lori is great, they really hit it out of the park. Would I love it so much if they had done it every night on that tour? Probably not. It's so special since it was one time only. I wonder why it never made the setlist, since it was released as a single (hard for me to believe it made #33 - I NEVER remember hearing this on the radio back in 83/84. Never.) I would have liked to see it done in Vegas, though, since Lori was back.

EDIT: almost forgot the Solid Gold performance, so I guess it was done twice. Still speacial, though. :D

One of the most magnificent vocals she has ever recorded and she SOARED on it live :cool:

Oh, great, now I have to listen to Wild Heart....oh, and so far I don't like Nightbird that much. Good vocals, but....

This is my absolute favourite Stevie solo song, all I can hear on this are sweet heavenly harmonies and resonance a-plenty. And since lyrics aren't that important to me (it's the performance that counts for me the most when it comes to Stevie), I don't care if the ones on "Nightbird" seem less hard-hitting than some others she's written.

As Naomi Judd once said on Star Search, "FA-IVE STER-ARS"


This was my favorite Stevie song when I first became a fan. It's passionate, it's different, it has Robin written all over it.

Yes, the SNL performance is classic...nothing will ever top that. And rumor has it that the song was suppose to be added to the set, but Stevie decided to begin work on RAL, then continue the WH Tour.

LOVE LOVE LOVE Nightbird :nod: Excellent vocals - just a beautiful song!

Eh, 2 stars from me. Like everyone said, the vocals and harmonies are great, but the lyrics are among her worst, imho. :shrug:

I'm also still holding a grudge against it for outlasting 'Rooms On Fire' in the Singles Survivor... :cool:

I LOVE this song. Amazing vocal. I love how she belts "The touch that you want so muuuuuuuch!" The chorus contains some of my favorite Stevie lyrics ever. I think the melody is beautiful, as well.

Nightbird RULES! Top 5 Stevie song ever. Great harmonies. Great lyrics. Great emotion. Great vocals. I LOVE IT!!!!!!!!!!!! :D

4 out 5 stars. I really really like this song. It took some time to grow on me but I love the darkenss and mystery it envokes and I also love the vocals and harmonies as many have said. Too bad she did not write the music. I think the lyrics kick ass. It doesn't get much better than "I wear boots all summer long". That's classic La Nicks to me.

My main complaint about this song is I love the verses and not the chorus. I get really into the first verse and then I hear "and when I call you..." and poof I'm over it and waiting for the second verse to kick it. I wish the song had a better chorus because it would have been a Lindsay favorite if so. Weak chorus, so sad.

Edit: Now that I have it in my head, I love this song and it's one of my top 5 for lyrics.

I loves it. And I'm so happy you're doing The Wild Heart now. We can finally get to the meat of her solo work and not the table scraps. :thumbsup:

love it! Top 5 for sure!

one of her best !!!!!!!

I love this song. It has pretty harmonies, vocals, and lyrics. I wish the music was a little better. I would prefer maybe less synthesizer and real drums. I do love the live performance on Solid Gold and I think it would have been great if Stevie and Lori had sung it in Vegas.

I'm surprised to hear you say you liked it live since I thought you once said you didn't like her performances back then. :shrug:

I did and still do not like most of the ones I have heard like "I will Run to You" with Petty - but I have heard only a comparative handful. I do think, though, that her SNL and SG performances are amongst her best as was in many ways the US Festival for its pure energy. But, those are three of many and the other ten or so were not that great to me. Maybe I need to hear them all before being to brazenly dismissive.

Love it
 

The live performances are so good. Stevie looks especially beautiful on the Solid Gold performance. I'm sure she was one of only a few to perform live on that show. Even people who hated Stand Back were impressed by Nightbird on SNL.

Beautiful song
 

I love "Nightbird" - especially the chorus with the two vocal lines that go back and forth with each other.
The lyrics about the eye makeup took some getting used to, and even now I'm not totally sure what she means by them. I think it has something to do with the fact that she's trying not to be afraid to show her real self, symbolized by "my eyes without any shadow."

