Bella Donna Bella Donna Bella Donna

[rose.gypsy]

Originally Posted by SapphireSister

Do tell...what else has she stolen?

how long have you been a fan sister of the jewel?


here is just some of the stuff.

thanks tiff


From "The Picture Of Dorian Gray" by Oscar Wilde

Wilde: "Out of the unreal shadows of the night comes the real life that we had known."

Stevie (Rooms On Fire): "Somewhere out of the back of your mind comes your real life and the life that you know."

Wilde: "He hated to be separated from the picture that was such a part of his life,"

Stevie (Rooms On Fire): "he hated to be separated... from that picture"

Wilde: "He would laugh at anyone who tried to taunt him"

Stevie (Rooms On Fire): "she laughed and she cried and she tried to taunt him"

From "Tragedy of One's Own Soul" by Oscar Wilde

Wilde: "Yet, after some time, he wearied of them, and would sit in his box at the Opera, either alone or with Lord Henry, listening in rapt pleasure to Tannhauser, and seeing in the prelude to that great work of art a presentation of the tragedy of his own soul." (Tragedy Of One's Soul) "presentation of the tragedy of his own soul" "For some reason or other, the house was crowded that night..."

Stevie (Tragedy of One's Own Soul): "House is full tonight"

Wilde: "'I like men who have a future, and women who have a past,' he answered."

Stevie (Paper Doll): "you like a man with a future... you like a woman with a past"

Wilde: "A huge fire was blazing."

Stevie (Fire Burning): "A huge fire was burning"

Wilde: "His eyes grew strangely bright."

Stevie (Fire Burning): "And her eyes grew strangely bright"

Wilde: "When that high spirit, that morning star of evil, it was as a rebel that he fell."

Stevie (Freedom): "Beautiful as you are, with that high spirit... morning star of evil hit me"

Wilde: "Dim and wavering as was the wind-blown light, yet it served to show him the hideous error, into which he had fallen,"

Stevie (Freedom): "Dim and wavering on a wind-blown night" & "As was the wind-blown night into which she'd fallen"

From "The Birthday Of The Infanta" by Oscar Wilde

Stevie's song Have No Heart parallels the story of The Birthday of the Infanta.

Wilde: "'But why will he not dance again?' asked the Infanta, laughing."

Stevie (Have No Heart): "why will he not dance again"

Stevie (Have No Heart): "If he had lived, well, he might have made the king smile"

Wilde: "'For the future let those who come to play with me have no hearts,' she cried, and she ran into the garden"

Stevie (Have No Heart): "well, in the future send no one to me who has a heart"

From "The Happy Prince" by Oscar Wilde

Wilde: "'I am waited for in Egypt,' said the Swallow."

Stevie (Kick It): "Well I'm waited for in Egypt"

Wilde: "'I will stay with you one night longer' said the Swallow."

Stevie (Kick It): "I'll stay with you one more night"

From "Madonna Mia" by Oscar Wilde

Wilde: "A LILY-GIRL, not made for this world's pain/ With brown, soft hair close braided by her ears/ And longing eyes half veiled by slumberous tears/ Like bluest water seen through mists of rain"

Stevie (Lily Girl): "She was a Lily Girl, not made for this world/ Veiled eyes covering nights of tears, nights of tears/ Like the blue, blue water and the crystal fountains"

From "Rappaccini's Daughter" by Nathaniel Hawthorne


Stevie's song Running Through The Garden parallels the story of Rappucini's Daughter.

Hawthorne: "'That this lovely woman,' continued Baglioni, with emphasis, 'had been nourished with poisons from her birth upward, until her whole nature was so imbued with them that she herself had become the deadliest poison in existence.'"

