She Loves Him Still

[welcomechris]

Originally Posted by bombaysaffires

I think there are a lot more songs than this about joe. If I had time I'd go thru and list them all but I don't right now.
I Sing for the Things is one of them off the top of my head. And No Questions Asked is Joe.

No Questions Asked is not about joe, it is about lindsey leaving fm, Stevie has discussed it before.

[bombaysaffires]

Originally Posted by welcomechris

No Questions Asked is not about joe, it is about lindsey leaving fm, Stevie has discussed it before.

hmm… I'll have to see if I can dig it out one of these days..there was somewhere where she talked about the line "he wants her to be with him/he wants her with him now" or whatever it is (i'm going by memory) being about meeting Joe and their eyes locking across the room and that whole thing of her going over and crawling in his lap. Could well be like someone said earlier just another song with pieces from many different moments with different people. I always find these discussions of who a song is about so fascinating!

[brickney723]

I just read an old thread where someone was convinced No Questions Asked was about Tom Petty.

"There are songs that Stevie has written all throughout our relationship which I assumed were about me, then discovered that they weren’t or that they were hybrids. I can be as confused about that as the general listener, believe me.” -LB 2003

At least Lindsey's as confused as we are.

[sodascouts]

Originally Posted by welcomechris

Not to mention, she also says that very line in Goodbye Baby which was written in 1976

Of course, how could I forget that! Thanks.

[nicole21290]

Originally Posted by sodascouts

I think it could be about both Joe and Lindsey at the same time - one of her "blends" like "Sara."

However, the line "the sands of time like shattered glass go past her, straight back to the sea" is imagery and phrasing she's used when talking about Lindsey before in "Crystal" and "Trouble in Shangri-La" (although I'm not sure she's confirmed the latter). I'm not citing this as "proof" of anything, but I don't think it's a coincidence.

She has confirmed TISL is about him, actually. Well, the first verse of it. She did the same with Say You Will - confirming a PART of the song is about him, even though the narrative structure and so on kind of indicates more than just that 'part' is about him...

"The first verse is absolutely about Lindsey and me. When I was writing it I wasn’t conscious of that because I just write long poems. I write poems with about 20 stanzas and then some of them have to go when you actually put it to a song. But ‘I remember him, he was very young / No one spoke like him, he was someone / And I carried on, like I couldn’t stop / All of it for us, baby.’ All of it for love basically." (2001)

Originally Posted by Danigirl

Stevie has stated that Lindsey is the "musical love" of her life.
And I thought "Ooh ooh baby" was about JW, thanks for reinforcing my assumption.

Stevie goes backwards and forwards on this one. One point? Saying he is her 'musical love' doesn't mean he isn't her romantic love; some people seem to think the two are mutually exclusive and they're not. There’s a constancy and a dependency and a desire there that I don’t think has ever gone away regarding Lindsey that I don't think is there with Joe, actually. She changes her public thoughts fairly frequently - depending on mood, what’s been going on with SnL behind the scenes, who she’s talking to, what she wants the media/public to hear, etc etc.

I certainly don't buy Stevie's claim that she fell in love with Joe at first sight, tbh. The idea that she didn't meet him until 1983 seems WILDLY implausible, especially considering the relationship with Henley and the fact FM and The Eagles both played the same gig on several occasions in the 70s. I also think she exaggerates about that time with him. I think that for several reasons (her usual over-romanticism, her needing to think it was more than what he saw it, her own self-image, being on the outs with Lindsey or at least pretending to be, etc) she makes more of it than what it honestly probably was. Her stories are a little inconsistent regarding the relationship but, certainly, if we go by her accounts she really felt very, very strongly about him. I think that need and feeling were exacerbated by other things going on - drugs, touring, what was happening/what had happened with Lindsey, etc. I think that these days she will pull his name out in interviews quite often as a deflector - away from Lindsey. If she needs to portray things not going so well in that camp, she’ll big Joe up as the love of her life. When she doesn’t need to portray things being bad between her and Lindsey, all of a sudden “it’s not important that we talk about him”…

