In 1974, I was 12 going on 16. To say my life was a cross between that of an army brat and a gypsy wouldn't be too far off. As my father followed his elusive dreams, we had moved from our small, Southeastern Kentucky hometown to a big, old house where my grandparents lived in the Woodland Park area of Lexington to an uptown apartment on the reservoir to a new townhouse development across town to a fine house in the Lexington area called Chevy Chase. Then we moved to the country of South Central Kentucky.
Ten acres, a county school and a horse later, I found myself in need of friendship. The family across the road had a 300 acre cattle farm and four girls. Thank goodness the sixteen-year-old took me under her wing, even though she was four years older than me. For one thing, since I had gotten my height (all 5"4' of it) and curves by age twelve, the older boys were beginning the chase and I could use some older, wiser advice. But more importantly, she had a truck.
One sweltering summer day, we were driving down dusty gravel roads, looking for some other bored people to hang out with, the radio blasting, when THE new song came on. A mesmerizing masterpiece by a new group with a mystical rock goddess at the helm. Rhiannon, by Fleetwood Mac. I don't know where my summertime friend is now or if we even have anything in common--I lost track of her decades ago. What I do remember though, is me turning the radio all the way up as she pulled off the road. There we sat in the glare of the sun, the cornstalks waving, as Stevie Nicks captivated us with her sultry voice and mysterious lyrics. We listened intently to the smooth sound and the words...
...Rhiannon is like a cat in the dark
and then she is the darkness
She lives her life like a fine skylark
and when the sky is starless
All your life, you've never seen
A woman taken by the wind
Would you stay if she promised you heaven?
Will you ever win?
Ah, "she lives her life like a fine sky lark..." Poetry to sooth the teen angst. Silky rock to soften the hard places. And a rock goddess to idolize. Stevie Nicks remains my muse to this day. To me, she has a way like no other.
By the time we moved two more times and ended up back in the hometown we had started out in, I was 14 going on 15 and owned the beginnings of my album collection.
Rumours was the first and I played it over and over AND OVER again in my room after school every day, as did the boy around the block. The lyrics and sound spoke to me.
Now there you go again/You say you want your freedom
Well who am I to keep you down?
It's only me who wants to wrap around your dreams
And have you any dreams you'd like to sell?
Dreams of loneliness/like a heartbeat drives you mad
In the stillness of remembering what you had
I soon discovered that the Mac's previous LP,
Fleetwood Mac, contained Rhiannon. It remains a song I still can't get enough of. So when I saw Taylor Swift butcher Stevie's song on stage at the Grammy's, I became angry. Angry that someone young enough to be my daughter could call my idol, a rockstress old enough to be her grandmother, her idol; angry that Stevie had to stand off center and try to get the girl with all the awards back on key on HER song. But also upset both at and for Taylor Swift. She seems like a sweet girl with some catchy lyrics that some other girls can relate to, but I don't personally relate. And she also comes across as a squeaky clean commodity, which is somewhat troubling. All the suits behind her slobbering as they dream of more bubble gum lyrics worth millions. The two women and the two socio-musical time periods they arrived out of are in such deep contrast to one another. We can't separate ourselves from our generation, and maybe I'm just being swayed by and loyal to mine. But I think there's more to it than that. (To be continued in a later essay).
Part of my reaction is also my subjective preference for abstract lyrics with poetic elements like alliteration and metaphor. ("Rhiannon rings like a bell through the night"). Swift's are much more concrete and rooted in the here and now, which can be powerful too. A classic: "He stopped lovin' her today/ hung a wreath upon his door/soon they'll carry him away..."
I'm a mixed bag of singing and song-writing myself. Just the other day, I discovered an online review by an aquaintance about my old CD . She gave it a 2.5 out of 5 stars and said, "It would do in a pinch." That's humbling. Ironically, I am noticeably flat on a note in one of the songs. When I reflect on it now, I regret that I didn't demand a retake from the people I was paying to produce and mix it. I didn't think I was good enough to be demanding. I'm more confident now, but I still have plenty of rock to chip away to get to my own song gems. And my singing might be compared to a cross somewhat in the fabric of Neil Young and Linda Ronstadt (if I had been so lucky to have pipes like hers). So, I'll give Taylor Swift a little more time to grow. What I cannot forgive is an industry that I believe contrived the whole Stevie/Swift duet/idol thing to make themselves look good, and it backfired.