5 star song for sure. My favorite part is at 3 minutes when there's that do do do do do do and piano thing. And I also love the whole cry for the ones who sing at night, the nightbirds, for all of us who prefer the night to the day.

When I first got The Wild Heart, Nightbird was an automatic skip. It sounded too 80s. But eventually it became one of my favourites. I love the darkness of it.

LUV, LUV it, i remember seeing her do it live for solid gold, love everyting about it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :thumbsup: :thumbsup: :thumbsup: :thumbsup: :thumbsup: ~

Heehee - I'm the exact opposite - I love the chorus but the other lyrics not so much. :)

Another thing I forgot to mention - I almost always sing Lori's (well, I believe it's actually Sandy Stewart on the album version, right?) parts during the chorus. Anyone else do this?

I LOVE this song. It's one of my favourites on The Wild Heart.
The lyrics, imagery, the harmonies, the lush synth, everything! Her vocals are perfection IMO.
The two live performances of it - SNL and Solid Gold - are probably my favourite Stevie performances ever.
Yay! Wild Heart really is the best.

Does anyone have clips of either of these to post? I'm dying to see them! :nod:

~Kat

I don't think I have either of these on my computer, mine are on VHS - anyone else?

Live Nightbird
 

This has Nightbird on Solid Gold as well as loads of other clips

http://stevie.nleone.com/sn_movie.htm

Wow, thanks! :woohoo: My favorite is the very end where they keep singing a capella after the music stops. "White winged dooooove..."

~Kat

an important song
 

If I were teaching Stevie 101 at my local community college, this song would be required listening. To me the lyrics, lyric melody, vamp, tempo, and vocal stylings of that recording epitomize her style.

Beyond her singing about what she has just been though, the rapid decline in health and resulting death of a dear friend, I've always thought that this song foreshadows the crappy times that were ahead. Particularly when she mentions the excessive love that she's sometimes surrounded by. I understood that to mean that there were too many people kissing her ass, too many people saying "yes", and too many people not willing to say "hey, chill out, what's going on with you?"

^ Interesting take on those lyrics. And welcome to the board, Dan. :wavey:

This is one of my favorites. It's so passionate and emotional. I remember thinking they were lipsynching on Sold Gold until there was a point where there was a little change in the way a line was sung. It just sounded too perfect and it turns out that it was just a really perfect performace.

To comment on an earlier post about the eye makeup lyrics, I think it was her way of saying how worn out she was from all the crying and not being able to sleep after dealing with Robin's long illness and passing. "Eye makeup dark and it's carless, same circles around my eyes, sometimes the real color of my skin... my eyes without any shadow". The rings under her eyes are still dark and the red and puffiness of one's eyes after crying could resemble dark makeup done carelessly. And she explained the "boots all summer long" thing in an interview once. I don't remember exactly but I think it was alluding to not allowing herself to be part of the world but rather covering herself up, wrapped in blankets, heavy boots keep your feet from touching the earth, keep people from seeing your legs. And wearing them in summer means that you don't even care that it's warm outside and that people are wearing sandles and shorts, a carefree way to be, but you would rather be hidden away, covered up, cocooned, healing.

love, Love, LOVE this song!! top 5 for me.
this is the stevie voice that I fell in love with!! incredilbe :)

Absolutely love this song. Even more so after I saw the SNL performance. The way Stevie look's at Lori is so cute. :thumbsup:

Love it! One of my fave stevie songs! Its the best!

2 stars. And I like about 95 % of her music, so that says something.

I dont care for the delivery, at times she sounds like she is mocking someone. The song sounds kinda harsh to me and scratchy. I never thought this song fit well on WH.

On the positive side, I do really like the vocals toward the end of the song, nice passionate upper register, my favorite way to hear Stevie sing.

Thanks for posting & welcome to the board. LOVE your screen name, btw! :nod: