It's funny. "Without You" came up in my shuffle while I was driving today, and something just hit me.
One of the interesting things about both Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham as songwriters is that they are able to convey the complexity of human emotion. They don't really just write "June moon" love songs. They convey the idea of love hand in hand with the complications.
For example, I've heard "Landslide" described as a love song, but it's really not. I mean, you could debate what "Landslide" is really about for hours, but it's about A LOT of things: life decisions, aging, risk, loss of control.
By the same token, "Trouble" which is probably one of more straightforward songs by Lindsey Buckingham, the emphasis isn't on the love and warmth which is stirring. The hook and the musical punctuation keeps going back to the word "Trouble." Dude, I'm feeling feelings again and I should be getting out of here.
Anyway, what this is really about is "Without You," and what I was thinking listening to it today, was wow, this is probably the most straightforward love song that Nicks or Buckingham EVER did, and nowhere in the lyrics does it ever mention the word "love" or really even come close to mentioning it. It's actually much more overtly about making a mark on each other as artists.
Yeah, I know, this goes back to the fact that they're complicated people, and their writing really reflects that.
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