Interesting Interview with Word Magazine

[sparky]

Originally Posted by michelej1

Your comments assume that interest in her relationships doesn't also tell us something about ourselves and that that's not the draw in the first place.

Sadly I think this is chicken and egg theory. I think the songs are the intial draw. The music is the magic. Beyond that, I think the vocal majority then begins to turn their fascination to her personal life. And completely neglects personal meaning for a focus on her life. Then it veers towards cult of celebrity.

Just because not everyone takes the same road into their own head as you do, doesn't make them shallow. Michele

I wasn't implying that the mere interest in her personal backstory makes a person or their interpretations shallow. But I would say that the real point is that people often don't even bother to go into their own heads very deep at all. Or very deep into the songs at all. The point becomes focused on Stevie, and not why the songs have meaning to each person. In my opinion that is a missed opportunity.

Clearly you, and a few other people, have articulated how Stevie's songs and other things have connected with them on a personal level. I appreciate that, and find it meaningful and interesting. I believe, as I said before, that the higher purpose of art is exactly that. What did the art do to you? How did it illuminate your journey through life? How did it shine light into the paths you are trudging through? That is where the real stuff is. And it is as bright as neon that such things are what Stevie is after and finds most rewarding about her songs. How do they help people? She is very upfront about that.

I don't honestly expect people to spill their guts about their deep emotional connections to her songs on every other post. That is what close friends are for. But I maintain that there is much more conversation about her personal connections and personal inspirations on this forum than the actual emotional impact they have on people. And god forbid, how the music plays a part in that. She is completely complicit in that, as she is now much more open about who the songs are about than ever before. It is my opinion that such statements detract from her art. Good for her for being open. But I think it is at a cross purpose to her greater calling.

For God's sake there is a new thread here about if she and Lindsey did or did not hook up during the Dance. I am not above gossip, but I believe such fascination contributes to people utterly missing the point of what her songs can do as pieces of art in the lives of those who listen to her. I doubt she wrote a single song with the intention of having people trying to speculate over when she did or did not have sex with Lindsey at some point of their lives. Maybe she is opening that door, but I for one am not interested in walking through it.

Stevie's legendary prudishness aside, I think it is kind of crude. And a bit stalkerish.

Oh, and Chris? I stand corrected. It is definitely a snow globe and not a crystal ball.

[seekerj]

Originally Posted by sparky

I also think this is an interesting article for the computer baby revelation alone.

I don't blame her for finding new ways of getting past the drug fascination in interviews. It is the most base thing about her identity. It hardly makes her unique among artists or musicians. It is about as interesting as her bleached blonde hair.

What is slightly more interesting is her now on again focus on Lindsey as her muse. Sometimes it is off again, but now it is on, and I am perhaps the only person in fandom who finds it so sad, boring, unhealthy and utterly uninteresting. Who cares if it is true? The only thing less interesting than her dwelling on it is the endless fascination that fans have with it.

The true value of of art is how it moves us relative to our own experiences. Is anyone out there sobbing over "You May Be The One" or HAEWAFY because it is about Whoever the hell she wrote it about? No. It is because it reminds us of our own loss, and expresses something we have been unable to express of our own volition and talent. Good art moves people because it stirs inaccessible or difficult to express feelings within them - relative to their own lives. Not because they are living vicariously through people they have never met and will never know intimately.

I have no knowledge of other rabid fan groups, but I have never talked to another Joni Mitchell fan who endlessly references Larry Klein when talking about how the songs on Night Ride Home are so great. Is that because Joni never mentions him? I dunno. Chicken or egg. Maybe Stevie encourages all this bs by constantly talking about Lindsey.

The thing that I find lost in not only Stevie's harping on Lindsey, but also in the discussion of her most potent songs, is why in the hell these songs affect people so much. It is almost an endless circle of denial and shame about why her songs have such deep meaning to them. I appreciate the fact that she is so open about her influences, as much as I find the LB references tiresome. If nothing else, I have always loved TLH for her honesty. But there is a strange dichotomy between the reverence fans have for her backstory and the wide open blank pages about why the songs have resonance to them. I have almost ZERO interest in her inspirations for her songs. Almost ZERO. What amazes me is that she so often captures my emotional experiences at the perfect times of my life when she puts the songs out.
And that helps me to learn more about myself and has been invaluable in helping me to traverse the sometimes difficult moments I encounter in my own life.

Such personal discussion is ridiculously, glaringly, and shockingly absent from almost all exchanges about her songwriting. It is a black hole that leaves me both shocked and dismayed. I am not sure if it indicates a shallowness among most Stevie fans or a lack of insight that her most ardent fans have into their own psyches. She writes some shattering, jarring and devastating pieces of music about the deepest of emotional experiences and all people have to say is "LINDSEY LINDSEY LINDSEY".
Or maybe, "OMG IS IT ABOUT JOE?"