Stevie (Running Through The Garden): "until she herself became the deadliest poison, as she grew older"

From The Complete Works of Edgar Allen Poe


Poe ("Eulalie"): "Now doubt-- now pain come never again"

Stevie (Planets of the Universe): "No doubt, no pain come ever again"

Poe ("Dream-Land"): "Mountains toppling evermore Into seas without a shore"

Stevie (Planets of the Universe): "They go into the seas that have no shores"

Poe ("Dream-Land"): "Seas that restlessly aspire, Surging, unto skies of fire"

Stevie (Planets of the Universe): "Looking up at skies on fire"

Poe ("Serenade"): "The wearied light is lying down, and earth, and stars, and sea, and sky are redolent with sleep"

Stevie (Planets of the Universe): "The bright light is lying down, the earth and the sea and the sky is at rest with the ocean"

Stevie's "Annabel Lee" demo is the Poe poem set to melody.

From The Telltale Heart by Edgar Allen Poe


Poe's story centers around a man who commits a murder and hide's his victim's heart beneath a floorboard. He is haunted by the sound of the heart beating, until his guilt drives him mad and he confesses.

Stevie (Dreams): "Like a heartbeat drives you mad, in the stillness of remembering..."

From "Wuthering Heights" (film version)


Film: "He was my friend long before you"

Stevie (Gypsy Beggars): "he was my friend long ago, before you"

Film: "Why did you stay so long in that house?"

Stevie (Gypsy Beggars): "Why did you stay so long in that house"
Film: "So that beggar's dirt is on you"

Stevie (Gypsy Beggars): "and the beggar's dust"

Film: "Some of that gypsy's evil soul has gone into you, I think"

Stevie (Gypsy Beggars): "somewhere in his gypsy soul"

Film: "Why have you that silk frock on, then?"

Stevie (Gypsy Beggars): "why this silk dress"

Film: "If he loved you with all the power of his soul for the whole lifetime, he couldn't love you as much as I do in a single day. Not he, not the world. Not even you Cathy can come between us."

Stevie (Wild Heart): "Not even you can tear us apart"

Film: "Oh my wild heart!"

Stevie (Wild Heart): "my wild heart"

Film: "I would live silently contented in your shadow"

Stevie (Beauty & The Beast): "I would fall in your shadow"

From "A Tale Of Two Cities" by Charles Dickens

Dickens: "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times"

Stevie (Not Make Believe): "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times"

From The Mabinogion Tetralogy by Evangeline Walton

In Welsh folklore, Rhiannon was a mytological figure with three birds that were said to take away pain with their song.

Stevie (Stay Away): "Well in the seven books of Rhiannon another of the treasures were the three birds, that the birds of Rhiannon sing away the pain... take away the darkness, and sing you golden rainbows. Just this minute the three birds are flying in perfect formation... the emerald, the gold and the snow white... because they have lived forever."

Walton (The Prince Of Annwyn): "...a Bird that is not Mine" & "Three birds flew around Her head, and their song was sweet. "

Stevie (Maker Of Birds/Three Birds of Rhiannon): "a bird that is not mine, three birds that belong to her"

Walton (The Prince of Annwyn): "One was as tenderly green as the leaves, one shown white as snow, and the third flashed like a sunbeam."

Stevie (Maker Of Birds/Three Birds of Rhiannon): "one emerald green, one snow white, one golden flashing like a sunbeam through the night"

Walton (The Prince Of Annwyn): "A woman sat there, and it was from her that the light in that place came."

Stevie (Maker Of Birds/Three Birds of Rhiannon): "the light and the face were the same"

Walton (The Prince Of annwyn): "Her hair shone, it streamed red gold to her noble, high-arched feet..."

Stevie (Maker Of Birds/Three Birds of Rhiannon): "her hair shone... streamed blonde and gold"

Walton (The Prince Of Annwyn): "her one thin garment hid no more than the water would."

Stevie (Maker Of Birds/Three Birds of Rhiannon): "her gown was no more than the water could cover"

Walton (The Prince Of Annwyn): "They stood in green plain, and She raised Her white arms, and from beneath each arm a white horse came. The horses met, they pranced and cuveted, they became many horses and danced, light as leaves upon the wind."

