Top 10 Stevie Songs, for those who are primarily Lindsey (or whoever else) fans.
 

We were discussing this in another thread, and I thought it'd be fun to invert jkmaletic's thread in the Lindsey forum and get some non-chiffonhead perspective on some of Stevie's work.

Unfortunately I, as a diehard Stevie fan, am totally unqualified to actually contribute to this thread. :laugh: But I wanted to get the ball rolling.

Do BuckHeads ever stop by these parts?


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Hello?

*ahem* Well, if you are out there, not-really-Stevie-fans, please feel free to give us your top 10 Stevie songs, or just some thoughts in general. :)

OK, I guess I would be in the non-Stevie fan demographic :shrug: since I'm a "Fleetwood Mac fan" first & foremost.

This list changes frequently, but at the moment:

10) Wide Sargasso Sea
9) If I Were You
8) Sable On Blond
7) Thousand Days
6) Violet & Blue
5) Thrown Down (the TISL outtake)
4) That Made Me Stronger
3) Has Anyone Ever Written Anything For You
2) No Spoken Word
1) Maybe Love Will Change Your Mind

"More-Than-Honorable" Mentions (aka "the 2nd 10"):
10) I Can't Wait
9) Blue Lamp
8) Talk To Me
7) Planets Of The Universe
6) Touched By An Angel
5) In Your Dreams
4) Street Angel
3) Italian Summer
2) Rooms On Fire
1) Ghosts Are Gone

You can include FM songs of hers, chiliD! But I really like the selection you've got there. Quite a varied and surprising list of songs. Thanks!

I find Wide Sargasso Sea an especially intriguing inclusion. I'm never sure quite what I think about that song.

That's the same way I generally feel.

Here's my favorite Stevie solo songs. :cool:

Edge of Seventeen
Leather and Lace
Talk to Me
Rooms on Fire
Blue Denim
Maybe Love Will Change Your Mind
New Orleans
For What It's Worth
Annabel Lee
Ghost Are Gone

In my own mind (and for my own sanity), I HAVE to keep Fleetwood Mac & Stevie's solo careers as separate entities. :laugh:

I get a little jiggy when those two worlds collide. (a similar feeling as when one's blood sugar gets too low!)


When Fleetwood Mac does one of her non-Fleetwood Mac songs, I think it is kinda cool (especially on the '87-88 tour when it was just her & Christine doing "Has Anyone Ever Written Anything For You"..."Stand Back" is just so-so, but I'd still rather hear Fleetwood Mac do that song than her own band). But, would prefer that they'd NOT do songs she originally did for her own albums.

And, I'm not all that enamored with the versions of her Fleetwood Mac songs when done outside of Fleetwood Mac. (the only exception is that live version of "Gold Dust Woman" she did with Sheryl Crow on Sheryl's Live In Central Park live album.)

That version is stellar. Stevie really knows when to ham it up for a recording.

Here's mine!
Sorry, but I made one list of her solo work, and another with FM!

01) Planets of the Universe
02) Twisted (the duet version with Lindsey)
03) Edge of Seventeen
04) If Anyone Falls
05) Outside the Rain
06) Talk to Me
07) Rooms on Fire
08) Stand Back
09) I Can't Wait
10) Juliet (for Book of Miracles, you know...)


With Fleetwood Mac
01) Straight Back
02) Sisters of the Moon
03) Gypsy
04) Silver Springs
05) Gold Dust Woman
06) Angel
07) Illume
08) Landslide
09) Sweet Girl
10) Sara

well, usually when we stop chiffs try to run us out on the rail so it becomes old. :laugh:

but i'll blame you and Jamie (and Nancy) for my stopping by this time around. i'll get to my list soon (if i can come up with 10 that i like :p :lol: :angel: ... ok ok i'll be nice).

I'll give it a shot. Disclaimer, I don't really know much of her solo work other than some of the 80s stuff, and pretty much only the hits.

These are in no particular order:

1. Dreams
2. Sisters of the Moon
3. Silver Springs
4. Gold Dust Woman
5. Frozen Love (I think this counts?)
6. I Don't Want to Know
7. Stop Draggin' My Heart Around
8. Leather and Lace
9. Edge of Seventeen
10. Destiny Rules

we have to. here it goes -

Edge of 17 - i knew this song but didn't know who the singer was, and was shocked when i realized this is a SN song. i didn't expect she could write a rocker like this! great song.

Gold Dust Woman - timeless, love it! (although when she's performing it live with FM i wish she'd get rid of that dragging-on-forever part at the end when audience watches in trance at her back in the golden shawl - they could fit another whole song in that same time).

Twisted (although this is cheating because i can't stand the version without Lindsey, he makes this song for me)

Sisters of the Moon
Angel
Landslide
Silver Springs
Everybody Loves You
Destiny Rules (that guitar outro! but that's cheating again i guess, i love this one because of Lindsey's guitar)
Stop Draggin' My Heart Around - another song i didn't know is hers. i knew this song forever, and always thought of it as just Tom Petty song. :shrug:

hey, i managed to list 10!!

That's really interesting to me. I simply can't separate the members' solo and Mac catalogues. I've always looked at FM kind of backwards, I think. I always seem to think of the members' Mac work as extensions of their solo releases, rather than the other way around, which is how I think most fans view it. To me, Stevie is a confessional singer-songwriter at heart (my favourite type of music), and she releases some of her songs on solo albums, and some on Mac albums where she shares space with other confessional singer-songwriters, but whether they fall onto a solo or Mac album is almost incidental to me. I view Lindsey's and Chris's work in much the same way. But I'm just a big weirdo.

:laugh: You get a prize!

