Come lately, I just keep waitin'
I see nothin' out there
The sun keeps throwin' out the light from the clouds
But there's no light in here
I know that things have got to change
But how to change them isn't clear
I'm tired of knockin' on doors
When there's nobody there
You know, I'm tired of knockin' on doors
When there's nobody there

And the time keeps goin' on by
And I wonder
What is to become of me
And I'm unsure
I can't see my way
And he says, "Lady, you don't have to see"

And the time keeps goin' on by
And I wonder
What is to become of me
And I'm unsure
I can't see my way
And he says, "Lady, you don't need to see"
And he says, "Lady, you don't need to see"
Come lately, I just keep waitin'
I see nothin' out there
The sun keeps a-throwin' out its light from the clouds
But there's no light in here
I know that things have got to change
But how to change them isn't clear
I'm tired of knockin' on doors
When there's nobody there
You know, I'm tired of knockin' on doors
When there's nobody there
And the time keeps goin' on by
And I wonder
What is to become of me
And I'm unsure
I can't see my way
And he says, "Lady, you don't need to see"

And the time keeps goin' on by
And I wonder
What is to become of me
And I'm unsure
I can't see my way
And he says, "Lady, you don't need to see"

And the time keeps goin' on by
And I wonder
What is to become of me
And I'm unsure
I can't see my way
And he says, "Lady, you don't need to see"
And he says, "Lady, you don't need to see"
And he says, "Maybe you don't need to see"
Oh....
Nooo....

---

WEBMISTRESS speculates:

This song's tune is a little different from most of Stevie's tunes, a little bluesier, at least in the verse. Stevie states herself that this song is about Lindsey. From her audio commentary:

"'Lady' was, I think, the first song that I wrote on the white piano that some very nice man gave to Lindsey and I when we first moved to L.A. I didn't know how to play and I'd never taken any piano lessons, but I wrote this song and it's called 'Lady' and it's on this record. This is a song, also, that's really stayed in my head all these years. Sometimes I'll find myself humming it or whistling it, and this has been going on since I wrote it in 1971. It's never left my head. And that's why I sing it so exactly like I sang it on the demo, 'cause the demo's pretty perfect. It's just exactly like what we did; it's just better piano playing. I think that when Lindsey and I got to L.A., we were really lucky to have a really wonderful producer who let us move in with him in his tiny two-bedroom house, which was really, really intruding upon his space, but he shared it with us and we lived there for like a year and a half. It was a long year and a half of three people smashed into a house. Lindsey and I were really... we didn't know. We knew we had a chance because we had a great producer who'd had a lot of success, and we were meeting people, but I was still nevertheless the maid, even though Keith didn't treat me like the maid, 'cause I chose to be the maid. I thought we owed him that for living in his house. I thought, 'I'm going to take care of this house while we're here.' But Lindsey and I were scared. It's like,'What are we going to do? I can go out and be a waitress, and I could make pretty good money, but how long is that going to go on?' And this is in the very beginning. After we had lived at Keith's for a year and a half, we started to go like, 'OK, this is all part of the deal. This is what you do when you move to Los Angeles to try to make it in the music business.' But duiring that first couple of months when I wrote that song, we were...we really didn't... we were like... 'Is this the right... Should we have stayed in San Francisco?' So when it says 'I know that things have got to change but how to change them isn't clear. I'm tired of knockin' on doors when there's nobody there... and the time keeps going on by, and I wonder what is to become of me' - it really was what is to become of us? And we're 'unsure'; we 'can't find our way.' And we were holding each other up at that point, totally. Lindsey and I were gonna fight through it, we were gonna make it, but it was gonna be hard."

There's really not much for me to add to Stevie's comments, except that I think it's interesting how the last line shifts from "Lady, you don't need to see" to "Maybe you don't need to see." The way Stevie sings it, emphasizing the difference, makes me think the shift is significant. It shows that Lindsey isn't as confident as he pretends to be about their ability to make it; the "maybe" allows his own uncertainty to show. As she said, they were both scared, even as he tries to reassure her.

 

 

 

RUISRYAN speculates:

I think many verses and the general theme of this song is being forcefully cut off from real contact in a person to person way. This could refer to the time when she and Lindsey had just ended their relationship, and Stevie was writing a lot of songs that he refused to put to music, because they, according to him, were not good enough. This would be very frustrating to a prolific song-writer, who would feel that each song was a way of knocking on his door, and have him completely ignore her effort. I think the part about "what will become of me" can refer to the idea that a lot of her songs were turned down by FM, but the part about "Lady you dont have to see" is when she met Paul Fishkin who had great faith and ideas for many of Stevie's songs. So somehow, he became the knight in shining armor that would help Stevie release a lot more of her songs, and thusly herself to her fans.

24 Karat Gold | SN Albums