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14 June 2024
Tags: Music
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Lace and Leather

Newly-obsessed with Stevie Nicks (thanks to attending my second show in under week) I’m combining our coquette summer theme (which fittingly features its own dose of lace) with her song ‘Leather and Lace‘. There’s a compelling story behind how that song came to be, but I won’t spoil it for anyone who might be going to see her live (and absolutely everyone should). I’ll simply post the song here as it’s currently my favorite of her many iconic musical moments, and for once I find the song, and its lyrics, to be more serious and thoughtful than any of my silly words or stories.

Is love so fragile and the heart so hollow?Shatter with words, impossible to followYou’re saying I’m fragile, I try not to beI search only for something I can’t seeI have my own lifeAnd I am stronger than you know
But I carry this feelingWhen you walked into my houseThat you won’t be walking out the doorStill I carry this feelingWhen you walked into my houseThat you won’t be walking out the door

Love songs, at this point in musical history and certainly at this point in my life, are too often riddled with cliches and simplistic notions of romance that don’t usually translate into the messiness of real humans and hearts. Yet still we grasp at them because we know that when love hits, it does defy the messy moments, making the work worth it. When I think back on the life I’ve shared with Andy, it would be an easy take to view him as the leather in the relationship, and me as the lace. Don’t pretend you weren’t thinking and assuming the same thing – it’s a solid take, and based on lots of history and factual evidence. (Hello, I’m wearing lace in this post… and many others, so it’s not a bad assumption, just a little short of encompassing what we might be to each other.)
Lovers forever, face to faceMy city, your mountainsStay with me, stayI need you to love me, I need you todayGive to me your leatherTake from me my lace
You in the moonlightWith your sleepy eyesWould you ever love a woman like me?And you were rightWhen I walked into your houseI knew I’d never want to leave

Most of us are a little leather and little lace in one, and in our relationships with each other we might lean toward one side or the other, but every relationship I know and have been in has found one person assuming both roles at various points. That’s certainly true of my marriage – there are times when each of us has to be stronger because of what the other person might be going through, and such balance is a very good thing. 

Sometimes I’m a strong womanSometimes cold and scared and sometimes I cryBut that time I saw youI knew with you to light my nightsSomehow I would get by
The first time I saw youI knew with you to light my nightsSomehow I would get by

And so we have this sweet love song as we near the end of spring – not the sort of love song to accompany the start of something, but a more resonant and lasting notion of love to embody the potent glowing embers of a love that has survived the wear and tear of decades. Even leather breaks down after all that time, and lace is sometimes better at allowing poisonous winds to travel right through it instead of taking it all in. Which is stronger in the end? Both might be needed to make it through this life’s journey. 

Lovers forever, face to faceMy city, your mountainsStay with me, stayI need you to love me, I need you todayGive to me your leatherTake from me my lace
Lovers forever, face to faceMy city, your mountainsStay with me, stayWell, I need you to love me, I need you todayTo give to me your leatherTake from me my lace

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