Everyone has actually surprised and intrigued me with some of their choices (Everybody Loves You, for one). I'm really enjoying these.

Rarely ;)


But, I'll be brave and give it a go. I'm giving you NINETEEN songs!! How about that?!!


Beautiful Child
Storms
Angel
Sisters of the Moon
Sara

I love everything on Tusk, by all three writers. Some more than others, of course, but this is some of Stevie's best stuff. When I heard BC and Storms again, on vinyl, a couple years ago, I was awed at how beautiful they were. Angel is awesome.

Fireflies - LOVE this song. I just do

Without You - Never liked the recorded version (new or old), but I like it live, and I LOVE the lyrics.The lyrics are reallybeautiful. I think it's pretty amazing that, given all the crap that Lindsey gets thrown at him (people love attacking his character, as if he's the only person who ever made bad choices or did bad things) that someone (other than us Buckheads) looked at him, thought of him, and those words came out. Gorgeous.

Blue Denim - Obviously, I love any song about Lindsey, but this one, though very dated sounding, is still fun to sing along to, in a guilty pleasure sort of way.
Stand Back - Whenever I hear this, I crank it up, and if I'm standing, I will dance.

You May Be The One - I don't like much on her newest album. In fact, I think it's really weird how her most mature, and thoughtful lyrics (IMO) are mostly in her oldest songs. This song, however, stood out for me, and not just because it's about Linds...though that helps :p

Landslide
She Loves Him Still
The Highwayman
Long Distance Winner
That's Alright

These five songs...see above, regarding mature and thoughtful lyrics. These are so much deeper than her current stuff. So emotional. And it's weird to me (unless I'm screwed up time wise, not being a Stevie fan), that she was so precognizant with regard to her relationship with Lindsey. Anyways, all five are really great songs.

Silver Springs - This is when she shines. Blue green colors flashing is so, how do I explain it. I knew instantly what she meant and loved how she said it. It's just so...and I hate using this word, but...poetic :o When she gets away from vampires and fairies and unicorns (I'm kidding), and sticks to subjects that more people can relate to, is for me, when she's really good.

Say You Will - I like most of her stuff on SYW, but this is the standout. How anyone can NOT sing along to it is beyond me.

Gold Dust Woman - it's a perfect moody rocker, and it never grows old. Lindsey's guitar and production seal the deal, but it's her song, and I like it.

Gypsy - The lyrics, like with SS, just so perfectly paint a picture. And the melody suits the lyrics perfectly, as well. Though I mostly just listen to Lindsey's guitar (even on the recorded versions), I do in fact, love the song as a whole. One of her best.

Dreams - Not one of my very favorites, though, I do like it, and I wanted to mention it because I always thought it odd how Stevie said Dreams was all full of love and hope or whatever she said, and GYOW was all mean and nasty. I always thought the opposite was more true. GYOW was definitely in your face, but it wasn't all mean. The words to Dreams, however, are stinging! She strung together some awesome lines in this one. Hurtful honest thoughts.

I do like a few more of her songs, as well, but those are my top ones :nod:

I think it is a matter of where you came into the picture...if you were "in" before, say,
1980, before their solo careers started, I would think that you'd be in the Fleetwood Mac camp. Once Bella Donna & Law & Order came out, that's where the split started.

And, for those, like me who was around for the birth of the band in '67 and stayed an avid fan through all the personnel changes subsequently, it is carved in stone that Fleetwood Mac is first...the solo careers are just side projects. Which has infuriated me ever since '82, when the pendulum seemed to cross that mid point where Lindsey & Stevie seemed to have begrudgingly stayed in the band, but it was no longer their priority (hence the lapse in time between Mirage & Tango In The Night)...to me, they wasted Fleetwood Mac's time in the 80's and just should've quit outright after (well, I usually say "the Tusk tour", but moreso now...) after the Mirage tour. Between Stevie's reduced participation (which is glaringly obvious) and Lindsey's reluctance and eventual departure during & after Tango In The Night, it was obvious that after the Mirage tour, Fleetwood Mac was no longer their priority; they just wasted everybody's time & energy. They just should've gone off into the sunset with their solo careers and let Fleetwood Mac do what they do best, carry on with a new crew. I think that there would've been less negativity from fans toward new Fleetwood Mac members that would've joined in '83, than there was in '87 and definitely '94.

I'm ashamed to admit, I really struggle with Say You Will in some ways. I love the songwriting, and Stevie's own pride at having self-penned such a "commercial" song is infectious, but... The vocal is just all wrong, to me. I love her vocals on most of the album, but here her voice is just too harsh for such a poppy little ditty, and I think that hurts it. Had Chris still been in the band, I'm inclined to think they'd have given it to her to sing.

Really like all your selections and insights, Lindsfan. Your overcontribution is much appreciated. ;)

I agree with most of this. I certainly didn't give Fleetwood Mac much attention until I'd exhausted most of the more celebrated parts of her solo catalogue, so it's absolutely logical that I'd view the band in a way that reflects that.

I agree with you that their hearts weren't in the band once their solo careers hit, and leaving may have been the better option, perhaps improving the output of Stevie and Lindsey as well as Fleetwood Mac's continuing evolution. But I like much of their post-Tusk work in FM, so I guess I can't grumble too much about it. After all, how sad would it be if Gypsy had remained a Bella Donna outtake that nobody was all that crazy about? And I kind of like the dual-careers that Lindsey and Stevie carved out. It makes them unique and brings some variety to their work.

It's very significant, though, how many casual fans think that Stevie "left the band" in the 80s to pursue a solo career.

I love your point of view, and your song selections as well. You have excellent taste. :nod: