[CarneVaca]

Originally posted by Johnny Stew
Music provides a form of self-expression that shouldn't be reigned in... it's not journalism, where being succinct is of the utmost importance.

Brevity does not necessarily follow from editing, though it is one of the desired effects. I just finished a freelance "editing" job that ended up becoming a rewriting job that went back with a net gain of words. In this case, the additional words were needed. This is a rare for me, admittedly.

And I agree with you that writing a song is not journalism.

So it's easy for us to say she should have re-worded something, or edited a few lines out... or, in some fans' opinions, trashed certain songs altogether.
But as the artist, she knows what she's trying to express lyrically, and in which manner she wishes to express it.

Johnny, there isn't a writer I know who has not struggled with coming to grips with what he/she was trying to express. Sometimes the artist simply doesn't know. It happens to me in my own writing. And when that happens, how you wish to express it becomes another challenge. Unless Stevie is the world's most extraordinary writer, she has struggled with this too. And in my opinion, the struggle is evident in some of her weaker songs, not because of the struggle process, mind you, but because the outcome wasn't that good.

I mean, we don't say Lindsey goes too far afield with his production choices, and he needs to keep that in check....

Yes, we do say it. In fact, you yourself say it quite a bit.

In regards to the art world, we wouldn't think to say that Picasso's "blue period" would have been so much more effective, if he had gone with red instead. Or that he shouldn't have indulged his depression with a monochromatic palette in the first place, as it doesn't supply enough contrast and variety.

I'm not sure that is a good parallel. While what you say about red being different from blue is true, painting and writing are quite different endeavours and activate different parts of the brain. Painting is far more visual than writing, which is half of 100 percent of three quarters mostly mental. Know what I mean?