Stevie previews new song and speaks out for reproductive freedom
 

Here’s the article from Consequence of Sound:

The post Stevie Nicks Shares Poem and Teases New Song Ahead of Midterms: “They’ll Take Your Soul” appeared first on Consequence.

Stevie Nicks is marking deadlines for registering to vote in the 2022 midterm elections with her new poem, “Get It Back.” The twice-inducted member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame said she will be releasing the poem as a song at a later date.

“At 74 years old, I can honestly say that I am worried about every one of you,” she wrote in a social media statement. “Worried about health care, and just in general, worried about your God given rights. You must gather together now. You must register to vote as soon as you can (for many of you the deadline is tomorrow, October 11th!) and you must vote!”

Nicks also warned, “The disintegration of Roe v. Wade will change your life in an unfathomable way,” a position likely informed by her own 1979 abortion. “You will not have control of what your beautiful dreams want for you.” She added, “I watched what happened to women from 1966 (I was 18) to 1973 when I was 25 and 2 years away from joining Fleetwood Mac. Believe me when I tell you, you don’t want that world to come back.”

“Get It Back” opens with the words, “I have my scars/ You have yours,” and continues, “They’ll take your soul/ They’ll take your power.” She asks the reader to “Try and see the future/ And get mad,” and repeats the warning, “You don’t have much time/ Get it back.”

Read the full poem below, and register to vote through the Rock the Vote website.

Recently, Nicks has been turning to poetry to express her most immediate thoughts. Earlier this year she shared a poem in tribute to Taylor Hawkins. Nicks will be touring with Vanessa Carlton through October and the beginning of November, and tickets are available here.

Get It Back

I have my scars
You have yours
Don’t let them
Take your power
Don’t leave it alone
In the final hours
They’ll take your soul
They’ll take your power

Don’t close your eyes and hope for teh best
The dark is out there
The light is going fast
And all the rights you had yesterday
Are taken away
And now you’re afraid
You should be afraid
Because everything I fought for
Long ago in a dream — is gone
The dream is not over, the dream has just begun
Or is it a nightmare?
Or a lasting scar

It is —
Unless you save it
And that’s that
Unless you stand up
And take it back
Try to see the future
And get mad
It’s slipping through your fingers
You don’t know what you had
You don’t have much time
Get it back

I want to be the lighthouse
Bring you all together
Bring you out in stormy weather
I wanna teach you to fight

I’ll bring it out
In a song
It’s happened before
–History–
It’s on repeat
You have been warned…

You have to save it
And that’s that
Unless you stand up
And take it back
Try to see the future
And get mad
It’s slipping through your fingers
You don’t have what you had
You don’t have much time
Get it back

You’ve got to get in the game
You’ve got to learn how to play
You’ve got to make a change —
You’ve got to do it today

Because…
In the midnight hour
They’ll slam the door
Make you forget
What you are fighting for
Put you back in your place
They’ll shut you down
And what’s more —
You better say it out loud
You better shout it out
This is war

Unless you save it
And that’s that
Unless you stand up
Take it back
Try to see the future
Get mad
It’s slipping through your fingers
You don’t have what you had
You don’t have much time
To get it back

From Rolling Stone: "A worried Stevie Nicks pens poem to encourage voting"

https://www.msn.com/en-us/music/news...f231f8dabfc300

The dream is not over, the dream has just begun.

Straight Back to Show Them The Way to Get It Back.

I look forward to the music but the lyrics are really simple for Stevie. Where is her use of her great vocabulary?

Fall From Grace, Italian Summer, Gate and Garden, Bella Donna.

Calm down
She's staring at the stairs as fast as she can

On a Persian carpet in a great house in the Hamptons

The purple paisley that Prince painted them is very confusing for her. She can't stop the stairing.

Yay! Can't wait to listen to it.

I appreciate the thought, but this is a really bad pastiche of her earlier work. This reads like a RAL outtake.

The ship sailed quite some time ago for her abilities as a songwriter.

Indeed, and these feeble attempts to be relevant by suddenly taking a seemingly inauthentic interest in social issues make these songs even more unpalatable. Nice move from "praying to the commercial gods" to pandering to them. :rolleyes: #sorrynotsorry

You are so spot on. But, I get flamed for saying, "You're a bit late to the party. But thanks anyway.

For the majority of her career Stevie has been savvy enough to stay out of politics publicly. It's disappointing to see these past few things that seem to be ill-advised attempts to get in the spotlight. I suppose next up is joining the ranks of celebrities who made fools of themselves by swearing publicly to move out of the country if this person or that person was elected?

I don’t think she’s doing this to get in the spotlight at all. Roe V Wade has been overturned by the Supreme Court. I think it’s safe to say Stevie, and many other people who normally don’t discuss politics, are alarmed by this. Besides, even though she’s made it clear where her vote is going, her message is fair and important- if you want to be heard, whether you’re Democrat, Republican, or Independent, then VOTE! Nothing wrong about that message.

I don't think her interest in the abortion issue is inauthentic at all. She's had direct personal experience. Which is also why I'd say that the issue isn't necessarily political for her (or for many others). It's deeply personal. It's other people who've made this issue political for their own gain.

