"When I See You Again"

[TheWILDheart]

"When I See You Again" is the ONLY (I repeat, the ONLY) Stevie-penned Fleetwood Mac song that I cannot abide. I hate everything about it - shoddy vocal, shoddy lyrics. She really didn't care much for Fleetwood Mac in 1987 and it shows. The other songs mentioned - "No Questions Asked", "Paper Doll" and her BTM songs, I love all of them. "Freedom" is just fantastic, and I will never grasp how anyone could think it belongs in the same catagory as WISYA.

There really aren't many Stevie songs I don't like, in all honesty. Here's my list:

When I See You Again
Docklands (WHAT!? Stevie Nicks does NOT go to the laundromatt!!)
Jane
Just Like A Woman (nothing against the song, just a very boring cover)
I Still Miss Someone
Fire Burning
The Nightmare
Cheaper Than Free

And that's it. Everything else, I like and listen to regularly.

[TheWILDheart]

Originally Posted by WatchChain

[B][CENTER]Ghost Through The Fog: The Worst of Stevie Nicks

Love Is Like A River
Paper Doll
Street Angel
Freedom
Mirror Mirror
Inspiration
Desert Angel (Operation Desert Shield Dance Mix)

I couldn't disagree more with these choices. "Love Is Like A River" is a highlight for me from SA. "Mirror Mirror" and "Inspiration" should have been included on RAL and SA respectively.

Where is "I Still Miss Someone" and "Unconditional Love"? Those are worse than anything on this list.

Originally Posted by mitzo

WISYA, Somebody Stand By Me, and possible Jane are my only disagreements with this list. I would put Rooms on Fire, Bella Donna, and Enchanted there instead.

Get outa here!

"Jane" is the worst song she ever wrote. RoF, BD and Enchanted are classic, Stevie wonderfulness.

[Pyewacket]

Agreed on the roasting of anyone who thinks "Bella Donna" is one of her worst songs. I mean, really. It's epic, gorgeous, emotive, langorous, soulful and deservedly the title track of her best album.


As for WISYA, well...errm. It's not her best. And it's not one I'd ever put on a sampler for anyone. It's the kind of wallowing that Tori Amos has made a career of (and I like Tori Amos). It has its place -- I will occasionally listen to it now -- and I think my initial dislike of it had to do with how embarrassed I was at how "on her sleeve" her heart was in creating it and how I knew the world would react to it. I think I was approaching it with a whole "what will everyone else think of her now" attitude and cringing. It's a sad, sad, song reflecting on her state of dissaray, so it could probably not have been much better than it is. But yes, I wish for her sake, it were "hidden" on a much less successful album.

[Dex]

Originally Posted by Pyewacket

Agreed on the roasting of anyone who thinks "Bella Donna" is one of her worst songs. I mean, really. It's epic, gorgeous, emotive, langorous, soulful and deservedly the title track of her best album.

Bella Donna is one of my favourite things on the entire planet.

It pretty much goes:

Oxygen
Bella Donna
Sex

But I kind of like the notion that a fellow Stevie fan could dislike that song. It just shows how varied our musical perspectives are. We're obviously getting completely different things out of her music generally, yet we're both fans. It's kinda beautiful.

I need to rush to the defence of Docklands, now. It's a cover of a Betsy Cook original off the superb The Girl Who Ate Herself which is an album I will defend to the death (and also features Love is the Grove, made famous by Cher a few years later). Her vocal on the album track doesn't do the writing justice, but it's not terrible. It's not worse than anything else on Street Angel, and I actually really like the live performances from that tour. I don't get why the "Laundromat" line bugs people so much. Clearly it is a character-song, not a biographical one. I guess Stevie fans may be too used to the latter and find the contrast jarring, but I like her mixing it up a little every now and then and singing a work of fiction. I wish she'd do it more.

[Jondalar]

Originally Posted by Dex

Bella Donna is one of my favourite things on the entire planet.

It pretty much goes:

Oxygen
Bella Donna
Sex

But I kind of like the notion that a fellow Stevie fan could dislike that song. It just shows how varied our musical perspectives are. We're obviously getting completely different things out of her music generally, yet we're both fans. It's kinda beautiful.

I need to rush to the defence of Docklands, now. It's a cover of a Betsy Cook original off the superb The Girl Who Ate Herself which is an album I will defend to the death (and also features Love is the Grove, made famous by Cher a few years later). Her vocal on the album track doesn't do the writing justice, but it's not terrible. It's not worse than anything else on Street Angel, and I actually really like the live performances from that tour. I don't get why the "Laundromat" line bugs people so much. Clearly it is a character-song, not a biographical one. I guess Stevie fans may be too used to the latter and find the contrast jarring, but I like her mixing it up a little every now and then and singing a work of fiction. I wish she'd do it more.

