I Can't Wait: The Stevie Nicks Singles Poll

i adore probably half of these, but edge of seventeen is probably one of the greatest songs ever written

The dance mix of "I Can't Wait" is batshit in the best way:

It's between "Edge of Seventeen" and "Stand Back" and my reasons for voting "Edge of Seventeen" are largely personal but on the terms of the music itself that seems valid. The final drop-out-to-climax...if you get the chance to be fifteen years old & high as hell listening to that song on headphones in southern California at four in the morning in the middle of a really rough adolescence, well: I recommend it.

I haven't heard "If Anyone Falls" in a long time. I'd like to hear that again. I was thinking recently how much I wish I could hear "Stop Dragging My Heart Around" for the first time again because it really seems to have lost something over time, and it was freaking spectacular for about oh...500 plays. "Leather & Lace" was kindof overdone at middle school ("junior high") dances, but still better than whatever that other "slow dance" song was by Chicago (please don't remind me).

Stand Back is IT, though if I'm honest I don't believe I've heard all the choices here.

She blew my preteen mind back in the early 80s. Before Madonna, she and Pat Benatar were the only ones on the radio and MTV. I was so excited to go see her in concert at the Garden State Arts Center at the Jersey shore.

Then she walks onstage, close to 200 pounds, barely coherent like Elvis 1976. She starts to cry onstage, and yells at a fan for something. Two weeks later, she checks into rehab.

I hope that's supposed to read like a favorable review 'cause it does

edge of seventeen is probably one of the greatest songs ever written

^^^ cosign

the "well"s in "I Can't Wait" are kind of the gold standard for the artificial ad-lib - they're considerably more powerful than they would be if they could actually boast the offhandedness they're trying to evoke

leather and lace=karaoke duo JAM

adore probably half of these, but edge of seventeen is probably one of the greatest songs ever written

ding ding ding

Honorable mention to "Has Anyone Ever Written Anything for You?," though.

http://l.yimg.com/g/images/spaceball.gif

"Leather & Lace" was kindof overdone at middle school ("junior high") dances, but still better than whatever that other "slow dance" song was by Chicago (please don't remind me).

So OTM, but after not hearing it for 15 years or so, I could love it again without any of that baggage.

Pretty tough to vote against "Stand Back", though.

I hope that's supposed to read like a favorable review 'cause it does

It certainly was memorable.

Soon as I saw the poll title I thought "stand back" is the song... god the 80s big chart hits were so cool with their synthy, dancy, gothy, trebly sounds all fused, as a kid back then those songs were like teh candy and "edge of seventeen" was over my head. still is a little bit.

Hell yeah. Hell yeah to the LA session players. Hell yeah to Don Henley knowing that with Stevie to light his nights, somehow he'd get by. Hell yeah to Alfred Soto correctly observing that when you didn't plan to hear it just then, "Stand Back" is in fact the best song ever written. Along with "Edge Of Seventeen" or "If Anyone Falls." Hell yeah to doing fat rails at some record producer's party up the canyon in Studio City, or maybe it was a real estate guy, and finding yourself alone on a balcony at four in the morning, the has-beens long retired to the bedrooms with the wannabes, and maybe a few stragglers sprawled on living room shag, too wasted or too desperate to know that for them the party ended weeks ago, with the Valley twinkling everywhere below, and knowing that love is only one fine star away. Hell yeah.

― rogermexico (rogermexico), Tuesday, July 5, 2005 9:26 PM (3 years ago)

But if forced to choose, I'm going with Edge of Seventeen for the reasons J0hn states above. Plus for wow what you can do with two strings and a dyna comp.

gotta be edge of seventeen

Stevie Nicks wrote "Stand Back" shortly after she was married to Kim Anderson. The newlyweds were driving up to San Ysidro Ranch in Santa Barbara when Prince's song "Little Red Corvette" came on the radio. Nicks states that she started humming along to the melody of the song, and "Stand Back" was born. They stopped and got a tape recorder and she recorded the demo right there in the honeymoon suite that night. Later, when Nicks went into the studio to record the song, she called Prince and told him the story of how she wrote the song to his melody. He came to the studio that night and played synthesizers on it, although his contribution is uncredited on the album. Then, she says, "he just got up and left as if the whole thing happened in a dream."