Stevie (Maker Of Birds/Three Birds of Rhiannon): "and the white mares danced"

Walton (The Children Of Llyr): "I have given him a little light, and it is burning him worse than his own fire"

Stevie (Sara): "said you'd give me light, but you never told me about the fire"
Walton (The Children Of Llyr): "She [Branwen] was a poet, and it [the starling] was her pupil"

Stevie (Sara): makes reference to a starling, and "the poet in my heart".

Walton (The Children Of Llyr): "A hawk may take the starling, or storms drown her in the sea, or she may forget all and follow a lover,"

Stevie (Sara): "drowning in the sea of love".

Walton (The Children Of Llyr): "Sleep came once more, like a great, dark, soft wing"

Stevie (Sara): "like a great dark wing"

Walton (The Children Of Llyr): "Night is coming, and I will get sleepy"

Stevie (Sara): "Hold on, the night is coming"

Walton (The Children Of Llyr): "Long and lonely was the [starling's] flight"

Stevie (Sara): "and the starling flew for days"

Walton (Island Of The Mighty): "...and the sickly light, struggling to pierce the veils of night, gives all the earth a wan and distorted strangeness, like a dead face seen through the fog."

Stevie (Angel): "ghost through the fog"

Walton (Island Of The Mighty): "That charmed hour when neither light or darkness has power, and the creatures of both seem to scurry, mist-shrouded and inhuman, through the unsettled spheres"

Stevie (Angel): "like a charmed hour"


St. Cecilia

Cecilia was a martyr condemned to death by suffocation. She is often associated with roses & lillies (red & white), because she was said to be crowned with them by an angel.

Stevie (Cecilia): "If I cannot breathe, then I cannot dream" & "Suffer your love" & "Where have the white birds flown" & "Cecilia... long red cape".
From "The Dark at the Top of the Stairs" by William Inge



Melusine

The mythological Melusine was a water sprite who was cursed to turn into a serpent from the waist down every Saturday night. She married her lover on the one condition that he could never see her on Saturday evenings. He broke his promise by secretly observing her, and Melusine fled to live alone. Read more: Melusina Myth, by Homiera Foth.

Stevie (Melacine/The Witch): Melacine lived alone by the sea...

[GateandGarden]

Originally Posted by GypsySorcerer

Completely agree.

I agree, too. To me, there's some cheap aspect of every album cover except TISL. I'm still a big fan of BD and Timespace, though.

[GypsySorcerer]

Originally Posted by GateandGarden

I agree, too. To me, there's some cheap aspect of every album cover except TISL. I'm still a big fan of BD and Timespace, though.

I like BellaDonna too. It's my favorite after TISL. RAL is my least favorite.

[dissention]

Originally Posted by GypsySorcerer

I like BellaDonna too. It's my favorite after TISL. RAL is my least favorite.

Same here. I do like the WH album cover a bit, too. It's very warm and Stevie-ish. The RAL one, though, sheesh. That horrific veil and matching dress make her look like she's going to an mobster's wake, and her nostrils are so large that you could probably fly one (or two) 747's through each one and out the other.

[darklinensuit]

Originally Posted by dissention

Same here. I do like the WH album cover a bit, too. It's very warm and Stevie-ish. The RAL one, though, sheesh. That horrific veil and matching dress make her look like she's going to an mobster's wake, and her nostrils are so large that you could probably fly one (or two) 747's through each one and out the other.

No, you could fly a belt in, though.
I love this cover. It's so simple, she looks hot IMO, she's almost smiling - in the other covers she looks sad or pissed or scared. Plus it's like she's caught in mid-spin while she's playing dress-up in oversized clothes. The cover captures a fun side of Stevie. I just love it.