Seriously, folks?

Do people think that her songs are merely a Shawl draped National Enquirer version of her love life thrown onto tape for her own personal edification? And the one who figures it out gets a made in china crystal ball from a Hollywood Blvd gift shop as a grand prize?

The LB or other past lover song inspiration obsession reminds me of a bad B movie scenario. A gifted Freudian psychotherapist has just delivered a 6 phrase response to a very sad and lifelong troubled patient and has explained the origin, nature of, and solution to a problem that has haunted them for many years. In those 6 phrases all is explained. The seed, the problem, and the solution. And the patient bolts out of the chair and screams, "This is all about your mother, Freud! And you based your research on a bunch of mentally ill women and drug addicts! I finally figured you out!" and promptly runs screaming from the room. And the patient spends the rest of their lives repeating that to everyone they ever meet. In the process, they forget everything the therapist ever said to them. The key to their freedom is lost.

Bitch was truest of all in her writing in these lines: "Don't listen to her, listen through her."

It amazes me, these 35 years of hearing her voice, that so many people cannot, and WILL NOT hear that.

Thank you so much for writing this. All of it. Thank you, thank you. I think I'm in love with you now.

[glamorousnymph]

Hmm. I love parsing lyrics. LOVE. I love trying to figure out what she was thinking when she wrote them. Sometimes, I'll admit, it's a letdown when I find out what she really meant or what she wants people to think she really meant (welfare line?) but that fades. I love making up my own stories to the songs. Ex: someone had a theory about how Gold Dust Woman was written about an abortion she had, and I made it fit by examining the lyrics in more detail. I never thought of GDW in this way before, but it opened my eyes to enjoying the lyrics in a new way.

I will admit something here and now, that I don't think I've heard many fans say, so I realize I'm in the minority: many of Stevie's songs don't speak to me in the same way that, say, some of Joni Mitchell's or Bob Dylan's do. I don't think I've ever heard a Stevie lyric that sparked recognition in me the whole way through. Maybe Dreams and Storms. But some of her lyrics are too opaque, too amateur, or stuck in the mystical for *me* to truly relate to. I can't make the songs fit into my emotional experiences as easily as others. It happens, but not as often, and usually it's just one bit of a song rather than the whole song. Does this mean I am not worthy of enjoying the music? What can I say? I still buy the albums, still think she's great. I don't think there is a "wrong" way to enjoy it.

[LilyRose]

Originally Posted by glamorousnymph

Does this mean I am not worthy of enjoying the music? What can I say? I still buy the albums, still think she's great. I don't think there is a "wrong" way to enjoy it.

Thank you! *claps*

I'm not going to judge how anyone listens to music, just as long as they do.

[michelej1]

Originally Posted by sparky

For God's sake there is a new thread here about if she and Lindsey did or did not hook up during the Dance. I am not above gossip, but I believe such fascination contributes to people utterly missing the point of what her songs can do as pieces of art in the lives of those who listen to her. I doubt she wrote a single song with the intention of having people trying to speculate over when she did or did not have sex with Lindsey at some point of their lives. Maybe she is opening that door, but I for one am not interested in walking through it.

I don't think most people even get to the Ledge unless the music spoke to them in the first place. Yes, in 1977 when the press was chronicling the break ups, maybe people became interested for that reason, but now that the band is middle aged, I don't think people are hanging out because they're obsessed with their personal lives. It's the music that brought them here in the first place.

People discuss it, because that's what you discuss on a bulletin board. Look at the Pre-Rumours section. There is no question that people were and are deeply moved by the early incarnations of this band, but there's no way to easily articulate what the music means to you and why in a way that others care about. So, in that forum, they tend to discuss the technical aspects of the songs, dates and specific performances recorded. Their Pre-Rumours discussions aren't dilluted with talk of affairs and divorce, but that doesn't mean they're having more substantive and soulful conversations about the emotional impact of the music. They aren't. And that's not because Green Manalashi fans are less inspired than Dreams fans. It's because personal reflection on the impact of music doesn't lend itself to ongoing conversation really.

I don't think celebrity gossip is obscuring or eclipsing anything. Take it away and it's not like you're going to suddenly get gritty analysis and revelations in its place. As the subject implies: "what this music means to me on a personal level" is a rather internal inquiry and it doesn't generate much public traction. That doesn't mean the inquiry isn't being made and answered by everyone. In fact, I don't think people would be here discussing anything if it weren't. Because there is much better gossip to be gotten in other places. As they go, FM artists are a poor substitute for Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, in that department.

Michele

[michelej1]

Originally Posted by glamorousnymph

I will admit something here and now, that I don't think I've heard many fans say, so I realize I'm in the minority: many of Stevie's songs don't speak to me in the same way that, say, some of Joni Mitchell's or Bob Dylan's do.

