Stevie and Landslide
 

I thought of y'all today. I was in gym today and Landslide came on the radio. I overheard the people next to me saying that she wrote that song when she divorced her husband. I then went into a five minute explanation of the band. Does this happen often to people like us?

Well I hope the first thing you did was correct them and say that the song had nothing to do with her husband at all and was written years before! Hahaha!

The biggest pet peeve OF MY LIFE:

"Oh, that Landslide song? Did Fleetwood Mac cover it?"


akldfhjaklhkljdahklaklhakla! I will forever hold a grudge against the Dixie Chicks for that reason alone.

I don't bother correcting people anymore. In fact I'll agree with them now when they say she's a witch. Vruja!!! Basicly IDGAF.

I used to do that, but now I like to make up crazy stories & relate them. "This was written after Stevie Nicks was stranded at sea when the yacht sank."

Or, "This song was inspired by Stevie's summer with the Reagans in 1980."

Most people I know don't even care about the stories behind the songs, so it's a total moot point....:rolleyes:

I'm dedicated long time big fan (circa 1975), but I don't take much stock in the stories -- especially Stevie's stories. She often doesn't speak about what inspired a song, but rather the context of where it was written, and usually in strangely vague terms. It's very perculiar and pedestrian if you compare it other (slightly more) accomplished artists. Also, being that she has a selective memory - if any memory at all - her stories/explanations change throughout the years.

I find it rather funny when people attempt a deep analysis of every word and stanza of her lyrics, as if to uncover some elaborate story. I consider her writing more impressionistic than literate. She has a very distinct talent in a limited capacity, but she's not as high-minded and sophisticated as some would like to think she is. However she has her "thing," and she's done very well with it. It's just my take.

ITA. But, I do think she sometimes talks in circles about her songs in an effort to keep the main heart of it private and to herself. That's not to say I think all her songs fall into that category, because I think your take on her writing style is definitely a probability.

Great post.

I take stock in some of the stories - but but you're absolutely right that she talks process and not inspiration. And yes, the memory may all but be gone - sometimes I suspect that Norma Desmond and Stevie are close cousins.

In any case - no, not high-minded and sophisticated ALL the time, but I'd say more often than not. The analysis' of all the bits and pieces of the songs may not reveal a story, but it does create narratives that chronicle the goings on in her life. Sara would be the example I'd cite. Lots of small pieces that create a larger picture, fragmented, maybe.

Some of her solo work, which were the only albums we ever found filler material on, could be used as examples of her just doing "her thing".

Hope that makes sense, I'm getting ripped.

Agreed. I think her writing is typically supported by the emotive power of her images, even when those images make little to no sense. However, I do think that she has her moments when she writes a precise, meritable metaphor or image and when does, she totally runs with it. Take 90% of "Angel" versus "Gold Dust Woman", "Trouble in Shangri-La" versus "Landslide", "Blue Lamp" versus "Beauty and the Beast". I adore all of these songs, but there's quite the difference between the styles of writing in terms of the foundation of thought.

Great post-- I love looking more closely at how she writes, especially since I'm a writer myself.

I've done some writing myself, and I understand when Stevie says she could be inspired by someone's smile, or a sunset, etc. and build a song around that inspiration. Many times I've used something that inspired me and then wrote lyrics based on my feelings about a specific event in my life and how it made me feel. So, I may wrap a fictional character or story in a set of non-fictional emotions or events.

Sometimes I think Stevie does the exact same thing whenever she's asked a question about anything...I'd get so tired of that I'd start making things up too just to amuse myself :lol:

When i first heard Stevie sing it i was shocked because i thought that the Dixie Chicks wrote it. Btw one day i was in the PX our "mall" on base and Leather and Lace came on.

:eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek:

My thoughts exactly :shrug:

:laugh:

Number one reason for coming on the ledge daily... HOURLY! :D

Heck, whenever I can! :D

We all gets it.:wavey:

Huffington Post Posted: 06/06/2014 6:15 by Yagana Shah

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/0...n_5406430.html

11 Powerful Song Lyrics That Changed Our Lives Forever

Whether it's an upbeat track that makes you want to get up and dance or a heartfelt ballad that brings a tear to your eye, there's no doubt that music is pretty powerful. We all have that one song that can bring you back to an old memory like it was just yesterday. Legendary U2 rocker Bono once said, "Music can change the world because it can change people." We couldn't agree more. We asked our Facebook fans to tell us which song lyrics changed their lives forever and still have a huge emotional impact on them today. Scroll through to see their responses and let us known in comments which lyrics stand out to you.