- Jake

[GypsySorcerer]

Originally Posted by dissention

Same here. I do like the WH album cover a bit, too. It's very warm and Stevie-ish. The RAL one, though, sheesh. That horrific veil and matching dress make her look like she's going to an mobster's wake, and her nostrils are so large that you could probably fly one (or two) 747's through each one and out the other.

Yeah, that veil is the pits. Actually, as I've said many times, I pretty much hate everything about RAL. (except "If I Were You")

[GODDESS6]

i think she look hot on that cover, yeah the boots make her seem overly long-legged, but i still think it is gorgeous~ but... the back picture to me is the one i woulda put on the cover, that close up of Stevie, is absolutely flawless & gorgeous, thru all the years & photo after photo i have seen this is still one of my favs!!!~

[KarmaContestant]

Such loving, loyal fans. No wonder the woman is still touring....all these sucker fans will gladly pay to see her perform the same songs 20 years running....even if they don't buy her records. Why go into the studio when your hardcore fans do nothing but complain about your songs, your writings, accuse you of stealing lyrics, and bitch that your album covers are shoddy, cheap and a rip off of someone else's idea. For the record, Stevie says that she concieved the cover of Bella Donna in a dream....where she saw a bright vertical white line, against a dark background. She realized the bright light was herself, coming in out of the darkness. She talks about this in her Rolling Stone interview, the issue where she is on the cover with the bird.

Then again, she probably stole this dream from someone else, too.

I realize that everyone is entitled to their own opinions (which is exactly why I feel comfortable here expressing my own)....but, gosh, why all the unnecessary cruelty?

Anyway, that being said, I still like all of you.

[darklinensuit]

Originally Posted by KarmaContestant

Such loving, loyal fans. No wonder the woman is still touring....all these sucker fans will gladly pay to see her perform the same songs 20 years running....even if they don't buy her records. Why go into the studio when your hardcore fans do nothing but complain about your songs, your writings, accuse you of stealing lyrics, and bitch that your album covers are shoddy, cheap and a rip off of someone else's idea. For the record, Stevie says that she concieved the cover of Bella Donna in a dream....where she saw a bright vertical white line, against a dark background. She realized the bright light was herself, coming in out of the darkness. She talks about this in her Rolling Stone interview, the issue where she is on the cover with the bird.

I love the cover of that issue.

- Jake

[KarmaContestant]

Originally Posted by darklinensuit

I love the cover of that issue.

- Jake

Me too.

[catinthedark]

Originally Posted by amber

I don't like it, either - but I don't like Stevie's hair on it, or something. I don't like the bird, either, but....
I DO like Nixxed's bird. A lot. Makes me laugh every time.

I've nothing to add about the Bella Donna cover. I just think Amber is the cutest damned little photogenic kid EVAH!!!

On edit: I tried to copy it over. Didn't work. But you've all seen it...

[KarmaContestant]

Originally Posted by ReFleetwoodMac

I've always wondered how the hardcore fans can hate so much about the artists they love. It always amused me that everyone at the ledge seemed to hate so very much about Fleetwood Mac.

Well, it is said that you can only truly hate someone that you once loved...

[David]

Originally Posted by ReFleetwoodMac

I've always wondered how the hardcore fans can hate so much about the artists they love.

would you mind lending me your copy of "Principles of Fanaticism" with its chapter on the proper ratio of love to hate? I seem to have misplaced mine.

It always amused me that everyone at the ledge seemed to hate so very much about Fleetwood Mac.

Does it amuse you? That's nice. All is not lost, then.

[LilyRose]

For the record I never said I hated anything. Hate is a strong word. I just said I don't particularly care for the album covers...they're just not my taste. It doesn't make me dislike Stevie herself or her songs. Criticism doesn't equal hate.

Susie

[KarmaContestant]

Originally Posted by ReFleetwoodMac

I seem to have offended people anyway.

Nah. No one here seems to truly be offended, that easily.