Docklands is a great song. So is Cry Wolf. But Stevie's vocals are horrendous. She hacked the hell out of those songs.

[sparky]

Originally Posted by michelej1

I mean it's not the repetition of words that kills When I See You Again, it's the droning, stupid quality. Michele

Much more succinct and to the point than I was.



Well done.

[sparky]

Originally Posted by Dex

Bella Donna is one of my favourite things on the entire planet.


I need to rush to the defence of Docklands, now. It's a cover of a Betsy Cook original off the superb The Girl Who Ate Herself which is an album I will defend to the death (and also features Love is the Grove, made famous by Cher a few years later). Her vocal on the album track doesn't do the writing justice, but it's not terrible. It's not worse than anything else on Street Angel, and I actually really like the live performances from that tour. I don't get why the "Laundromat" line bugs people so much. Clearly it is a character-song, not a biographical one. I guess Stevie fans may be too used to the latter and find the contrast jarring, but I like her mixing it up a little every now and then and singing a work of fiction. I wish she'd do it more.

I don't hate Docklands nearly as much as most people do. As far as bad Stevie songs go, it is kind of low hanging fruit. Somewhere I have a tape bootleg of her singing a demo of it that is far superior to the SA track. It was much darker and I remember liking it. Granted I got it during the pre SA release lull and was desperate for anything I could hear, and it was a lame cassette tape, but at the time I was intrigued. There is also a radio commercial on that tape touting Unconditional Love as the lead single. I remember them using the phrase "sonic perfection" in that ad. HA. Talk about hype!

[Phil]

I actually adore "When I See You Again". That said, I do understand why it seems to be universally reviled - there's no discernible tune, the lyrics aren't among her best and the vocal is ragged - but somehow, I can see beyond these shortcomings.
The rawness of Stevie's vocal actually moves me and to be honest, there wasn't anything else on the Tango In The Night album that elicited such a response. Whilst there are some undeniably fine pop moments on that album, there is a pervading slickness that I couldn't engage with and ultimately reacted against. From my perspective, "When I See You Again" is the blood and guts of an otherwise soulless, synthetic confection.
What does it say about me that I respond to such an overwrought delivery from Miss Nicks? I'd better hand that one over to you Sparky...

[mitzo]

Originally Posted by Phil

I actually adore "When I See You Again". That said, I do understand why it seems to be universally reviled - there's no discernible tune, the lyrics aren't among her best and the vocal is ragged - but somehow, I can see beyond these shortcomings.
The rawness of Stevie's vocal actually moves me and to be honest, there wasn't anything else on the Tango In The Night album that elicited such a response. Whilst there are some undeniably fine pop moments on that album, there is a pervading slickness that I couldn't engage with and ultimately reacted against. From my perspective, "When I See You Again" is the blood and guts of an otherwise soulless, synthetic confection.
What does it say about me that I respond to such an overwrought delivery from Miss Nicks? I'd better hand that one over to you Sparky...

I fully agree that WISYA elicits an emotional response, it is like a piece of abstract art, in that way. And to me, the vocals are not flat and droning, they actually float and hover. Lindsey's production of the song really ads to the mystique.

On a different but related note, I have always found Bella Donna to be a case of wasted potential, it could have soared and inspired but what we got was a dull and leaden and aimless tune, cursed with junky production/arrangement that only served to make the lyrics seem annoying and brought out the harsh flat aspect of Stevie's vocals. After the wonders of Stevie's work with FM on three albums, this song (and the accompanying album) was a huge letdown. Mundane, cheaply produced, self indulgent yet half formed. A good producer could have taken it and built a thing of beauty but, well, oh dear....

[KarmaContestant]

Originally Posted by Christopher

It took me years to appreaciate this cover. At 20 yrs old, it was a definite WTF moment. But years later, I get it. No doubt, this cover was a light-hearted attempt to end such a dark, dark record. To bring some levity to the woeful contemplation of Stevie's rock star fame musings of post drug treatment & pre mid-life crisis. And the quirky circus-waltz treatment perfectly serves as sorta this wierd Willy Wonka counterpoint to her "Alice in Wonderland" theme. It works.

You always have such a positive, uplifting outlook . It's refreshing.

