Like or Dislike: Sable on Blond
 

I'm baaaaaaaaack. ;) Sorry to disappoint those of you who thought I'd finally stopped posting these threads.

So. I never liked this song very much until several months ago. It suddenly hit me, and hit me hard. I now love it, it's one of my favorites on The Wild Heart. It is quiet, yet so powerful - her vocal is really quite stellar on this one. Do I know what the hell she's talking about? No, of course not. I won't even try to speculate.

I do, however, still snicker and/or roll my eyes at this line:

In silence she says..."excalibur"

Can't help it. :shrug: Sounds silly to me. Don't know why.

BUT the rest - wow.

"Was it a thorn in your side
Something that you hide
Something you don't touch
Because it hurts too much
Ooo...

Well...have you come to see
That my face is not seen
Ooo...outside my frost covered windows
Oh and just how deep...
Do you hold that dream
In your hands each night...this time
In your hands each night...this time"

That last "In your hands each night" is spectacular. I love (attempting to) belt it out along with her. :p

Live - I think this would have been really awesome to hear on the 1983 tour. I do think she could still pull it off today, but it would have to be in place of Circle Dance or B&tB - she really pours everything she has into those two & she'd have to do the same for Sable on Blond.

LOVE LOVE LOVE this song. My favorite song on Wild Heart and in my top five. Has a total Fleetwood Mac feel. Beautiful vocals. Also love Sharon and Lori's backing vocals. Would be so great to hear live.

5 Stars.

It's perfection. 'Nuff said.



It should have taken the place of HSML at the Vegas shows.

I agree, but she'd NEVER, and I mean NEVER, be able to pull it off nowadays. I'd like to hear her do it once and then never again because it's one of my favorite Stevie songs ever and I don't want it ruined.

Five stars. Love it -- the vocal is heavenly. "Just how deep do you hold that dream in your hands each night" is one of my favorite Stevie lines ever.

I'm sure it's very gorgeous, and I always try to listen to it, but it's so dull that my attention wanders, and then I forget how it goes and everything else about it. It's like....the "black hole" of WH to me. In all fairness, I've really only "heard" it about 10 times...maybe I'll like it more, or remember it, later. :) I only got WH last year, and it's definitely my least listened to album.

OMG cant say enough how much I love this song. Always has been a top 5. I cant believe more people arent responding to this post.

The way her voice soars over Micks drums is perfection!

Love the openning drums too , the whole song to me sounds like an amped up solo tribute to Dreams.

Has anyone heard the demo? Its very cool, very different though, it sounds kinda punkish to me, the rolling drums remind me of Dreaming by Blondie. Its a real rough cut of the song and her vocals arent nearly as polished and it ends abruptly but still cool fpr any fans of the song.

There's a demo? I guess I should have known that. There's a demo floating around of almost every Stevie song. Would love to hear this one though.

Anyway, I always liked Sable On Blond. But in the last couple of years it's really become crystalized in my mind just how very perfect it is. Sure it's one of those songs that doesn't have linear thread of meaning, but the emotion and the vocal is sweeping and so perfect that it's really irrelevant. Stevie conveys all that needs to be conveyed while still maintaining a wonderful mystery and aura open-ended interpretation. Five stars all the way. :)

I absolutely love this song too. It's one of my favorites on the Wild Heart. The vocals are awesome and the song just has a neat vibe to it. I would love to hear it live but I know that will never happen.

"I think you may need to relax." :laugh: Turn down the lights, light a candle, simma down, and put it on... I love Mick's drumming on this too. He's a hard hitter.

A gem of a tune. One of the highlights of WILD HEART and certainly in my top 5 favorite Stevie songs. Pure perfection..."in your hands each night..."

LOVE IT!

rbs

Sable on B.
 

I could go on and on about this song . . . .

So I WILL! . . . :laugh: :o


I think this song is literally genius.

NOT, "OMG Stevie's so great holy cow gosh we all just LOVE her

so let's exaggerate and call her songs 'genius!'"

I literally for real think this song is Genius.

"LEARN to be a stranger" - she's so used to being close to Our

Mystery Man, who ever could it possibly be, that it's hard to accept that

things have changed. She has to learn to be "distant" and "uncaring"

with someone who she still feels a lot of love for.

"Blonde on Blonde" - STILL working on this line! :lol:

But maybe, "the outside may look like just an act to you, but it's

only covering up something which is actually pretty similar - and not

really all that bad a person, if I do say so myself!. . . "

"In silence she says, 'Excaliber.'"

OMG. THIS IS GENIUS!!!

Obviously this is a reference to "The Sword in the Stone" - but -

there's SO many attractive, aggressive, A-list guys courting her -

but who is the ONE who can pull that sword out??? Everyone's so

selfish and preoccupied with partying and the fast lane that they don't

even hear her crying out, "Where ARE you, Mr. Right!???"

This is hard-core 80s Stevie to the bone, i m o.

"What was it that fell? Was it:

One fallen leaf -

like the feather that it was -

was it freedom by choice -

or baby, WAS it love."

