Would you swallow all your pride?
Recorded for the 1979 Fleetwood Mac album Tusk, this is, in my own personal opinion, the most beautiful song ever written. As with so many Stevie Nicks songs, the official lyrics never capture all of what really goes down in the song. It seems to capture all at once the pain of a thousand lost souls roaming the face of a dying planet, waiting for redemption.
Wait a minute baby. . .
Stay with me awhile
Said you'd give me light
But you never told me about the fire
At some point it all seems so simple. You feel redeemed. You stand in a promised light, but you never thought about the fire that keeps that light going. You feel love. You feel that everything you had considered important and worthy of attaining in this life has been suddenly justified in this new love. There are those moments of pure bliss you wish could last forever. Sometimes you believe that they will. Sometimes you know that they will not. Everything changes. We all have our personal histories. We all have our ghosts. If you want to wrap yourself around another soul you have to accept this. Too often we pretend we do not have to and that the bliss will last forever.
Drowning in the sea of love
Where everyone would love to drown
And now it's gone
It doesn't matter anymore
When you build your house
Call me home
And there we drown. There is this amazing emotional overload that happens in the light of new love. It is impossible to dismiss. It is the reason so many leave their familiar lovers for new horizons. That drowning feeling, being overwhelmed in every way by emotions for someone we have just entertained passions for. It is rare to find someone with whom we can drown on a regular basis. The distance grows. We cry out in the darkness. We want that feeling back again, but the old familiar feelings are so much more comfortable. Those of us who are rebels against comfort and familiarity wait for the tide to turn. We would rather embrace the pain than to sit in relative comfort with the functional stagnation so many accept.
And he was just like a great dark wing
Within the wings of a storm
I think I had met my match--he was singing
And undoing the laces
Undoing the laces
The rebels always have a hard time staying together. We are not grounded, we are always on the move. We are creatures of a future disaster that we secretly hope for, knowing that a change in temperature will bring us closer once more. The old passions renew us. Those that can continue to hold that power over time are so much more powerful than those new loves we use to energize ourselves. Familiar but distant. We embrace the light as well as the fire. Those who know us but cannot conquer us are so much more powerful than those who burn out and fade away. We dream of drowning at the hands of someone who will hold us underwater long enough to achieve the inevitable.
Drowning in the sea of love
Where everyone would love to drown
And now it's gone
It doesn't matter anymore
When you build your house
Call me home
What matters, anyway? You want something? Turn off the kitchen faucet and start thinking about it. That drip can go on forever, but you're still looking for something you can't even define. Devour yourself. Do it quickly. Find yourself. The night is coming. You can see the darkness building around you and you need something. Your want has become need and you can't quite hold on any longer. It is time to split from the program. Are you ready for the waiting or are you ready to move? You can find new places and new means to entertain yourself, but where is your soul? It seems to rest right in the cradle of the grave. You'll take this one to the end.
Hold on
The night is coming and the starling
flew for days
I'd stay home at night all the time
I'd go anywhere, anywhere
Ask me and I'm there because I care
You need to build something, but what are you building? Are you building what you think you are supposed to be building or are you building what you really want to build? There is so much commotion between the should and would systems. Would you if you could? They are holding you back, but you have the bricks and the mortar. Build what you are meant to build. Stop thinking so much about them. They'll burn off and fade away one day. It will just take some time. Take the time.
Sara, you're the poet in my heart
Never change, never stop
And now it's gone
It doesn't matter what for
When you build your house
I'll come by
Did you settle for second best because it was the easiest way? There isn't anything wrong with that, provided you can live with yourself and shroud yourself in some kind of happiness. You can run that program into re-runs through eternity, but will that get you anywhere? Welcome to the machine. Feed your quarters into the slot at the door. Where did you lose the light? Where did you lose the vision? Hold on tightly, this shit can hurt like hell. You've sidestepped yourself. You need a shoe shine kit and a box of cigars. I'm sure someone here can help you with that.
Drowning in the sea of love
Where everyone would love to drown
And now it's gone
It doesn't matter anymore
When you build your house
Call me home
Is it gone? Did you lose it forever? Maybe you can wait until your next life for it to come around again. Love isn't a drive-thru selection of the day. You aren't yelling your order through a muffled box on the highway. You need to know what you're doing. You'll wait. You'll be patient, but you'll give in. You figure it is better to have something now than to realize the road has its own plan. Are you going to fade into yourself, or just fade into some easily sorted vision of how life can be easier with just a touch of the button and a flick of the switch.
All I ever wanted
Was to know that you were dreaming
(There's a heartbeat
And it never really died)
Lyrics copyright 1979 Welsh Witch Music
As written by Stevie Nicks and recorded by Fleetwood Mac
The lyrics as published are not the same as those actually sung.