Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to the Surely You Can't Be Serious podcast.
I'm Amber Lewis often referred to as the voice of
reason on the Docking Base seventy seven and a film
by podcast. This week, Dan Jason will be discussing one
of the greatest albums of all time, an album written
by and for people who are going through every relationship
issue imaginable, all while doing lots and lots of drugs.
Fleetwood Max Rumors is the relationship each chang It is
the answer to any relationship question. Have you just fallen
in love with someone? Listen to You Make Love and Fun?
Where are you cheated on? Listen to the chain? Did
you just break up with someone? Listen to Go your
Own Way? In this versus episode, the guys are daring
to put this album up against the Eagles Hotel California.
Let's hear what they've got.
Speaker 2: All again? You say you want to free will Wink.
It's Solli right.
Speaker 3: Church Day Way.
Speaker 2: You live on Give Lead to the South of Lost Homy.
Speaker 3: All right?
Speaker 4: So that was not Fleetwood Max version of Dreams.
Speaker 3: Third it was not. That was a little band named
after a theory of Einstein called space Time di mention.
Since that's a little long, we just call ourselves that's
t D. Catch it right, Yeah, yeah, that is. That
is our band with got a pierro Zach on bass,
John Ross on guitar, me on lead, and our lovely
singer Ashton to doing her best Stevie Nicks, which I
think sounds pretty.
Speaker 4: Dang good, fantastic. Yeah, the hottest new band out of Norman, Oklahoma.
Check them out. Go your local bullying all you were.
Speaker 3: Hey, you can you can catch an st D at
any bar or grill.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's true.
Speaker 3: You get well.
Speaker 4: Today we are here to talk about one of the
greatest albums of all time. Yes, this album is Fleetwood
Max Rumors album.
Speaker 3: When you came to me and you're like, Okay, we
need to do Hotel California, and I was like, there's
not going to be anything worthy to be a competitor
for Hotel California. And then I listened to Rumors and
I'm like, well, crap, I was wrong about that.
Speaker 4: Holy cow, it's three of the greatest songwriters of the
seventies at their magical peak, pumping out awesome hits.
Speaker 3: And guys, we're going to have stories about love affairs
Love Triangles, Hippie Cults, Children of God, and that's before
Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie next to even joined the band.
That's right, That's right, yeah, I mean this band, I
think they've I think they've had like sixteen different personnel
members over the course of time, and the only constants
are Mick Fleetwood and John mcvee, who haven't really written
any of the songs.
Speaker 4: It's crazy, right, those guys are lucky to have recruited
some of the greatest songwriters of all time.
Speaker 3: Lucky like Midas Touched, Lucky like I told you. I
think that Mick Fleetwood is probably the best recruiter in
music history. And John McVie, I mean, I've done a
lot of research. I haven't heard him say more than
five words. I agree with you, like he he's just
there and he's just playing a simple little bass part,
and he's made millions and millions of dollars by being
just that guy plugging along at the base. I mean,
one of these songs on this album is written to him,
and it was probably twenty or thirty years after it
came out when somebody was like, you know, that song's
about you. John He's like, is it that song about me? Okay, yeah,
I'll to that one in a minute. But my goodness,
this is an incredible album. Album of the Year for
nineteen seventy seven.
Speaker 4: Won the Grammy for Album of the Year nineteen seventy eight.
Speaker 3: Ye. Actually, And if you're a big Fleetwood Mac fan,
then you probably know that they have a significant history
before Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks joins the band. But
if you didn't know that, if you think this band
started in the mid seventies, We've got some pretty impressive
news for you, some pretty impressive stories. You know, the
song black Magic Woman by Santana originally a Fleetwood Max song.
I didn't know that, and I started doing this research,
I'm like, holy cow, and it sounds very sim Carlos
Santana definitely did something to it. But wow.
Speaker 4: This was the eleventh studio album. This is the second
one with Lindsay Buckingham and Stevie Nicks.
Speaker 3: YEP.
Speaker 4: This album sold forty million copies, had four singles in
the top ten, but really, ten out of eleven songs
were major hits on radio. This was everywhere in the
late seventies.