"Stand Back" is an AWESOME karaoke song.

I'd like to hear "If Anyone Falls" and "I Can't Wait" on the radio more often.

Also: a FABULOUS version of "Nightbird," with call and response Lori Nicks vocals:

Yeah, the synth sound in Stand Back is just ridiculously amazing. How come I can't think of anything else that sounds like that? I was playing Van Halen's "Jump" yesterday and that's the same kind of thing - I'm still in awe of that synth sound (though the production on the drums certainly helps), and why there weren't like a zillion other copycat things that sounded the same. Maybe someone who knows synths better than I do can weigh in.

The main intro of the song features an Oberheim OB-Xa synthesizer. The synth-bass is played on a Roland Jupiter 8. On the Rock A little tour, the Oberheim is replaced with a Yamaha DX7. There were two mixes prepared for the song; the generally more well known Album Version (4:56) and the edited Single Version (4:18). Differences between the two are somewhat subtle, but the Single Mix tends to have more of a "collapsed" or "mono" sound to it and the electronic drum programs are mixed rather dry & flattened, especially in the song's intro bars; whereas the drum tracks on the Album mix are accentuated by a generous amount of reverb effect & harder compression. Acoustic drums were given a more backseat role on Stand Back.

</startrekman>

oh my god stand back is playing on the muzak station right now! fun

the "well"s in "I Can't Wait" are kind of the gold standard for the artificial ad-lib - they're considerably more powerful than they would be if they could actually boast the offhandedness they're trying to evoke

Do you mean "Talk To Me" ("WAAAL I can see your expression when da phone RINGS!)

I just wish I could explain what "Stop Dragging My Heart Around" sounded like to me when it came out. How unbelievably dark and undeniable it sounded. It could not be resisted. It dared you to resist. Like a reptile, a clever snake, that song. In fact, I feel sorry I don't have it on vinyl now, because I think it should be heard on vinyl or at the very least a high quality 320 vinyl rip mp3. I know I said I was done with this song, but I don't think I am. I'm going to play it for the 60 billionth time. As far as I recall, it must have been early 1981, not very long after 1980. That's the way I remember it. I know they say Bella Donna was released in July '81, but I have a feeling this single came out earlier. Can anyone confirm the month(s) this was in the Billboard charts? I'm happy to be wrong, I'm just curious. Because it seems to me this record belongs more to the whole feel & style of 1980 than it does to 1981.

Yeah I know, the clip cuts off abruptly, but the other version of this on You Tube has an absolutely awful mid-late 80's Mr. Mister video tacked on at the end and I wanted to avoid that embarrassment. Whoever did that should be shot.

ARFRRRRGHN*&^%$#@! "If Anyone Falls" JESUS OF A MOTHER FUCKER if I haven't just reached the pinnacle of my musical happiness in this 24 hour period...

See, you can call me a blasphemer, but to me that's one step above even Edge of Seventeen. I know, take me out to the stockades right?

I'm still playing that song. 19 million hours later. I can't stop. Alfred, I'm sorry. I'm really emotional about all this. I wish all gay men could be accepted for loving men. Really I do. That's what I feel now. I've had a kindof epiphany.

STAND BACK.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

See, you can call me a blasphemer, but to me that's one step above even Edge of Seventeen. I know, take me out to the stockades right?

nah, it's a cleaner pop track with a nice hook, and it even has some hair-raising lyrics on paper, though the melody kind of dominates them. And the backstory's a great reminder that Stevie got into the rock game for the best possible, most innocent reason: because guitar players make her hot...

but it doesn't rock or yearn like "Stand Back"...

and it doesn't have the force and spookiness and ache and mystery of "Edge of Seventeen," which is right there with "In The Air Tonight" for stopping power and sounding nothing like anything else on the radio when it hit.

