Twisted by Stevie Nicks (In three variations) in The Song Remembers When

This song has a very strange and, if you’ll forgive me, twisted history. She wrote for the soundtrack of the movie Twister based on having seen an early cut of the movie. She sees the movie as an allegory for the rock and roll lifestyle. She sent a demo to the record company, who demanded that she make it a duet with her old Fleetwood Mac love, Lindsey Buckingham. She was very displeased with the version that was used in the movie and decided to release the demo version two years later on her boxset. She apparently was still feeling like it was unsettled because she released another version on her 2014 album.

So we have three different released versions of the same song and each one is incredibly different than the other, to the point where they seem like distinct songs.

I heard the demo first. I really was drawn to the line “in this game that you play with God you’ve been warned to retreat” and felt like that’s what my life was like at the time. I was just finishing up high school. 9/11 was still fresh in everyone’s minds and I was trying so hard to live the right way, and it was like I was fighting this immovable force. Sometimes, I still feel like that, it’s a quiet struggle like the sound of the song itself.

I heard the duet version second. I was startled by it. Firstly, it was missing my favorite line that I mentioned in the previous paragraph. In this version, what sticks out to me is the repeated “chasing down the demons”. I was in the middle of some intense therapy, and I thought about how I enjoy the process of breaking down my motivations and my mind’s components. Clearly that’s true because I’ve spent so much of my time writing in journals like this hoping to make sense of everything I do. “You’d rather be wrapped up in the arms of the storm”

I was eagerly anticipating this album, 24 Karat Gold, and when I noticed that Twisted was on it, I was a little hesitant. How many versions do we need of this song? When I heard it, I was at a different place in my life… instead of bits and pieces, I got the whole song. Some of us just cannot stop playing with fire, will always stick our fingers in the wall sockets or chase storms that have the power to destroy us. We know better, but we dare ourselves to survive. It’s how we feel alive. We can’t stop.

Just like Stevie can’t stop reinventing this song.