Meaning of "Landslide" by Stevie Nicks
Blog author: Shane Lambert
"Landslide," as performed by Stevie Nicks/Fleetwood Mac, isn't the easiest song to figure out. However, as a starting point, I wanted to figure out what the title referred to: what is a landslide a metaphor for?
To figure that out we can start with the literal: a landslide is a geological event where high-ground Earth tumbles down a cliff or slope. It's an event that is sudden: the Earth can be stable in one second and then a split second later it comes crashing downward. This sudden, surprising, and clear change is what I'll focus on in making my point about the Fleetwood Mac song.
A clear theme in "Landslide" is aging. How a landslide, as a metaphor relates to aging is something that I think anyone, let's say, 35 years or older will relate to. If you've ever looked in the mirror and had a terrible moment where you felt like you looked older than you did the last time you looked in the mirror then you've had a "Landslide" moment; this moment could be called sudden, surprising, and including a clear change.
Maybe you noticed your first white hair or maybe you looked in the mirror and saw a line in your face, one that just wasn't pronounced enough to be detectable to your eye the last time you looked in the mirror. A physical landslide is when the forces of nature cross a threshold and the land comes tumbling down; a landslide moment when you look in the mirror has to do with a different threshold - it's the moment you realize that your youth is fading.
From that point of view let's examine Lines 1-4 below:
Songwriters: Stevie Nicks
Landslide lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC
 |
| (Stevie Nicks; Creative Commons by Matt Becker) |
To figure that out we can start with the literal: a landslide is a geological event where high-ground Earth tumbles down a cliff or slope. It's an event that is sudden: the Earth can be stable in one second and then a split second later it comes crashing downward. This sudden, surprising, and clear change is what I'll focus on in making my point about the Fleetwood Mac song.
A clear theme in "Landslide" is aging. How a landslide, as a metaphor relates to aging is something that I think anyone, let's say, 35 years or older will relate to. If you've ever looked in the mirror and had a terrible moment where you felt like you looked older than you did the last time you looked in the mirror then you've had a "Landslide" moment; this moment could be called sudden, surprising, and including a clear change.
Maybe you noticed your first white hair or maybe you looked in the mirror and saw a line in your face, one that just wasn't pronounced enough to be detectable to your eye the last time you looked in the mirror. A physical landslide is when the forces of nature cross a threshold and the land comes tumbling down; a landslide moment when you look in the mirror has to do with a different threshold - it's the moment you realize that your youth is fading.
From that point of view let's examine Lines 1-4 below:
- I took my love, I took it down
- Climbed a mountain and I turned around
- And I saw my reflection in the snow-covered hills
- 'Til the landslide brought it down
Climbing the mountain could be the woman facing challenges in her youth. The "snow-covered hills" are a mirror, one that reflects the beauty of her youth with "snow" functioning as a metaphor for purity and grace. The "landslide" that changes those hills is just a metaphor for the moment, that anyone that lives long enough will experience when you realize the reflection in your mirror is different than the one from even just the day before. Aging, like the events that lead up to a geological landslide, might be viewed as gradual, but these lyrics describe the cataclysmic moment of a physical landslide as a parallel to the moment when you realize you aren't young anymore.
Accordingly, "Landslide" is from the point of view of a woman in the aftermath of the moment when she realized that her youth was lost. She considered beauty to be a strength of hers and, consequently, she now faces uncertainty in the future (Lines 5-11). The individual that she may be speaking to in Lines 17-20 could be a lover/partner, one whose acceptance she is afraid of losing after her "Landslide" moment.
One weakness of the song is that it does feature redundant lyrics, an indication that the writer ran out of ideas regarding the theme very quickly. Furthermore, there is a certain shallowness to the focus on beauty and the uncertainty she faces once she realizes it's lost; the individual in the song could be seen as one dimensional and unsophisticated. Her concern over losing her lover due to her aging also speaks to a shallow relationship. This isn't a song about losing character or intellect, human features that are considered to be more important than what's skin deep. This is a song about vanity.
- I took my love, I took it down
- Climbed a mountain and I turned around
- And I saw my reflection in the snow-covered hills
- 'Til the landslide brought it down
- Oh, mirror in the sky
- What is love?
- Can the child within my heart rise above?
- Can I sail through the changin' ocean tides?
- Can I handle the seasons of my life?
- Well, I've been afraid of changin'
- 'Cause I've built my life around you
- But time makes you bolder
- Even children get older
- And I'm getting older, too
- Well, I've been afraid of changin'
- 'Cause I've built my life around you
- But time makes you bolder
- Even children get older
- And I'm getting older, too
- Oh, I'm getting older, too
- I took my love, I took it down
- I climbed a mountain and I turned around
- And if you see my reflection in the snow covered hills
- Well the landslide will bring it down
- And if you see my reflection in the snow covered hills
- Well the landslide will bring it down
- Oh, the landslide will bring it down
Songwriters: Stevie Nicks
Landslide lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC
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