I have sure confidence that Lindsey is the (musical and romantic) love of her life. There’s a reason she always compares them to, not just artistic double acts, but double acts who were COUPLES in every sense - Johnny and June, George and Gracie, Katharine and Spence. HE is the one she can’t shut up about (and I honestly think it's false that it’s all an act to play up to shippers and to sell press/records), HE is the one she is STILL writing songs about, that she stills feels that ‘ssssss’ and attraction with/to, that she still hugs, flirts and kisses in a natural, comfortable way. HE is the one that she sees in all her imaginings of the future (moving to San Jose, sitting on the bed alone, hitting him with her walker). He is ALWAYS there. Joe is not. She may have loved Joe a lot but she’s admitted that of all the men in her life, Lindsey has loved her the most. And I think the opposite is true also.

“Now I just adore him,” says Nicks, with ravishing candour. “He is my love. My first love and my love for all time." (2003)

"He was absolutely the romantic love of my life." Stevie speculated, "I think if we had not moved from San Francisco to L.A., both of us feel we would have gotten married and stayed there, and we also believe we would have still been famous." (2011)

Originally Posted by Johnny Stew

I've often wondered if it's not so much that she changes the meanings, but that she changes which aspect of the meanings she chooses to talk to about. We know that many of her songs were written about more than one experience and/or person, so perhaps sometimes she feels more interested in discussing one aspect of a song's inspiration as opposed to another aspect. (Such as how she sometimes discusses the Tom & Jane Petty inspiration for "Edge," and sometimes she discusses the John Lennon/John Nicks aspect.)

THIS. She has certain ways of talking about songs and I think some of these methods are ways to avoid discussing certain aspects of songs, or who they are about. This doesn't just apply to her, btw; I've had long arguments about the meanings of Paul McCartney's songs because of the way he discusses them.

There is always a focal point and angle taken when an album is released. Regarding SnL, they’ll pick a few songs to talk about in EVERY interview. And they’ll very rarely be the really eyebrow raising ones about each other. Never. Even if they do discuss songs about each other (Everybody Loves You, for example), they’ll avoid discussing the juicy stuff, avoid answering the questions people should be asking. They do this in several ways.

1. talking about the origin or inspiration of the song (Everybody Loves You was a poem I wrote and Dave was sitting opposite me…)
2. talking about the instrumentation and playing on the song (Stand Back was cool; Prince came in and played…)
3. talking about only a select few lyrics and ignoring the rest of the song (You May Be The One is only addressed in terms of the chorus not the MUCH more interesting verses)
4. talking in generalities only (Seeds We Sow being about choices and the consequences they have…)
5. lying outright. For example, Stevie has said The Highwayman is all about Henley. In fact, she said it over and over and over again during the 2005 Jim Ladd interview. The language and theme/s points me towards Lindsey anyway, but the fact that it has a copyright of 1975?! Yeah, Mr Buckingham is definitely in that one.

[Danigirl]

I think Stevie knows how to keep fans and media talking about her, her lyrics, and her loves.....
Always be mysterious
Never set anything in stone, meaning never giving a definitive answer.
And always keep people guessing.

Strategy people!!!

[brickney723]

I love these discussions, here is my opinion, it's just an opinion.

Here are some quotes I already had together about Joe Walsh, I'm sure there are more. I would love to think the love of her life was Lindsey, but I guess I connect so well with what she's said about both of them and relate it to my personal experience- having had a love somewhat analogous to Lindsey and to Joe. I haven't heard her express the same sentiment for Lindsey as she has for Joe. I remember an article with Playboy post- Lindsey, pre-Joe which was very telling - about finding the "big love" and that she has not found it yet.
____
1982

PLAYBOY: Do you want to marry eventually and have a family?

NICKS: If I had a family, I'd probably love it. Right now, I have my dog Sarah, two cats and a baby Doberman. But I wish I had a little girl. Even a little boy. Getting married would, of course, depend on the man; also on whether I cared enough. [B]If I fell that deeply in love with someone, I'd have no idea of what to do. But I'd be willing to make whatever compromises were necessary. [/B]

PLAYBOY: What compromises?

