All the Street Angel bashing

[chriskisn]

Originally Posted by wolfontherun

Several songs are cumbersome and lack any real passion or melody. Take away 5 songs and you have a better album.

Using the word chimpanzee has got to be one of tha all time worst lyric choices of any writer. This alone is enough to write off the entire work.

Actually I always figured Bob Dylan's use of "tax-deductible charity organisations" was the worst!

Which funnily enough is I think what happened to Stevie - she tried and failed to be dylanesque. Sure I find Dylan meaning under every rock, but...

Oh and don't knock the Stevie cover of Dylan, she tried. Lots of people try and lots of people fail, but most people need to try once in a career to give a nod to Bob. If they didn't try we wouldn't have Hendrix doing All Along The Watchtower...

[wolfontherun]

Originally Posted by PenguinHead

Umm...my pet chimpanzee was quite happy and proud that Stevie made that reference.

Well I give her credit for the sentiment of the song. Lots of credit. But she should have used a different approach to the subject matter. Maybe just made the song about Jane Goodall and most of us would know about the monkeys.

Do you really have a chimp?

[wolfontherun]

Originally Posted by priestofnothing

Chimpanzee and also LAUNDROMAT. WTF?

I forgot about laundramat. LOL. When I first heard that word I was like what? did she just say laundramat? stevie nicks the mystical chantues using such an unromatic word? oh the humanity! :-)

[trackaghost]

I think a lot of Stevie's dislike for this album is down to the fact it wasn't much fun for her making it. For me it has some fantastic moments and some of the lowest points of her career. She sounds completely fed up and lifeless throughout the songs too, which is odd because on the tour that followed it she was great vocally.

[OldTimer]

Originally Posted by trackaghost

I think a lot of Stevie's dislike for this album is down to the fact it wasn't much fun for her making it. For me it has some fantastic moments and some of the lowest points of her career. She sounds completely fed up and lifeless throughout the songs too, which is odd because on the tour that followed it she was great vocally.

I sure agree with that. I've seen a few youtube clips of the SA tour in '94, and her voice was very strong. However, people were snarky about her weight, and that had to hurt.

[HejiraNYC]

To be honest I don't think I have listened to the complete SA album straight through from beginning to end in at least 10 years. It is just awful. I recall getting the album the day it came out in 1994, rushing home to my basement, cranking up the stereo and preparing to savor every note. I was really excited when "Blue Denim" got the album off to a rocking, smoldering start... but then it fell off a cliff as soon as the first few notes of "Greta" started up. My immediate impression was that the album sounded sloppy overall and that many songs just seemed to begin arbitrarily with some kind of instrumental noodling. While the song "Street Angel" was interesting, the production was just a mucking fess- the way it just began with that random guitar part, etc. And I really wanted to like "Docklands" because it was such a drastic foray into experimental territory for Stevie... after all, Trevor Horn was in the Buggles, produced Grace Jones and was a member of Yes. But it was just all kinds of wrong.

Still, despite my distaste for the songs and the production, I must admit that vocally SA is one of Stevie's finest moments.

[michelej1]

Originally Posted by wolfontherun

Using the word chimpanzee has got to be one of tha all time worst lyric choices of any writer. This alone is enough to write off the entire work.

Yeah, Stevie is known for her symbolism. So, she could have other things stand in for the monkey. I mean, she could still pay homage to Jane Goodall without being as direct. Talk about a forsaken spirit in the song, but tell Jane, "it's all about that monkey in the second stall who threw his feces at me!"

Michele

[iamnotafraid]

Did you read the liner notes about Stevie meeting Jane Goodall?

Stevie traveled to meet Jane Goodall at one of her research centers.
And she really was inspired to write the song after this happened:

STEVIE: "I stopped to look at the monkeys, when all of the sudden I
am hit in the face with a banana peel. I turn and look and there is this
monkey really laughing it up. Then Jane tells me that he (the monkey)
did it. Well, I pick up the banana peel and I wait for that monkey to
turn around. And then I *whap* let him have it."

