The Lighthouse: September 27, 2024

[David]

Originally Posted by sue

I have listened to The Lighthouse a few times and it has grown on me, (a bit)
I quite like the rousing feel it gives.
The song has a definite message and in that instance gives an anthem feel.
(Bit of overkill really..)

I do not pretend to understand US law, regarding Abortion.
But the message about a woman’s rights is Universal.

It was not grabbing me musically. The hook isn’t there. I’ve always thought that if you have a weak or nonexistent hook, you’d better make the song up-tempo. But this is a down-tempo dirge without musical ear candy. (Naturally, your ears may vary.)

Someone in this thread (sorry I can’t recall who) said that the lyrics were a little too concrete and simplistic, or nonfigurative. I don’t think I mind that — in fact, there are times I really prefer that from Stevie. But there’s something about this lyric that doesn’t feel genuine to me. It feels like a trendy statement. Stevie may not understand that a political statement (which she wants to make here) is more powerful when it feels like a blood-and-flesh extension of the writer. When you believe that the writer has more skin in the game as opposed to an opinion or general conviction — a position paper — you give yourself over to them. Remember “Lady”? None of us talked about it at the time — not really— but that was a feminist anthem that grew organically out of Stevie’s own personal brush with feeling shut out or cornered by bossy men.

I'm tired of knocking on doors
When there's nobody there

I believed her so much more than I believe her in the new song. “Lady” is a “concrete” lyric from Stevie’s soul, married to the perfect plaintive melody — and she wrote it over fifty years ago. “Lady” and “Landslide” and “Bella Donna” say more about a woman being unjustly ramrodded in the music world than we ever realized. The trick with the lyric is to advocate for a woman to personalize and enrich your advocacy for women. With “The Lighthouse,” Stevie sat down to write a capital-S Statement, and it seems mechanistic and tuneless. She did the same thing in “Show Them the Way,” and none of us bought that either.

The time keeps going on by
And I wonder what is to become of me
And I’m unsure, I can’t see my way
And he says, “Lady, you don’t have to see”

This is all Stevie ever really needed to say on the matter. Amazing that this came out of a woman in her early 20s — a woman who wasn’t Joni Mitchell or Laura Nyro.