W T F just HAPPENED to me!??? Was it really love??? The feather -

something really fragile - was that what fell? Or was it different than

she thought. Why did we break up? To be "free to see others?"

WAS it REALLY love???

"Was it a thorn in your side
Something that you hide
Something you don't touch
Because it hurts too much."

Is it his pain that f'd up what seemed so perfect?
Why can't she GO there?
This hurts him SO much,
that he won't even let HER go there.
Perhaps she can relate. . . .

"Well...have you come to see
That my face is not seen
Ooo...outside my frost covered windows
Oh and just how deep...
Do you hold that dream
In your hands each night...this time..."

Has he learned that the coldness is just an exterior one?
She's HIDING - who she really is, how she really feels -
But who can break through all the b.s.?
Somebody who TRULY loves her.
Okay, so he CLAIMS he loves her - but so did Mr. X.
Does he love her THAT much???
Reminds me of "Jesus Christ Superstar," where they suddenly go
"HEY hey, J. C., would you DIE for me!?" and suddenly He's
like "hey WAIT a minute now!!!..." Again - who can pull that sword out?
I think the "this time" is a reference to "cycles" - reincarnation, etc -
a feeling of deja vu - this uhhh, seems FAMILIAR, "pal!"
The "in your hands each night line" - well,
either you get it or you don't :lol:
Okay it FEELS great - but IS it Love?

"Did I force you to remember
In the sacred name of love...
To be brave save the stranger
Sable on blond...
Dark upon light..."

I always hear this as "AND i force you to remember."

But anyway, maybe she's saying, "this love is SACRED to me -

and so BECAUSE I love you - i'm going to FORCE you to face this pain -

CAN you handle that? WILL our Big Love survive?

'cause "You SAID that you LOVED me," babe, and that you "ALWAYS will."

SABLE
on
BLONDE

DARK
UPON
LIGHT

Because it HURTS to much."

Sable is black - Stevie's hair color is uhhh - blonde! YEAH,
BLONDE! :shocked:

Just as she wears black on top of her blonde self,
hiding the beauty underneath,
she has a very dark, gloomy exterior - some ignoramuses used the
word "evil" back in the 80s -
covering up the brightness, the light, that childlike wonder -
because when she wrote the song she felt that she had been hurt
SO badly that it just hurt too much to take a chance any more and
reveal her true self to the world - to the people in the environment
she was in.

And then perhaps a final, petulant slap across the face -
"Well, maybe it was YOU who fell in love (BABE) -
This time."

Back to the toughness - a brief glimpse of how she was really feeling,
and then back to the Life in the Fast Lane Rock Star.
Cause that's how she feels -
this time. . . . .

Anyway those are my thoughts, personally - I've thought about this
song more than any other Stevie song because I think it's HUGELY
underestimated and contains much more depth than first meets the
eye - and, of course, it's BEAUTIFUL! :laugh:

By the way, another part to the "Excaliber" legend is that the Sword
was presented to Mr. All That by the Lady of the Lake, who
selected him personally.
For those of you who may not know,
"Lynn" means "by the lake."

in my opinion?

This song is absolute proof-positive that Stevie's a genius.

And I haven't even mentioned the music itself, just the lyrics.

I love sable on blonde..wish there was "full" alternate version out there...but anywho...great WH era song... :angel:

Okay. I tried, but then...my mind just blanks out, it's really weird. It's...tooo bland... :shocked: Like I tell myself.."okay, pay attention, a bunch of people like this song" and then i'll space out anyway, and then I'll come back, and listen, and I'll be like "why does everyone like this song?"
so....it may be a hard sell. I'll give it another go, though, for you....and me... ;)

Five Stars definitely. One of my top five Stevie songs. I love the way she sings on this, it's literally perfection. Of course I have no idea of what she's talking about, but then again half the time I don't anyway. :laugh: I'm not sure I'd want to hear it live though.

Yeah, that's not gonna work, you can't force it. Its the imagery that gets me. I used to listen to this walking and biking around my home town as a teen, certain songs stood out early and this was one of the songs on WH I liked right away. Put it on repeat and see if it grabs your attention after a few listens. If not then it just may not be your cup of tea, so to speak.

I'm glad you did! :laugh: This is one of my favorite Stevie lyrics, with the literary references and the descriptiveness of it. It's one of her most visually vivid songs, I think. I love it.

WH is my favorite Stevie album. I think I'd give every song five stars, except maybe "Enchanted." I think I'm just burned out on that one.

LOVE this song, one of the best on The Wild Heart.
I'm surprised no one has mentioned (have they?) Mick's magnificent drumming which totally makes the track for me.
"Outside my frost covered windows..."
Winter is my favourite season and TWH is definitely a winter album I think.

I listened to this song 3 times in a row today in my car. I've always liked it, but today it really hit me how fantastic of a song it is. Her voice is absolutely amazing on it.

Wanted to add this quote that I coincidentally just happened to come

across. This is from an interview Stevie did right before her "Wild Heart"

tour, which was in the October 1983 issue of "Rock Magazine."