Originally Posted by Christopher

To this day, I think that line was a lyric sheet misprint. In my mind, she meant "And she stares (back) at the stares" - the fans & media gawking at her. Which undoubtabley felt like such an intrusion at one of her darkest hours.

That makes sense. I've always thought it was meant to be a reference to the stairs in Blue Lamp, to the upstairs in Welcome To The Room...Sara, the stairs in Sisters of the Moon, and a way of describing the feeling one has when leaving a place where many memories are being left behind. But - your idea makes far more sense, especially in the context of the line preceding it.

[KarmaContestant]

Originally Posted by Dex

Yes. If lyrical repetition alone was something someone disliked in songwriting, they wouldn't be a fan of Fleetwood Mac at all, or popular music in general for that matter, and they wouldn't be posting here. That's not what's being criticised in WISYA. Monotony would be a much better word for it. Or, as Michele said, "stupid".

Originally Posted by michelej1

But I think Hold Me is sung with a big more variety, long, frantic, a plea, a demand, music ascending and descending. If it were just "hold me, hold me, hold me" in a monotone, it would be dull, but hearing the same words go through so many different moods, just shows me how much power two syllables can have.

No, no no. There is nothing monotone about the chorus of When I See You Again. I'd even venture to say that neither of you are actually *listening* to the song. The lyric is repeated, yes, but it is sad, then it's lonely, then exasperated, then it is fearful and wounded and finally a desperate expression of grief. There is nothing monotone about it.

[Dex]

Originally Posted by KarmaContestant

No, no no. There is nothing monotone about the chorus of When I See You Again. I'd even venture to say that neither of you are actually *listening* to the song. The lyric is repeated, yes, but it is sad, then it's lonely, then exasperated, then it is fearful and wounded and finally a desperate expression of grief. There is nothing monotone about it.

Hm. Well I'm willing to entertain the idea that I just find the goblin-on-helium vocals so off-putting that I miss any emotional nuance. I'd still suggest, though, that fans of this song are simply allowing their fandom and knowledge of Stevie's backstory to prompt them into "hearing" things that just aren't there in the performance. Stalemate? I'm not really sure how much more we can throw adjectives around before it all just comes back to "I do/don't get anything out of this and am (/not) enjoying this listening experience". It's cool that you hear the song so differently though.

[Dex]

Originally Posted by sparky

I don't hate Docklands nearly as much as most people do. As far as bad Stevie songs go, it is kind of low hanging fruit. Somewhere I have a tape bootleg of her singing a demo of it that is far superior to the SA track. It was much darker and I remember liking it. Granted I got it during the pre SA release lull and was desperate for anything I could hear, and it was a lame cassette tape, but at the time I was intrigued.

Well I'm certainly intrigued. I'll have to search out Docklands demos now. Not something I've ever really bothered with before. Thanks for the tip!

[Johnny Stew]

Originally Posted by Dex

Hm. Well I'm willing to entertain the idea that I just find the goblin-on-helium vocals so off-putting that I miss any emotional nuance. I'd still suggest, though, that fans of this song are simply allowing their fandom and knowledge of Stevie's backstory to prompt them into "hearing" things that just aren't there in the performance. Stalemate? I'm not really sure how much more we can throw adjectives around before it all just comes back to "I do/don't get anything out of this and am (/not) enjoying this listening experience". It's cool that you hear the song so differently though.

You could very well be right in a lot of cases, but I'd like to add that I was a brand new fan when 'Tango' was released ('Rock A Little' having been the first Stevie album I owned).

I was 14 at the time (15 later in the year), and knew next to nothing about Stevie's back-story. There was no internet to read everything ever written about her, and then-current magazines weren't saying very much about her at the time.

I fell in love with "When I See You Again" solely based on Stevie's vocals and the lyrics (which I'm not saying are among her best, but that I do believe effectively express despondency and ennui).

[KarmaContestant]

Originally Posted by Dex

Hm. Well I'm willing to entertain the idea that I just find the goblin-on-helium vocals so off-putting that I miss any emotional nuance. I'd still suggest, though, that fans of this song are simply allowing their fandom and knowledge of Stevie's backstory to prompt them into "hearing" things that just aren't there in the performance. Stalemate? I'm not really sure how much more we can throw adjectives around before it all just comes back to "I do/don't get anything out of this and am (/not) enjoying this listening experience". It's cool that you hear the song so differently though.

I'm willing to entertain the idea that fans of this song have more empathy for others than those who don't like it.

Just teasing.