Demos within Demos

[rhiannondontgo]

Stevie's songwriting fascinates me. I've noticed so many repetitive phrases/words in her songs and demos.

- "We don't have so very much in common. You don't have really very much to say... etc etc" - Tragedy of One's Own Soul and Lily Girl
- "And the angel said "Well you must have had a dream and you remember it". Til the dream followed through til the end of the dream and the dream came true. When I want something, I get it." - Whole Lotta Trouble and I Call You Missing
- "Through the crystal-like clear-water fountain" - Crystal and City of Hope
- "Crying in the morning, trying to be strong. Waiting for the spring to turn into the fall, etc etc"- Destiny and Enchanted
- "You say you're leaving" - Wild Heart and All The Beautiful Worlds
- Love You Enough and My Love Is Not Lost (both demos, relatively unknown) are pretty much the same song in different orders.
- "Standing at the crossroads" - Touched By An Angel, Space Needle
- "Not all, not all the king's horses, all the king's men... could put it back together again..." - Fall From Grace, All The King's Horses
- "And the sands of time like shattering glass..." - Goodbye Baby, She Loves Him Still, The Tower
- "Somewhere out in the back of your mind" - Rooms On Fire, If Anyone Falls
- "No one walks away from this battle." - Battle of The Dragon and Soldier's Angel
- "I'd like to leave you with something warm." - Storms and The Nightmare
- "Drowning in the sea..." - Sara and The Nightmare
- "Sometimes it was heavenly, sometimes it was too heavy." - Not Make Believe and Everybody Loves You
- "Just like the white winged dove" - Nightbird/Edge. Also, the phrase nightbird is used in the ridiculous mess of a song Stay Away as well.
- "If I'd not sung your music..." A variation of this Without You lyrics is in Takes a Long Time.
- "It's like living on a working river. The coastline is glittering like a diamond snake in a black sky." - Illume and Destiny Rules
- "Come in out of the darkness." - Bella Donna and In Your Dreams
- "... Ghost through the fog..." - Angel, Ghosts Are Gone, Sweet Girl
- "Lady from the mountains" - LFTM, Moonlight, Sorcerer
and the list goes on and on but i'm lazy.


What I find even more interesting is the amount of songs with lyrics about the same exact things. Sit down and listen to a few hours worth of songs and demos, and you will literally find hundreds of references to dreams, crystals, angels, chains, freedom, fire, hearts, and competition. On tumblr, another fan and I wrote out a huge list of Stevie lyrics with the word "dream" in it. You would be amazed at how long it is.

And her song-writing also fascinates me because of how she borrows from little things she's seen or read or heard about, or current events, or poems or books. And she mushes a bunch of odd little references from all different things into just one song. The way Planets of The Universe has direct quotes from Edgar Allen Poe poems all throughout it's lyrics, and each part is from a totally different poem. All just thrown in together to make a beautiful song. Or the way Paper Doll's first few lines are directly from The Picture Of Dorian Gray, as are some of the lyrics from Freedom. And how many of her songs have been written around a movie or book she liked (Beauty And The Beast, Julia, Alice, Rhiannon, Street Angel, etc etc), and how many have direct lines from said movies that you wouldn't even notice unless you heard it in the movie. Pretty cool when you think about it.