NICKS: My interest in the music and everything else would have to drop off a little bit. But I don't fall in love that often, because it's sad when you fall in love and it doesn't work out. I know it’s better to have loved, because otherwise I wouldn’t have anything to write about. And there are different kinds of love. But if it were the big love, I’d drop everything. I’d still have my job, of course, but I’d get in my car and drive across town in the middle of the night ~ which I will not do under other circumstances, because I don’t have a license. I’d go crazy, I suppose. It’s probably the most wonderful feeling in the world.

PLAYBOY: It sounds as if Your job Would get in the way.

NICKS: It invades it. You can call up your boyfriend and say, "I'm sick; I can't go to dinner." But you cannot call in sick to Fleetwood Mac. So a certain number of my relationships are ruined, not because of the people involved but because of my other commitments. And so, every time, I'm just a little less interested in starting something up, because what has happened before is probably going to happen again. It's not a lack of interest on my part; it's a lack of time to be interested.

So maybe it's good that I haven't fallen deeply enough in love to give up a good half of what I do.
------
In the end as much as Lindsey loved her, she obviously did not love him enough to be with him, and certainly not in the way she describes above. Clearly she did feel that way about Joe- the problem is he left her (and her life for good) and seemingly did not feel the same about her. If he had, who knows what would've happened?

BBC Interview with Nicky Horne ~ August 27, 1991
(about her relationship with Joe Walsh)"We went on the Wild Heart tour and after about a week I went into a bar and he [Joe] was sitting there and he just looked up at me and that was it. It was love at first sight. You should have seen me, I went and yelled at people about his sound checks. I bought him incredible silk shirts and leg warmers that he wore! I took really good care of him and I think that is what scared Joe the most because I was too in tune with him and he was too used to being out of tune with everyone. I really understood him well. I was really hard nosed about him. If my house was full and Joe called I would tell everyone to get out."


BBC Interview with Nicky Horne ~August 27, 1991
(about whether she still loves Joe Walsh)"I will always love Joe. It will probably be hard for me to find somebody else that ever ever made me feel like Joe did. [After the breakup] At that point I just thought it was over, I thought that I would just be an old maid and just live with a bunch of dogs and cats in the mountains somewhere and that would be it because there just wouldn't be anything else for me."

And who has been the greatest love of her life?

'My great, great love was Joe Walsh.'


'I don't know - why do you love somebody? Why do you love them so much that when they walk in the room your heart jumps out of your chest? I don't know. But I fell in love with Joe at first sight from across the room, in the bar at the Mansions Hotel in Dallas. I looked at him and I walked across the room and I sat on the bar stool next to him, and two seconds later I crawled into his lap, and that was it. -2007

'We were probably the perfect, complete, crazy pair. He was the one that I would have married, and that I would probably have changed my life around for."

She tells People magazine, "There was nothing more important than Joe Walsh - not my music, not my songs, not anything."
-----

Keep in mind some of these quotes are decades apart. I don't think she's making it up. I also think she's being genuine about the love at first sight thing- because I also relate this to my own personal experience- had met somebody in passing before, but then had THE moment later- it WAS love at first sight- even though I had actually seen him, even met him, before.

I think she's genuine when she talks about Lindsey too- in some cases it's how she feels at the time. I also think how she feels and what she says about Lindsey depend on whether she's sleeping with him at the time. (Yes, I think she's been sleeping w/Lindsey on and off for years and years, unlike Joe) I also think there's a clear delineation between her feelings pre-Dance and post-Dance, too much territory to cover really. I remember her talking about "Landslide,"about how she didn't know if she wanted to be with Lindsey but "the music was important" -I think that was the most important aspect of keeping that relationship together from her end. I think a huge thing for her is how Lindsey never let her go emotionally- she definitely did not get unconditional love from Joe Walsh. When someone loves you the way Lindsey loved her, it effects you. Lindsey's definitely a great love as well, but in sum, I think she hit the nail on the head when she said this : " I fell in love with Joe the way Lindsey fell in love with me." I think that's 100% honest.

[Danigirl]

I find it ironic that Stevie uses the term Big Love (Playboy, 1982), the same title as a Lindsey written track.