The sea does not change, bitches! That's some next-level shit, see?

4. "Talk to Me" (Chas Sanford) 0

:'(

Yeah, in general I'm okay with Edge of Seventeen winning, I guess, if that's how people feel. But not by that kind of margin.

Guess I'm not surprised.

STEVIE NICKS SINGLES ON THE BILLBOARD HOT 100:

* 07-25-81 / #3 / Stop Draggin' My Heart Around
* 10-24-81 / #6 / Leather And Lace
* 02-22-82 / #11 / Edge Of Seventeen
* 05-15-82 / #32 / After The Glitter Fades
* 06-04-83 / #5 / Stand Back
* 09-10-83 / #14 / If Anyone Falls
* 12-17-83 / # 33 / Nightbird
* 11-16-85 / #4 / Talk To Me (A:4, S:5)
* 02-22-86 / #16 / I Can't Wait (A:14, S:21)
* 05-17-86 / #60 / Has Anyone Ever Written Anything For You
* 05-06-89 / #16 / Rooms On Fire (S:14, A:18)
* 09-07-91 / #56 / Sometimes It's A Bitch
* 06-18-94 / #57 / Maybe Love Will Change Your Mind (A:57)

I always forget "Talk To Me" was a big hit.

"Talk To Me" is weird. Great vocal performance but as a song it works much better in my memory than it does when I actually hear it.

Yeah I'm not really sure how to feel about it, either. I do think it's better than "I Can't Wait", but when I try to play it all the way through, I usually end up skipping to something else. I like the way she goes "you can set your secrets free, baby", though. The problem is that by the time popular 80's music had gotten that far (what was this, 87 or 88? haha omg it was '85...) I became allergic to these sorts of big flashy guitars and overbearing drum sounds, overblown production things like this. There wasn't anything subtle anymore, it all had to be a great big hammer on your head. But structurally, the song is just fine, can't fault it there. To be honest, by 1985 I had discovered underground hardcore/punk/new wave/post-punk things, and I couldn't give a shit about Stevie Nicks in 1985, is the funny thing.

I just played the title track to "The Wild Heart", though, and I'm rather astounded at how beautiful it was and how it seemed to effortlessly capture my current mood.

Delivery here:

Well, is it all that hard
Is it all that tough
Well, I've shown you all my cards now isn't that enough

Classic

...

Delivery here:

Though we lay face to face and cheek to cheek
Our voices stray from the common ground where they
could meet
The walls run high, to veil a swelling tear

Dud

Delivery here:

Well, is it all that hard
Is it all that tough
Well, I've shown you all my cards now isn't that enough

Classic

Yeah -- that bark-gulp in these verses is classic Stevie. I don't know who else could/would want to get away with it. I agree with Bimbs in principle re "Talk To Me," but it's got such a nice structure (Chas Sandford also co-wrote John Waite's eternal "Missing You").

"I Can't Wait" on the other hand epitomizes eighties big bam boom at its best.

Interesting point re: John Waite song...it's certainly the same tempo, isn't it?

Well sortof anyway...close enough.

Definitely close enough. Hooks are similar too. Someone needs to get out the ol' laptop and mash 'em up...

Hahahah! AMEN! ;)

Thanks, thread.

Somewhere
Twilight
Dreamtime
Somewhere
In The Back of Your Mind

So I walk on down the line away from you
maybe your attention was more than I could do

What I say unless you read between my lines

I'm not too sad about the results but I do need to itunespurchase me one copy of "If Anyone Falls" because dear lordy that is a fine song.

Junior-high memory: my white school budz were digging on synthpop--Duran Duran, "99 Luftballons," plus Frankie and Madonna and whatnot--but I lived in a black neighborhood where Kool & the Gang and the Commodores and yes of course Michael were more important. And then from my new-wavier older sisters I also had Elvis C. and the Furs and XTC.

Stevie was in none of these groupings, and she seemed vaguely to belong to the stoner older classic-rock-likin' kids with their cigarettes and flannel over black concert t-shirts.

