"Love's A Hard Game To Play" ~ Tidbit of Info!

mikebise · #1 02-19-2010, 02:18 PM

While in my "Desert Angel" mood this morning, I was compiling songs for a CD of this kinda weird interim era of Stevie's. Listening to the Chris Lord-Alge incredible remix of "Love's A Hard Game To Play", I remembered something I learned about the song, which I wasn't sure if I'd shared with a wider group of fans.

In September 2001, Bret Michaels was interviewed here in Dallas on KLLI on The Pugs & Kelly Show, and I was lucky to call in and be able to ask Bret about STEVIE NICKS on air. He said she was an incredible, beautiful, funny woman that he loved working with.

Bret said they met for a great meal, got a little drunk, and then went to work on the song.

Important: Bret said that Stevie wrote many of the lyrics of the song which he brought in, but she refused to take credit.

He said it was a blast working with Stevie and it was one of the best experiences of his life.

Just thought I'd share. I like the song a lot, just not the circumstances Stevie was forced to do it. The song exists and I think it is important to the overall Stevie timeline.

petep9000 · #2 02-19-2010, 02:43 PM

"Win or lose, no matter what they say..."

I can believe that's a Stevie lyric right there, it sounds very like.

michelej1 · #3 02-19-2010, 02:58 PM

[Just visiting this era, I wanted to upload this article, because I didn't see it online anywhere]

Cleveland Plain Dealer, 7/31/1991

NICKS ENCHANTS BLOSSOM TONIGHT

JANE SCOTT PLAIN DEALER ROCK REPORTER
THE PLAIN DEALER

"The Voice" is back.

Song enchantress Stevie Nicks will be back at Blossom Music Center tonight with three new songs, her special black suitcase and will be the thinnest she has been in years.

The former co-lead singer of Fleetwood Mac is 43 and proud of it.

"People know that I joined Mac when I was 27, so there is no use hiding my age. Actually I love my age," she said in a telephone interview.

What she didn't like was her growing weight, up to 142 pounds a few years ago. "Some people can carry a lot of pounds, but I'm only 5 feet 1. I have a little heart valve that is slightly off. It doesn't close perfectly. So I couldn't use weight-loss systems."

That's where the little black bag comes in. She calls it her kitchen suitcase.

"Anyone can do this," she said. "I pack a tea kettle and herbal teas and instant oatmeal. All I eat otherwise during the day is chicken and asparagus and salad with dietetic Italian dressing."

Nicks has been working for months on her upcoming album, "Timespace," the first collection of her best solo work over the past 10 years. The album is due in stores next Tuesday.

Then she got two unexpected song offers, by Jon Bon Jovi and Bret Michaels of Poison. Bon Jovi's song, "Sometimes It's a Bitch," wound up as the single.

"I wasn't too keen on adding a new song, and I never would have used that one word," Nicks said. "And how could he write about what I had experienced in the past 15 years?. But when I heard the song, some of the sensitive lines got to me."

For instance, there's the line "I've laid down with love and woke up with lies."

"That's a perfect comment on relationships with people and with the record industry," she said. Back in 1972, a record label gave her and guitarist Lindsey Buckingham studio time and a big time producer, but later dropped the album.

She wouldn't have accepted Michael's "Love's a Hard Game to Play" if it had been heavy metal, but it was a pretty song, she said. "And I've got a special one on the album for the troops, `Desert Angel.'

It has been 10 months since Nicks and co-singer Christine McVie left Fleetwood Mac, at one time the top rock band in the world.

"Yes, it was a wrench," Nicks said. "Think what it would be like if you had been in an office with six people for 15 years and then left."

No, she said, drummer/leader Mick Fleetwood's recent gossipy autobiography detailing personal relationships within the band had nothing to do with her departure.

"Because I haven't read it," she said. "Why should I? I've been there. And it would just have made me upset when we were onstage."

What really determined her departure was a serious argument with Fleetwood, she said. "He wouldn't let me have a song I had written, `Silver Springs,' for my `Timespace' album. That song had come out on the flip side of `Go Your Own Way' in 1976. So I said, `Then I guess we have nothing more to say to each other,' she reported.

Arizona-born Nicks was the one who brought the struggling British group Fleetwood Mac into the limelight with her mystical song, "Rhiannon." Critics still write about the magic and enchantment of that song with a gold moon lit suddenly on the back of the Coliseum stage and the limbs of a dark tree silhouetted against it. Nicks appeared in layers of chiffon and black velvet, her voice almost a whisper at times. "Rhiannon" is based on an old Welsh myth.

"Actually I wrote it in Colorado on the piano, in about five minutes," said Nicks, who lives in Phoenix. She brought Fleetwood Mac its only No.1 song, "Dreams," in 1977.