No one thinks she’s Joan Baez, certainly, but Stevie still has a right to publicly address political topics that she’s genuinely concerned about. I can’t begrudge her that, even if her batch of political songs (from, say, “Desert Angel” to “Soldier’s Angel” to the Kennedy thing and now this and the Buffalo Springfield cover) aren’t great — essentially they’re diary-speak interspersed with cliches and a few trendy slogans. I don’t doubt that Stevie is concerned about these few political issues, and she’s trying to comment on them in song as a 60s-generation pop stateswoman. The role doesn’t quite fit her because of her lifelong apolitical past, but she’s definitely feeling it now. She probably desperately wishes she could wave a Stevie wand over everything and make the fascists go away — she’s an unusually simple thinker on that plane — but when she says she’s afraid, she is. She’s afraid enough to start writing songs again, which is something we thought she’d never do.

I applaud her standing up for reproductive freedom but not that badly written song/poem .Time to pack it in and keep touring the oldies or do a covers album.

Yes. This contextual incongruity grates on me more than the rambling verbage of the too-on-the-nose-to-be-poetry lyrics.

And now it's our turn to be afraid.

Has she considered just putting out press releases or a blog instead?
Good luck to whichever producer in whose lap this one falls.

Imagine if you will Lindsey Buckingham is somewhere on the road in a rented studio furiously creating the music for this Stevie song. He sends it to her. She loves it. Records it. And all is forgiven. Ha!

I'm not so sure that even a creative genius and studio wizard could polish a turd that much.

I'd like to see Paul McCartney work on Stevie's songs/poems.

Another embarrassment. She is such an opportunist.

She's very good with her trailer hitch...

I'm relevant!:)

What was the name of the organ player in Fritz? Pacheco? He should release “In the Dawn,” which was a topical, fiery political anthem. Stevie could add it to her tour set (which would really upset the apple cart).

I'd be ok with it if it was a decent piece of writing but it is terribly mundane and she picks her own pocket to absurdist heights.

I'm having trouble understanding why this would make her an opportunist. The overturning of Roe v. Wade was devastating for millions...why would we expect artists to not respond?

I think the problem that some people are having is that at the height of her fame when many of her peers were politically active and even went to protests (anti -nukes were big then) Stevie stayed mum . It is just odd to long time fans that she has recently decided to jump in. Like I mentioned I would not have a problem if it didn't majorly suck.

Spot on. She never put her neck out there like Madonna did for persons living with HIV/AIDS for example.

The Commercial Gods don't want you being devisive with your potential buyers.

ABOVE ALL, she wants to be on top.

Henley has been politically vocal and he's Irving's guy.

I think Stevie and her mgmt know she has a ton of conservatives in her fanbase. Because for most of her career Stevie's performance and image has been conservative, unlike Beyoncé, Blondie, Patti Smith, Lady Gaga, or Cher.

Henley is a MUCH bigger star than Stevie, IMO. He's the voice of the biggest American band ever. He and Glenn are(were) both douchebags. I think that's kind of their charm. We're assh*les.... but damn we're good.

It's funny you say you feel Don's a bigger star because Stevie used to say that when she did Leather and Lace in her solo set in 2011. Basically that she rarely did the song live because the person she sings it with "is more famous than me."
In 2011, I agree with her, but not now. I think American Horror Story and Harry Styles really helped Stevie Nicks become more famous than Eagles and Fleetwood Mac.

What is fame, anyway, but a brief cha-cha-cha with the drunken Bitch Goddess of Success?

Eye roll. Really?

Good point, but in this example I would say Madonna was much, much more affected by AIDS than Stevie… we all kind of think Stevie is sheltered and has her relatively small entourage, while Madonna was literally surrounded by hundreds of gay male dancers throughout her career, especially at the height of the AIDS crisis, so I can understand why was involved with that cause. Stevie did work for the American Heart Foundation, because of her father, so that cause was important to her.

I'm sure there was a time when Don was more famous than Stevie, but whenever that time was, it has long since passed.

I agree. Maybe it started in 2005 when he went on first on their Summer Tour, but she didn't think so.

She does revere him though. She showed up at his 70th Birthday concert and she asked him to do Leather and Lace with her at her RRHOF Induction. Could also be she views him as an elderly man whom she should give respect to now that he's 75:laugh:

I think that's an excuse for Stevie though. If you listen to her best friend Vanessa Carlton, Vanessa says artists have a responsibility to speak up. Vanessa was calling out rock bands for not acknowledging they stand on the shoulders of black blues players.
Stevie never made a post throughout her career to say "Black Lives Matter" when there were artists older than her like Streisand or Jagger who did. She never posted anything about Pride Month or the 50th Anniversary of Stonewall.

I believe Stevie doesn't want to lose conservative fans. The extermination of Roe is easy to speak out on because it's health care and the majority of the U.S. disagrees with the death of Roe.

I agree with this. She feels compelled to speak — and although it isn’t not opportunist, it is also a genuine urge to address something that means something to her. The sad thing is she lacks the political head and ingenuity to achieve that kind of big statement/original approach the best political songs invariably possess. Stevie is and always will be a self-absorbed writer, a weaver of words that address her private world in elliptical, semi-riddled language. Her solipsistic masterstrokes (Sara, Gypsy, Gold Dust Woman come to mind) are highly effective because she so clearly FEELS what would otherwise seem incoherent and opaque. And her passionate deliveries of mystical, private mythologies make them meaningful.

But when she’s trying to make a big public statement it doesn’t work. She is not a natural spokesperson for the masses. She is an enchanted and enchanting teller of coded confessions.

I love this ^^^. So beautifully written and I couldn't agree more.