The interviewers were Vicky Greenleaf and Stan Hyman. - - -

"Nicks: 'Sable on Blond' is my serious statement on The Wild Heart. It fits into a particular group of my songs; 'Rhiannon,' 'Beautiful Child' and 'Sara.' It reflects the mood I was in when I moved into my new house last year. It was a time when I was learning how to live with myself. 'Sable on Blond' meant to learn how to be a stranger, to learn to be with yourself, to learn to be one color. In the legend of Excalibur, the sword is there for protection, but you don't call upon it unless it's absolutely necessary. During that period in my life, I was learning how not to call on the sword."

So, there you GO - right from The Stevie's mouth! :)

Okay, I figured it out. First, I hate the way it starts, with those "oo ooo oooo's"
and then, I don't like the notes chosen. It's too major key, but it's not totally major key, and it's definitely not minory, because I love minor. It's the bland in between of music. There's also no real dramatic parts. It's not very dynamical, although there is moments where the vocal is unusual. Honestly, I mainly don't like the notes used, they are flat and bland. Neither major, minor, or jazz chords. Blergh.
It's "the Nightmare" of the Wild Heart album...only not as good... :laugh:
I have to say, though, it's not bad, either. To me, it's filler. Although I'm sure some of the lyrics are good. :)
Wow, I actually don't like this song much, and I'm not sure I ever will. Although I also won't hate it. It's the Bill Clinton of songs.... :laugh: :sorry:

I dont really care for it, although I dont hate it either.Boy I'd make a great politician..... :lol:

:lol:
see? The bill clinton of songs!!!

Totally.

I think Sable On Blonde has her best vocal, personally. It's all over the map and you can hear her putting her entire being into it. And the way it builds into that last third is amazing; she lets loose. One of my very favorite songs by her; it reeks so much of Stevie Nicks.

DISS - I just wanted to say you stole my idea for a sig with Kathy Griffin! :) She is a hoot and I really really really want to be her best friend. I am addicted to her show.

I love SOB so much. The vocals are amazing and the lyrics are really cool.

Kathy Griffin kicks ass. I want to hang out with that loudmouthed, salty bitch so badly. :laugh: I posted over on Perez that God is old hat, we should all worship at the Altar of Kathy every Sunday morning for the rest of time, and that when I'm emperor, I will make it law.

It's true, I will.

Meh. :shrug: Wrong notes for me to like. She sounds fine, the notes are just very dull to me. :wavey: I'll keep trying, though. :laugh:

She hits some of the highest notes of her career in that song. :shrug:

I never thought much of this song until I came to this board and read the constant raves from dissention. So I put it on recently, listened with new ears, and found the magic. It's simply lovely with fantastic vocals and I'm mad at myself for not getting it until 20+ years later.

and? Just cause the note is high, doesn't mean it's one I like. The song reminds me of how I don't like flat jazz chords. It doesn't use them specifically, but the notes chosen do remind me of that. I don't like the music, and the vocal goes with the music, and though it's a good vocal, I don't like the notes. They are dull to me.

5 star song for sure. The song just flows out like honey. It heavenly. The only song on WH I prefer is Nothign Ever Changes just because it rocks so much. But her voice is so good on SOB and Micks drumming just makes that much better.

I have to agree with Amber here. Musically, this song is completely bland and dull. It actually bores me. There is nothing exciting about it and it doesn't grab me emotionally at all when I hear it...HOWEVER lyrically it is Stevie at her best. These lyrics are beyond genius and the whole concept of the song is brilliant and the vocals are stellar. Is is so deep and personal and really great for the album. Too bad the music doesn't live up to the lyrics. If these lyrics had gone with some great music it would have been one of her best songs ever. It only gets 2 stars because musically it bites. Not awful, but far from great.

Finally, someone understands!!! :xoxo: :laugh:

You guys are crazy, Sable On Blond is one of Stevie's best songs :p
I think you just don't like mid-tempo numbers :)

I don't think soooo....Nightbird is one of my favorite Stevie songs evah. SOB has nothing memorable about it musically. I don't know how to analyze music other than to say the notes and the melody are boring. There is nothing exciting or pivitol happening musically throughout the whole song. At least have a catchy hook or bridge, but no there is nothing.

Well.... music is a subjective thing. I guess I was talking about Amber more than you as I don't know you or your music tastes really. I know Amber likes Stevie to rock a little..
But anyway I think there's a lot musically going on in that song: the almost tribal drumbeat that acts as a contrast to the soft music; the slinky guitar work; the sensual harmonies; the passionate way it builds up in the middle so powerfully ("do you hold that dreamer in your hands in each night") before becoming almost a repetitive groove at the end ("oo well I think it was you, baby, this time") before fading out. I just think it's a very sexy song.
But I don't need a hook or catchy chorus myself - I'm not really a big pop music fan, I just like how the song feels and the mood it creates :)

Hey Amber, you need to lay off the hash pipe....

"Well, have you come to see
That my face it is not seeeeeeen
Oooo, outside my frost covered windows"

That is drama personified and it gives me shivers just typing it.

And Nightbird does? :shrug: What - the synthesizers?

Ah, so we finally disagree on a somg. I knew this day would someday come. :distress:


:D