JANE: "It's a monkey, Stevie!"

STEVIE: "Well, he pushed my buttons, I coudn't help it, Jane".

JANE: "Well, I still think it was wrong to do that Stevie".

STEVIE: "Alright fine, you take the monkey's side".

[LukeA]

I think we can all agree that Stevie was quite lucky that this particular monkey chose a *banana peel* to throw at her, instead of, um, something else.

[SpyNote]

My favorite song on Street Angel is "Kick It" for all its literally allusions to Oscar Wilde's "The Happy Prince." I love all her songs that draw from short stories, poems, and other literary works.

[Remy]

Originally Posted by iamnotafraid

Did you read the liner notes about Stevie meeting Jane Goodall?

ok, I know Ledgies are humorous people, so tell me - how much of it is true?

[David]

Originally Posted by SpyNote

My favorite song on Street Angel is "Kick It" for all its literally allusions to Oscar Wilde's "The Happy Prince."

Name dropper!

I like JANE except that the lead vocal is pretty crappy. What is everybody's problem with the word "chimpanzee"? Why shouldn't Stevie put this word in a song dedicated to all the chimps of the world? She once dedicated RHIANNON to "all the witches of the world."

Stevie was touched by Goodall's work in behalf of (not "on behalf of") chimpers being poached or sold on the black market or used in research labs. Stevie herself once told an interviewer that she had to buck up & do a lot of her own strenuous dancing in STAND BACK -- "or be a CHUMP." It isn't that far from chimp to chump in rock 'n' roll.

I love DOCKLANDS. Who cares about a laundromat. The song describes alienation & loss better than any song she herself was writing at the time. And it's a great song musically, too, with a killer hook chorus. The thing actually moves -- unlike 99 percent of her 1989 album. It sizzles. I wish she had done it onstage in California.

"Stevie Nicks sang DOCKLANDS live back East, but all I got was this crappy bootleg."

P.S. Stevie & her pals sang JANE live at the GOODALL Tribute in 1991. No recording of it has ever surfaced. I think we'd go bananas for it if it ever did.

[David]

Originally Posted by Remy

ok, I know Ledgies are humorous people, so tell me - how much of it is true?

imnotafraid is pulling the drawstring on your jammies.

[michelej1]

Originally Posted by David

Name dropper!

I like JANE except that the lead vocal is pretty crappy. What is everybody's problem with the word "chimpanzee"? Why shouldn't Stevie put this word in a song dedicated to all the chimps of the world? She once dedicated RHIANNON to "all the witches of the world."

Yeah, but she doesn't throw "witch" into the lyrics.

So, can you like imagine Stevie in a laundromat?

She did their laundry and I doubt they had a washer/dryer in their apartment, so she must have gone to the laundromat. Poured in too much detergent, bubbles all over the place, the washer overflowed, when hundred dollar bills started floating out of the pockets of their jeans, everyone in the place began stampeding towards the sodden money. Riot in the Clean & Fluff! Michele

[badanimals87]

Originally Posted by David

I love DOCKLANDS. Who cares about a laundromat. The song describes alienation & loss better than any song she herself was writing at the time. And it's a great song musically, too, with a killer hook chorus. The thing actually moves -- unlike 99 percent of her 1989 album. It sizzles. I wish she had done it onstage in California.

"Stevie Nicks sang DOCKLANDS live back East, but all I got was this crappy bootleg."

Docklands is one of my favorite songs off Street Angel and definitely a highlight of the tour IMO. For those who have not heard a live performance of Docklands, check out the Houston, TX show from 1994. This is my favorite show from the tour although the quality of the audience recording is not the best. Maybe Love Will Change Your Mind is also REALLY good from this show...and she even dedicates the song to Sandy Stewart who was apparently at the show that night.

Tim