Alice In Wonderland?
 

Has anyone been able to decipher the actual Alice in Wonderland story from The Other Side of the Mirror? I know she's said it's a "loose" story, but still?
I've actually just recently purchased it on I-tunes. (That and Rock a Little) because they were the only Stevie albums I don't have. The rest I have physical copies of.

So I'm really only familiar with a handful of the songs from each (Whatever's on Enchanted/Timespace/Crystal Visions), and haven't listened to the album itself close enough to hear the story.

Has anyone been able to?

Good question. I certainly cannot see the story in the album, except for:

A kind of rambling narritive to start (ROF)

A bit of carrying on about relationships (Long Way to Go, 2 Kinds of Love)

A slide into loneliness and trouble (Ooh My Love, Ghosts, WLT)

Some kind of disaster (Fire Burning)

Betrayal and a retreat into fantasyland (Cry Wolf, Alice)

A desperate attempt at one more rip at fun and fame (Juliet)

Utter defeat (DTBTIC)

A bittersweet reggae hymn to the one who started it all (Blue Eyes)

She seems to be playing different characters throughout.

"A bittersweet reggae hymn to the one who started it all." LOL! :laugh:

I don't know that I would include I Still Miss Someone (Blue Eyes) in the flow of the album, Stevie only recorded the Johnny Cash classic because she always liked it and had no intention of putting it on the album, at best it would be a b side. She was shocked to see it made it to the album.

This song is really out of place on this album.

She was shocked that ISMS made it on the album? Isn't she the one who ultimate decides what goes on there? I know Iovine put the kibosh on "Julia" for Bella Donna, but surely by the time TOSOTM rolled around, she was calling the shots, as far as that went.

And I like her rendition quite a bit and think it fits on the album perfectly.

Was she just so zonked out on Klonopin that she let everyone else decide what was going to be on her album or is this just commonplace that artists have no say as to what songs actually get put on a record? I could understand if this was a FM album and the band chose to put a song on (a la Silver Springs/IDWK) but you'd think the songs on her solo album would be her choice, no?

Oh, how I love to dissect Stevie lyrics :D

It's not really about the story of Alice in Wonderland...I think it's actually about herself and drugs...the woman she used to be and the drug addict she became.

Well I heard she flew down to the Mountain City
~ the lady from the mountain thing again, obviously talking about herself.
He said, "That's not what I heard...I hear she went higher."
She depended on her friends to tell her when to stop it
~ She'd depended on her friends to keep an eye on her, to tell her when her drug use and her life was getting out of control, and to stop what she was doing.
To make a statement...this is me talking to you
~ She's saying that she was telling herself that things had gotten out of control.

]Like Alice through the Looking Glass...
She used to know who she was
~ The person that she'd become...the drug addict, etc...was the flip side of the Stevie coin. She used to know who she was but the drugs and the lifestyle she was leading had changed her.
Call out my name...call out my name
But I get no answer...she prays...
~ Meaning that she wanted to get back to who she used to be but she couldn't do it.

"Better run for your life!" cried the Mad Hatter
"Alright," said Alice..."I'm going back...
To the other side of the mirror...I'm going back..."
~ The Mad Hatter is actually that part of herself that knew she needed to save herself. She was telling the drug addict Stevie to stop doing drugs & to get her life back under control...to get back to the other side.
Oh no, you cannot tell a gypsy...ooh, that she's no longer a member
Become a deadly weapon now...along with everything else
~ This is about her being reckless. She knew she needed to get things under control but, at the same time, she didn't want to be left out of the party, to no longer be a member of that rock and roll lifestyle. So, she continued doing drugs and living it up knowing that it could kill her. Through her drug use and her recklessness, she had become the deadly weapon and she could kill herself at any time.
Oh call my name...
~ but there was still that part of her that wanted to be the Stevie she used to be.

Like Alice through the Looking Glass...
She used to know who she was
Call out my name (like Alice through the Looking Glass)
but I get no answer (she used to know who she was)
~ again, same meaning as above
And she prays for the world that she comes from
~ she prays that she can get back to who she used to be before she became an addict.

Each had their own charm...
Buried beneath a solid piece of armour...or a steel plated vest
Some carry a stiletto in their garter along with everything else --
that they carry...Oh, call my name...
~ Meaning that there were pros and cons to being both the Stevie she used to be and the drug-addicted Stevie she had become.

so on and etc.

Then again, this could all be absolute garbage. :)

I'd have to find the interview where she says this, but she submitted the album and I believe Rupert Hine ( the producer) had wanted her to put the song on the album, but she felt it was a b side if anything. So after she ok'd the album he stuck it on at the end. She wasn't upset about it or anything but she didn't intend on it being on the album.

This is one thing that has always baffled me about Stevie, her lack of confidance in herself. I mean she believes in her music and identifies herself as a true poet. But, in the past maybe because of her addictions she hasn't always assirted herself. I mean she's the Queen of Rock & Roll...but yet she's Just Like A Women... Although, she does like to hide behind her current management team.

Wow! I can't believe I didn't keep up on this thread. It seemed like no one was really paying attention to it so I forgot about it.

Didn't know Blue Eyes wasn't intended to fit on the album. I think it seems appropriate sticking it on the end, I kind of figured it like the way mitzo said.
-It didn't seem out of place to me. Although I think Doing the Best I Can could fit as a good ending too.

After listening to the album a few times, I can now decipher a tragic story somewhat. (With the aid of other ledgies interpretations I've pulled up here and there :P)

But it's not really the Alice-in-Wonderland-story per-say. Like, she really just uses it as a metaphor for that one song. I originally thought that the album was a concept album of the entire Alice In Wonderland story, not just the song Alice using reference to it.

Silly me.:] Don't mind me though, I did only just finally get this album a few weeks ago....

By the way,
I don't know what it was like then, but I'm pretty sure nowadays it's ultimately the record company executives that decide what make the final cut of an album.

Like, the artist will filter out which demos they've made/been submitted that they like, then they will record overall what they would want on an album, then the company picks the "best tracks" (so they say....)

So essentially, the artist does pick most of it, but they don't pick the final tracklisting. Whether they're the ones who are allowed to sequence it, I don't know. Probably.

I don't know if that's the case for everything, but I heard that's what they did for Avril Lavigne's "Goodbye Lullaby", which ended up turning into a train wreck of a concept album of what she originally wanted. Like, she got a few of her songs on there, but overall they picked how the album turned out.

I do recall Stevie saying in an interview that she saw a similarity between Alice living on both sides of the mirror and herself living on both sides of her career... i.e., that she had the FM world and the solo career world, and how she was constantly scurrying back and forth between the two sides of the mirror and how difficult it was....

I've always been intrigued by the line "oh no you cannot tell a gypsy..that she's no longer a member" .... does anyone know if this relates literally to some event in the band where they threatened to kick her out or if she didn't show up they'd make whatever album without her or... ?

There was an interview from 1989 where Stevie said that they recorded more songs than would fit, and she let Rupert Hine and the men decide which songs made it to the OSOTM album. She said it was too hard of a choice for her. I think the interview was on the "Reflections From The Other Side Of The Mirror" promo interview album, but I'm not sure.

I'm going to have to give the album a top to bottom spin again. It was released 23 years ago this past weekend. I was a senior in high school at the time and also at the time I fell in love with the album instantly. Back then I considered it her best album. I still really like the album, but wouldn't say it's her best.