How original are Stevie's lyrics?

[CADreaming]

Great topic.

It reminds me of these quotes from Lindsey about Gift of Screws:

"I am not a scholar of Emily Dickinson. I had a pocket book of her poems. As you know, we're always looking for stuff we can rip off." (2008)

"It was just a riff and we started doing it and just had an idea for the lyric. It came from an Emily Dickinson poem. The meaning of it wasn’t really clear to me at first. The meaning of the chorus was a direct lift from this poem. We’re always looking for things to rip off, things that are public domain [laughs]."

At the very least, I find it interesting to see what has inspired both Stevie and Lindsey's songs. And, maybe the songs were actually more inspired by literature - or "public domain" than their actual lives/relationships! That would be so hysterical if all these years people have been trying to decipher their lyrics to fit into a "who's it about" scenario and yet they were just ripping off some dead poet.