Tonight she will bring bassist Mark Andes of Heart on stage as well as guitarist Les Dudek, percussionist Peter Michael (brother of Sheila E.) drummer Scott Craigo, guitarist Michael Lennon and two keyboard players, Cat Grey and Eddie M.

Her future? "I want to write; I want to paint, and I do photography. In another 10 years I may gracefully slip into serious writing," she said. "If I write a book it won't be about who goes with whom. It won't hurt anybody."

ragrsrocalot · #4 02-19-2010, 04:32 PM

Love her makeup, stunning. Also love the earrings. Oh well hell the song is pretty cool too.

HejiraNYC · #5 02-19-2010, 04:35 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by michelej1

Song enchantress Stevie Nicks will be back at Blossom Music Center tonight with three new songs, her special black suitcase and will be the thinnest she has been in years.

What she didn't like was her growing weight, up to 142 pounds a few years ago. "Some people can carry a lot of pounds, but I'm only 5 feet 1. I have a little heart valve that is slightly off. It doesn't close perfectly. So I couldn't use weight-loss systems."

O'Mama Bin Lyin! I distinctly remember the Timespace show I attended, and she was not exactly "willowy" from what I can recall. She was basically bulging out of her dress and plodding around like her feet were made of cement.

Combine that with the dead eyes and the flat singing and the dull setlist... it wasn't the best of times.

HejiraNYC · #6 02-19-2010, 04:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by petep9000

"Win or lose, no matter what they say..."

I can believe that's a Stevie lyric right there, it sounds very like.

I suspect Brett was referring to the "...I hear the angels call, 'it's better to have lost in love than to never have loved at all...'" line, which she copied and pasted from "Affairs of the Heart." There is just no way she could have written something as unromantic as "so tonight let's lose the past, make love last, put our worries on the shelf."

petep9000 · #7 02-19-2010, 05:07 PM

Quote:

What she didn't like was her growing weight, up to 142 pounds a few years ago. "Some people can carry a lot of pounds, but I'm only 5 feet 1. I have a little heart valve that is slightly off. It doesn't close perfectly. So I couldn't use weight-loss systems."

and weight-loss systems in 1991 were mostly ephedra (which is speed). Good thing she didn't honk that stuff like she did with coke, we might have really lost her for sure if she has a bad ticker..

michelej1 · #8 02-20-2010, 01:05 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by petep9000

and weight-loss systems in 1991 were mostly ephedra (which is speed). Good thing she didn't honk that stuff like she did with coke, we might have really lost her for sure if she has a bad ticker..

I'm no neurosurgeon, but I would think that the heart valve would be a stronger reason to stop using cocaine than the hole in the nose was.

Michele

Dodfather · #9 02-20-2010, 05:58 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mikebise

Listening to the Chris Lord-Alge incredible remix of "Love's A Hard Game To Play

What remix is this and where can I find it? I'm really curious about any remixes etc for the new Timespace songs because they seem to have been a bit forgotten about! Plus, I like what Chris Lord-Alge does with Stevie's work in general...

Can anyone help me out?

mikebise · #10 02-20-2010, 09:45 AM

"Love's A Hard Game To Play" was released on CD-single, with Chris Lord-Alge remixing both the full-length version and the single edit version. The remixed single-edit is on the cassette-single as well.

A Hard Game To Play is the name of the Japanese CD-single which has the remixed single-edit, CLA's remix of "Battle of The Dragon" and a few more things which I forget right now (some 1986 "I Can't Wait" remixes - I just looked it up: the Rock Extended Mix and the Dub Dance Mix).

The remix has beautiful sound! So clear and crisp... The piano, guitars, and, of course, CLA's signature: the drums!

I'd post the remix on mediafire but I'm currently at a place with only dial-up and it won't upload for me.

Nathan · #11 02-20-2010, 05:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mikebise

"Love's A Hard Game To Play" was released on CD-single, with Chris Lord-Alge remixing both the full-length version and the single edit version. The remixed single-edit is on the cassette-single as well.

A Hard Game To Play is the name of the Japanese CD-single which has the remixed single-edit, CLA's remix of "Battle of The Dragon" and a few more things which I forget right now (some 1986 "I Can't Wait" remixes - I just looked it up: the Rock Extended Mix and the Dub Dance Mix).

The remix has beautiful sound! So clear and crisp... The piano, guitars, and, of course, CLA's signature: the drums!

I'd post the remix on mediafire but I'm currently at a place with only dial-up and it won't upload for me.

Someone post!

Musicman408 · #12 02-21-2010, 12:22 AM

She doesn't look too bad here!

Love the song.