What's in this box??

“You can ride high atop your pony
I know you won't fall...
'Cause the whole thing's phoney.
You can fly swinging from your trapeze
scaring all the people
but you'll never scare me.” Stevie Nicks (Bella Donna)

We just bought a nice, little commuter car, 1999 VW Beetle. Not only is this a neat little car, albeit a ‘chick’ car, it gets great mileage and is plain fun to drive. The one downside is the cassette player… No CD’s for this ride.
Well, as it happens we found a box in the garage full of cassettes; they were right next to the old 8-track player and the Atari game system.

Found all kinds of treasures in there, old Motown hits, Santana and so on. I don’t actually recall buying Shanana’s Greatest Hits; but, hey, there it was. I am assuming it was actually one of my wife’s purchases.

What I did find in there was definitely one of my personal favorite albums of all time. Stevie Nicks has been one artist that always touched a chord in me. (Note the clever musical tie in.) I at one point had not only the cassette, but also the vinyl copy of “Bella Donna.” I played the record till the grooves were just about worn out. In my opinion, this was by far, the greatest work Nicks had ever done. Anything she did prior or after this album paled in comparison.

Her work with Fleetwood Mac came close, but still lacked the raw passion of “Bella Donna.” Her work with Tom Petty on “Stop Dragging My Heart Around” was incredible even though the curse of a Top 40 tune did rub some of the magic off after the 10,000th time it got airplay. And what can be said about “The Highwayman” with Don Henley? I can’t even begin to address the quality of the vocals and arrangements, let alone the lyrics.

This made me think about what in our lives is our “Bella Donna?”

What piece of work or passion really stands out as our defining moment? What.. if even so brief, told the world this is who I am, this is what I believe. Is there something you can look at and think, “This is amazing how can I ever do better than this?”

I realize that not many of us will ever know what it feels like to put ourselves out on a record and watch to see the reaction of the listening public. For most of us, that public will be our family, our co-workers and friends. We will not be able to see how well we do on the charts or whether anyone will ever use one of our lines as a quote or an example.

Do you ever wonder what the lyrics we write sound like to others? We may never be famous but I suspect that all of us will achieve our own version of “Bella Donna.”
The key I suspect is to be aware of what we did and how best to follow up afterwards.

I don’t think any of us want to end up re-playing our greatest hits at the Silver Reef Casino.