Analyzing Stevie Nicks 'Landslide'

Landslide by Stevie Nicks Analysis Essay An aging parent’s lament for their child’s wellbeing after they part ways is something that enters a lot of people’s lives whether they are the parent or the child. This feeling of sorrow and grief is executed perfectly by Stevie Nicks’ lyrics in the song “Landslide”, which details a mother hoping her child will grow past her own mistakes and not repeat them through a plethora of metaphors. This lyrical poem opens with a couple lines who’s repetition throughout the poem fill them with a much deeper meaning. The first of these lines is “I took my love and I took it down” (l.1) where the speaker is talking about how she remembers her life which is repeated as “So, take this love and take it down” (l. 25) later when she is telling her children to reflect on what she going to tell them, her motherly

This is followed by two more lines “Climbed a mountain then I turned around” (l. 2) and “And I saw my reflection the snow covered hill” (l. 3) both of which being metaphors for the speaker’s life being a very rough journey, like climbing a mountain, and when she reached the end, the mountains peak, she looks back on her life as if she’s seeing her own reflection. This is of course repeated again later on in the poem when she is addressing her children with “Yeah, and if you climb a mountain and ya turn around” (l. 26) and “And if you see my reflection in the snow covered hills” (l. 27) where these lines sound more as if she’s warning the children to not follow in her footsteps because she’s regretful of the life she lead. These two stanzas are brought to the same earthshatering conclusion with the lines “Well the landslide brought me down” (l. 4) where she describes how when she reflected on her life she is suddenly brought back to the beginning of the journey almost as if