But, happily, it was all thrown together in one glorious mishmash on Top 40 radio, and Casey Kasem served it all up to us with apparent equanimity despite the apparent incongruity./

Thanks ye mad puffin, you summed it up nicely. Kasey Kasum was the great leveller, I think.

Alfed, this one's for you:

As my eyes turned away
he said

I have loved many women
many times I have run away

shadow against the wall
baby I see your shadow against the wall

I totally stand by these results, Edge of Seventeen is perfection in song

Somebody voted for "Room's On Fire"!

"Well there is magic all around you...if I do say so myself" is such a goofy line for a chorus.

surprised she hasn't made a studio version of this yet

"Rooms On Fire" was the first Stevie Nicks song I heard.

Oh really? I haven't heard that one! Thanks.

Feeding my head at the moment with Stop Dragging My Heart Around on You Tube.

croupier please help me. I can't get that on my iPod. How do I do this? Please please help help help help.

"YES I CAN, BITCH"

My dad bought me that single when I was a young child. I didn't know what it meant. It had a picture in the inside label of palm trees from California. That's all I remember. There was no picture sleeve, he just bought it for me, said "here, have this". And there it was. My dad.

But the sea does not change.

I'm a few years older than you

croupier please help me. I can't get that on my iPod. How do I do this? Please please help help help help.

The live album/DVD is supposed to come out in March. Beyond that you're on your own.

Oh shit. OH SHIT. Oh god.

I went to the store just now to buy more alcohol but I couldn't go inside right away. I had my headphones, and I had to sing Stevie Nicks songs outside the stupid fucking store because I couldn't help it. I felt like such a faggott whore. But strangely no one bothered me.

Blame it on my wild heart!!!!

Lovers forever
face to face
my city old mountain
stay with me stay

I need you to love me
I need you today
give to me your leather
take from me
my lace

That woman has saved my soul tonight, single handedly. Thanks croupier, et al.

Rooms on Fire is nice, thank you ILM. I <3 you.

they should've traded whole lotta trouble for two kinds of love

She blew my preteen mind back in the early 80s. Before Madonna, she and Pat Benatar were the only ones on the radio and MTV. I was so excited to go see her in concert at the Garden State Arts Center at the Jersey shore.

Then she walks onstage, close to 200 pounds, barely coherent like Elvis 1976. She starts to cry onstage, and yells at a fan for something. Two weeks later, she checks into rehab.

― kornrulez6969, Thursday, December 4, 2008 5:08 AM (2 years ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

I hope that's supposed to read like a favorable review 'cause it does

― J0hn D., Thursday, December 4, 2008 5:19 AM (2 years ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

ahaha

great thread

steamy nicks

Whenever I Call You Friend

Former Fleetwood Mac singer Stevie Nicks has revealed that Prince asked her to write the lyrics for his classic track 'Purple Rain' – but she turned him down because she was “scared”.

Nicks became friends with Prince after he played synthesizers on her 1983 single 'Stand Back' – a song that was inspired by his own track 'Little Red Corvette'.

In an interview with the Minneapolis Star Tribune, she claimed that after asking Prince if they could collaborate again in the future, he had sent her cassette tape featuring a 10-minute instrumental version of 'Purple Rain' and asked her to write lyrics for it.

She said, "It was so overwhelming, that 10-minute track… I listened to it and I just got scared. I called him back and sad, 'I can't do it. I wish I could. It's too much for me."

However, the singer was adamant that she didn't regret her decision to not accept his invitation, adding: "I'm so glad I didn't, because he wrote it, and it became 'Purple Rain'."

Would have voted for 'Edge Of Seventeen'.

I still haven't got around to listening to a Stevie Nicks solo album in full yet :/

If you have not listened to Bella Donna and Wild Heart front to back, you haven't LIVED.

Also I will pay upwards of a zillion dollars to hear Stevie cover Purple Rain.

or Prince covering "If Anyone Falls"!

somewhere
twilight
dreamtime
somewhere