You Can't Fix This - Full Song

[WildHearted]

Originally Posted by bombaysaffires

Truth is, Stevie needs a strong editor, like all good writers. Lindsey was very good at it but B-R-U-T-A-L in the way he went about it a lot of the time. No wonder she's turned off by dealing with that again. Jimmy Iovine was also very good, IMHO, but again due to a personal falling out between them and too many drugs that ended.

I think she's too legendary and iconic now for any of these younger producers (and really, who's out there to produce her who is her age or older-- ok, besides Lindsey. I think Dave S. is a bit younger, but maybe close. And Iovine isn't producing anymore. Maybe Petty??) will dare tell her she's wrong.

I don't get the impression that Lindsey ever edited Stevie's writing in the sense that he was going through her lyrics with a red pen and fixing things.

I think Lindsey would say, "Look, this is too long. We have to cut some of it out so it can fit on a record." But I don't think that the words themselves were ever affected by him.

Her voice sounded better on this track than it did on a lot of things on IYD, in my opinion. It had more warmth and I was impressed with the wailing outro (which reminded me of a lot of her earlier solo work). Of course she doesn't sound like she did in 1978.... I wouldn't expect her too. Truth be told, she hasn't sounded like that in 30 years.

Stevie has said in the past that she would go through her journals and turn things into rhymes. The problem is she forgot to turn this into a rhyme.

I do think that at times, Stevie has 'edited' her writing. She'll go through and change maybe just a word or two, but I'm not sure it has anything to do with how it sounds as a song. For instance, we have a picture of Stevie's original 'Italian Summer' lyrics (which I can't find at the moment - maybe someone has them on hand).. and they're different from what ended up on the record. They're better than what ended up on the record, to me. Some of the things about the studio version that made me cringe didn't exist in it's first incarnation. I have to wonder why she felt the need to change it/add those things in.