For me, it's rarely just a song all the way through that speaks to me. It's usually a line and the way that it's sung that gets me going. For instance, I was listening to Stumbling In the other day and just the way Quatro sings, "I may have been young, but honey that's not what I wanted to be," sets me off on a tangent about feeling like the naive one in the relationship; being discounted; possessing adult emotions without the experience needed to control them; perceived sexual immaturity. All those things start racing through my mind, memories from my youth, and they probably wouldn't have, if the singer had delivered the line differently.

That's how it is with Stevie's songs. There's a certain passion or catch in her voice the way she sings a line or a chorus that kind of elevates the whole song and makes a simple sentence take on the meaning of a book. And I guess the more I know about the creation of a song, the more certain I become that the little catch I thought I heard in the delivery was not my imagination and really had the same meaning for the singer as it did for me.

I don't know why this should matter, but it does. For instance, I was so taken by Calumny and when I grabbed the liner notes and saw that Christine didn't write it, but her nephew did, I admit it bothered me. That pain in her voice when he tore the petals one by one, testing their love to prove that it's done . . . I somehow wanted to think that that pain was real, not just the work of a skilled vocalist. When you think the ache you hear is genuine, it changes the music. Makes it a story, not just a song.

Michele

[chele_belle]

Originally Posted by WildHearted

On a different note.... is this a hypothetical '57 Chevy, or do they really have one?

Haha! I thought the exact same thing.

And I think it's hilarious that Stevie repeatedly says how much she hates computers, but yet she OWNS an iPad and is from all accounts obsessed with it!

[fumidesigns]

Dea Sparky,

I'll be your Stevie, if you'll be my Lindsey.

Yours truly,
Yet another fan that thinks all their songs are about eachother

*hugs*

[LilyRose]

Originally Posted by chele_belle

Haha! I thought the exact same thing.

And I think it's hilarious that Stevie repeatedly says how much she hates computers, but yet she OWNS an iPad and is from all accounts obsessed with it!

She has an iPad? Inneresting. My dad has introduced several people in my family who are from the old school generation to iPads. They seem to really take to them. Maybe because the seem less intimidating?

[skcin]

Originally Posted by sparky

I doubt she wrote a single song with the intention of having people trying to speculate over when she did or did not have sex with Lindsey at some point of their lives.

You take that back.

Well played, sir.

[CADreaming]

Originally Posted by chele_belle

Haha! I thought the exact same thing.

And I think it's hilarious that Stevie repeatedly says how much she hates computers, but yet she OWNS an iPad and is from all accounts obsessed with it!

LOVES her photo software!!! LOL

Originally Posted by fumidesigns

Dea Sparky,

I'll be your Stevie, if you'll be my Lindsey.

Yours truly,
Yet another fan that thinks all their songs are about eachother

*hugs*

[glamorousnymph]

Originally Posted by chele_belle

Haha! I thought the exact same thing.

And I think it's hilarious that Stevie repeatedly says how much she hates computers, but yet she OWNS an iPad and is from all accounts obsessed with it!

Uh oh... No one told her iPads can be addictive!

[fumidesigns]

Originally Posted by glamorousnymph

Uh oh... No one told her iPads can be addictive!

Stooooooooopid lmao!

[glamorousnymph]

Originally Posted by michelej1

That's how it is with Stevie's songs. There's a certain passion or catch in her voice the way she sings a line or a chorus that kind of elevates the whole song and makes a simple sentence take on the meaning of a book. And I guess the more I know about the creation of a song, the more certain I become that the little catch I thought I heard in the delivery was not my imagination and really had the same meaning for the singer as it did for me.

I don't know why this should matter, but it does. For instance, I was so taken by Calumny and when I grabbed the liner notes and saw that Christine didn't write it, but her nephew did, I admit it bothered me. That pain in her voice when he tore the petals one by one, testing their love to prove that it's done . . . I somehow wanted to think that that pain was real, not just the work of a skilled vocalist. When you think the ache you hear is genuine, it changes the music. Makes it a story, not just a song.

Michele

Michele, thank you for articulating that "little catch" moment and why knowing the back story can add to the experience!

I just listened to Calumny again and you are right, the way she sings that part makes it sound like it really comes from her heart... and, you know, maybe it does. After all, she's known heartache and men like that, and her own nephew wrote the song. Maybe it's an adopted song she loves like one of her own. I know what you mean about that disappointment, though. Felt it many times, but I usually try to rationalize it as I did above.

[glamorousnymph]

Originally Posted by fumidesigns

Stooooooooopid lmao!

"Everyone said it wasn't like a REAL computer baby, it wasn't addictive, so I just used it whenever I needed a boost."

"I lost my 60s to the iPad... it would have been most fertile time as a recording artist. The Apple store just kept upping my collection."

"If you want to get an iPad, you'd better start putting some money in an account now for the repairs. Because AppleCare will NOT want to pay for your repairs when the thing ruptures in a few years."

I can just hear it now.