Earlier or later writings better?

[GateandGarden]

Do you prefer Stevie's earlier lyrics or current ones? Do you think her songwriting is better now than in her earlier days of witches, faeries, angels, and blue lamps? We talked about this a little bit on The Legboard and I thought everyone here would have some insight.

I've noticed a dramatic difference between pre and post Street Angel songwriting. TISL was my first Stevie CD, and I assumed that the first four tracks were new because I didn't know any better (I think they're quite different from others like "I Miss You" and "Love Changes"), but I wasn't surprised to find out that they were demos re-recorded for the album. The newer material is quite different to me. On the Legboard, an article from 1994 was posted, (see thread) in which Stevie admitted that her earlier writings were "in codes" so that only a handful of people would know precisely what (and who) she was talking about. (I know almost all of that is really screwed up grammatically, so I'm sorry about that). That seems about right, since, from what I've heard, the writing is much clearer from Street Angel and on. There's also the hypothesis that various drugs allowed her to write the mystical, magical, and wonderfully ambiguous (in my book) lyrics of the early days.

So, what do y'all think? (I know those are quite a few questions and ideas to explore there).

Hillary