Illume, Destiny Rules, and Stevie's 9/11 journals
 

Whenever she or Lindsey reuse lyrics, I just believe it means something significant or they just like the turn of the phrase. Both of them have done it enough to make it at least raise an eyebrow. Sometimes I wonder if the song is a "rough draft" or perhaps the songs are "part one" and "part two" ...

I think that phrase is the "I can see past you to the white sand" of Say You Will for Stevie. She says that Trouble in Shangri-La circled around that single line in a lot of ways, and it seems to define the album for her. The diamond snake verse seems to really tie Say You Will together in a similar way, and I think that the repeat just drills that in.

I think both songs deal with a loss of innocence. I also suspect they were both written in close succession. If you go back and watch Stevie's interviews pre 9/11 and compare them with interviews from the Say You Will era, Stevie seems to have hardened and become much wiser. I think one of the products of her being in NYC for 9/11 was her finally "growing up." I think she started to look at her life metaphorically in all senses following her 9/11 experiences. It was around this time that she realized Lindsey was gone for good, and their love affair was really over (because of the birth of Lindsey's children). I think during this time she was having sort of an existential awakening about life and love, and wanted to link the songs together because of that. The city of NY had lost it's innocence on 9/11 (hence Illume), and so had she (hence Destiny Rules). That's why I feel the songs are linked.

I think her "hardness" is more due to menopause... not that 9/11 wouldn't be enough....

Isn't that the picture of the back of the White Album? Looks like it was taken in a bathroom. :lol:

Way ahead of the era of Myspace. Who says this band isn't innovative?

Isn't it also used on that ad for the White Album where they mis-labeled Stevie as Lindsey & vice versa?

I remember right before Say You Will came out, there was an article posted in the Boston Globe. According to them, Illume was one of the very last songs they recorded for the album. Stevie did all her songs and then wanted to write a song about 9-11.

I love the song, but I can't help but always think of her glare at Mick (in DR) when she's being so ultra-serious singing and he's across from her waving his hands in the air. It's such a priceless Stevie look. Edit to Lindsey moving next to her on the sofa. :lol: It just felt like he was interpreting her mood very well and Mick was oblivious.

I think the "diamond snake" reference is quite simple. In "Illume" it is a poetic way of writing a song about New York without actually saying "hey, New York, this song is about you!" In "Destiny Rules" it is classic Stevie- in which she weaves a number of different stories around a central theme: fate. So the first verse of DR is about the doomed fate of L & S- that their lives will be forever intertwined but never really together. The second verse is about the cruel fate that placed Stevie in NY on 9/11. Fate is obviously not a novel theme for Mama, e.g., "The Dealer."

Excerpt from article on September 11
Chicago Sun Times, September 8, 2011
http://www.suntimes.com/entertainmen...try-stars.html


Fleetwood Mac, “Illume”

A couple of years later, this Stevie Nicks song appeared on Fleetwood Mac’s heralded comeback album, “Say You Will.” It’s touching in its candlelit consideration — simply a musing on the national mindset (after she “saw history go down” and was thinking about “how we could make it / what we’ve been through / all of the trauma”). “I didn’t set out to write a Sept. 11th song, it just happened,” Nicks said that year. “I also wrote one called ‘Get Back on the Plane’ and a song called ‘The Towers Touched the Sky,’ but it was just too depressing.” Wise choice, and a lovely meditation.

I swear I read somewhere once that the diamond snake lyric was in reference to the river lit up by all the lights of the city...

Sounds like what I read about it too, except I remember her saying the "diamond snake" she's referring to was/is the reflection off the white water along the coast that she could see at night from her home.

Jamie

Yup,that was it:)