[brickney723]

Originally Posted by Danigirl

I find it ironic that Stevie uses the term Big Love (Playboy, 1982), the same title as a Lindsey written track.

Yeah, nobody used that phrase back then. This was before the series "Big Love" too. I think he was inspired to write the song based at least partially upon what she said in the article.

[bombaysaffires]

well, and as regards Joe, remember this too: she had just married and divorced Kim very quickly. She went out on the Wild Heart tour that summer the divorce went through. (and she'd only married him at the beginning of the year). I have a clip of her somewhere talking to like Entertainment Tonight at the start of the tour and they mention the divorce and she says "well my life has to go on". So I think she was in a weird place going out on that tour… maybe feeling a little guilty about that whole marriage, feeling sad, feeling a lot of things-- and then she's out on the road away from all that and things click between her and Joe. I'm willing to bet that relationship was a nice distraction from all the messiness of the Kim stuff.

Isn't it curious we never seem to speculate on songs that might have been written about Kim? Even if he wasn't the greatest love of her life that whole situation seems ripe for songs of regret and messed up relationships and all that.

I always thought for some reason that When I See You Again was about that relationship. I think the lines
If she sees him again
Will your very best friend
Will your very best friend
Oooh have been replaced by some other?

was about that.. in typical Stevie switching person style, the "she" and "your" are both her, and she's asking if I see Kim again will my very best friend Robin have been replaced by some other, by some stranger? I don't know why I always heard that line that way, but there you go. And remember that break up was acrimonious.. he was really angry with her and they didn't speak for a long time.

Again, who the flip knows!!

[bombaysaffires]

Originally Posted by Danigirl

I think Stevie knows how to keep fans and media talking about her, her lyrics, and her loves.....
Always be mysterious
Never set anything in stone, meaning never giving a definitive answer.
And always keep people guessing.

Strategy people!!!

agree 100%

[DauphineMarie]

Originally Posted by Danigirl

I think Stevie knows how to keep fans and media talking about her, her lyrics, and her loves.....
Always be mysterious
Never set anything in stone, meaning never giving a definitive answer.
And always keep people guessing.

Strategy people!!!

I know she said in an interview at some point that no one will ever know what her songs really mean unless she wants us to know.. Maybe she's better at PR than we first expected lol

[PenguinHead]

Originally Posted by Johnny Stew

I've often wondered if it's not so much that she changes the meanings, but that she changes which aspect of the meanings she chooses to talk to about. We know that many of her songs were written about more than one experience and/or person, so perhaps sometimes she feels more interested in discussing one aspect of a song's inspiration as opposed to another aspect. (Such as how she sometimes discusses the Tom & Jane Petty inspiration for "Edge," and sometimes she discusses the John Lennon/John Nicks aspect.)

That's an extremely good articulation of what I was getting at. I see no definitive subject/person in the way she writes her songs. The beauty of her impressionistic approach is that everyone can interpret them in their own way...like a photograph so rare, like a painting. In her liner note of the Enchanted, referring to her songs, she writes something like "I hope you find a message, an answer...you know I love that."
Clearly, there are many answers!

Sorry for the unintended derailment of this thread, which was started just about the song She Loves Him Still. But it sparked an interesting and thoughtful discussion about the inner-workings of Stevie's song craft.

[michelej1]

Originally Posted by PenguinHead

That's an extremely good articulation of what I was getting at. I see no definitive subject/person in the way she writes her songs. The beauty of her impressionistic approach is that everyone can interpret them in their own way...[I]

And she acknowledges that. She has laughed that everyone thinks Sara is about them and it actually is about several people she said, but probably not about all the people who think it is about them. And of course she has described how her father thought Landslide was about him and she didn't tell him it wasn't.

Michele

[HoursAndHours]

Originally Posted by michelej1

And she acknowledges that. She has laughed that everyone thinks Sara is about them and it actually is about several people she said, but probably not about all the people who think it is about them. And of course she has described how her father thought Landslide was about him and she didn't tell him it wasn't.

Michele

It would be neat if, as part of - or an alternative to - her memoir/autobiography, she instead published the lyrics to each song she's released, and explained all the different things the song was about.