"Landslide" by Fleetwood Mac

Well, I've been afraid of changing
'Cause I've built my life around you
But time makes you bolder
Even children get older
And I'm getting older too

Stevie Nicks who penned the song later revealed it was her relationship with guitarist Lindsay Buckingham that inspired the lyrics. "And we're going to end up breaking up, and everything we worked for is going to be done and it's all going to be for nothing. That's really want the song 'Landslide' is about," Nicks said in an interview.

I second that notion...
 

I totally agree GBE's.She can't be rude and NOT answer questions so she probably changes her stories to keep from boring herself to death or screaming.I watched her do one of her Q& A's for IYD and she was leaning forward like we do when we're listening intently to something but when she heard the question she stayed in that same position and stared at the person as if to say "you have got to be f***ing kidding me".She took an extended pause and you could actually see her take a deep breath and politely answered the question,extensively of course.If the same questions over and over bore us,imagine how bored she gets listening to her own same answers!Ahhh....the price of fame.;)

Love your post. I do agree that she hits on moments of brilliance in some of her lyrics. To quote her song Angel: "When it was good, it was very, very good." She's written some lyrics that are just devastatingly impactful with emotion; verses or lines that cut through your heart and slap you silly!

WONDERFUL. I had no idea that "Landslide" was written about Kim Anderson! That makes me remember the time after Robin died when Stevie and Kim took a vacation to the Colorado Rocky Mountains. Diane Sawyer covered the story about 300 people stranded at the base of the mountain after an avalanche. Thank God that Kim and Stevie made it out alive!!!! :shrug:

WWhhaaaaaaaatttt? Did I miss something about an avalanche????? :laugh:

AV Club, March 25, 2015

http://www.avclub.com/article/20-liv...unterpa-216811

20 live versions of songs that slay their studio counterparts

11. Fleetwood Mac, “Landslide,” from 1997’s The Dance

Stevie Nicks wrote “Landslide” just before she and then-paramour Lindsey Buckingham joined Fleetwood Mac, the band that would make them famous. The song appeared on the band’s 1975 eponymous release, featuring Nicks’ sweet, hopeful delivery of lines like “Time makes you bolder / Children get older / I’m getting older too.” More than 20 years later, “Landslide” resurged, as the band released a live version on 1997’s The Dance. The passage of a few decades shifts the song’s meaning completely. Now Nicks’ perspective is from an older woman looking back on her life, made all the more poignant by the fact that she’s accompanied on acoustic guitar by her lost love Buckingham. In the video, Buckingham barely holds back tears as the two reconnect on stage. “Landslide” has been covered by Smashing Pumpkins, Dixie Chicks, even the cast of Glee. But nothing can match Fleetwood Mac’s live version: She says the song’s for her father, but it’s impossible to ignore the mountain of emotion between Nicks and Buckingham as they revisit their romantic past onstage. [Gwen Ihnat]

The first time I head that 'Landslide' was written here in my homestate, Colorado, was when I saw Stevie in concert in 1998 in Denver, and she said that before they played it. Awesome.

I'd argue that 'Landslide' is Stevie's most popular song today, more than even 'Rhiannon' or 'Dreams'. It's one of her standards to be sure, it's her 'Yesterday' because, despite the somewhat personal nature of the lyrics, it's second only to 'Dreams' as the most covered Stevie song, and I remember in the late '90s I couldn't go in any store without hearing The Dance version playing.

I got kinda sick of it and didn't listen to 'Landslide' much for a few years after that. I love the song and I'm not sick of it now, thankfully.

People are stupid :rolleyes:

Is this directed at me for your stupid April Fools joke?

The A Cappella Songs I Secretly Listen to That No One Knew About Until Now

Ellie Shechet, The Muse

http://themuse.jezebel.com/the-a-cap...e-k-1773705011

2. The Backbeats, “Landslide” (originally by Fleetwood Mac)

The Fleetwood Mac catalogue is absolutely brimming with a cappella mainstays, and although I am not sure that that is what Stevie Nicks would have wanted, that is life, Stevie!!! Deep within my heart, I love this arrangement, even though I do understand that it also kind of sounds like computers singing.