Speaker 3: You literally had not one, not two, but three breakups
going on in this band, and there were only five
of them, Like I'm pretty sure to have I'm pretty
sure to have that many breakups, you have to have
at least six people.
Speaker 4: And these weren't easy breakups either. These were hard feelings,
like you f you can't look at you, But we've
got to go write this song together.
Speaker 3: And not only that, but I'm writing the song about
my feelings about our breakup, and I'm giving it to
you to play the guitar too, And then you're writing
a song in response to my song. I mean, it's
just it's incredible. I was thinking about this.
Speaker 4: If we did an episode called dfing Sucks and you
had to stand there and like echo my sentiments about that.
Speaker 3: I had to sing the chorus d effing sucks.
Speaker 4: And not only that, it was like our best downloader
of all time. And then the next week you're like,
Jason effing sucks and we yeah, I mean that's the
way it was.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Yeah, they hated each other and loved each other.
There's this is definitely like you can tell the hurt
feelings in this. I mean, if you just have it,
I don't care about you attitude. That's true. That's a
different kind of feeling. This was I want to date
other people, but I don't want you to date other people.
And I'm mad at you even though I broke up
with you. I mean, it's just crazy. Yeah, it is crazy.
So I would say, enough talking about what we're going
to talk about. Let's dive in, let's get going, let's
jump into this album. But before we do, I want
you to tell me, tell me the stuff that you
always tell me, because you always stopped me, and you know,
before we do that, I want to do this. And
I saw you in a heale, you see, but I
want to say one more then I'll say it.
Speaker 4: Yes, before you give us the incredible back history on this,
I think we do need to shout out our new
Patreon member.
Speaker 3: Oh yes, we actually have too. Yeah too. We've got
Dave Dolphin. Thank you, Dave. Dave who guest hosted with
us when we covered Ferris Bueller's Day Off versus Adventures
in Babysitting, and he has joined the Patreon tribe. Awesome,
Thanks Dave, appreciate you executive producer for this episode. And
we also have Darius Elliott.
Speaker 4: Thanks Terarius.
Speaker 3: Sarious. Thank you so much for joining the tribe. Man
looking forward to hearing from you, getting your input on
some of the stuff that we do. Guys, if you
want to join our Patreon family, you can do that
super easy. You just go to patreon dot com Surely Podcast.
You can join for free. You can get access to
all of our one Hit Wonder episodes for his littles
five bucks a month. You can go up if you
want to be more supportive, because you know, otherwise we're
doing this for free and that's hard to justify to
the family, you know. And the other big benefit of
being a Patreon member is that you get access to
all of our episodes early and without ads.
Speaker 4: All Right, before we drove into the songs, I just
want to drop this little nugget for you. This album
was ranked by Rolling Stone as the number seven greatest
album of all time.
Speaker 3: Wow. First song on the album it is an F
you we just broke up. Set of lyrics. This one
is called secondhand news. Okay. I'd like to sum up
this song with I know you hate me and I
hate you too, but it's okay sometimes.
Speaker 4: So This was written by Lindsay Buckingham, indeed, who had
joined the band in nineteen seventy five. I love how
this this song was inspired by the jive Talking Beg song.
Speaker 3: Yeah. This song started off as an acoustic song on
the guitar for him, and then he heard jive talking
and decided he wanted to give it kind of that beat,
but he wanted something a little more Celtic or Celtic
depending on where you're from, on how you pronounced that
from Boston and the Celtics, I think yeah. And so
he used a like a fake leather chair seat to
pound out that you're hearing a rhythm section of somebody
pounding where there have been farts rendered.
Speaker 4: I also heard that like John McVie recorded his bassline
in this song, and then while he was out of town,
Lindsay's like, I don't really like about it here, Hey,
I'm going to do this for you. Lindsay was very
overbearing and all this stuff.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so Stevie Nicks, you know, we're talking about this
kind of craziness of all of these heartbreaking songs and
romance breaking up and all of this other stuff. Stevie
Nicks described this album and the tour and everything else
that followed. It is like being hostages in Iran and
Lindsey Buckingham was the item that's saying something right there, man,
rulers make bad lovers. Yeah, this is a fun song.
This is a good song. It's an upbeat a few yeah.
I mean it has got an infectious rhythm to it.
I like the different style it has to it. It's fantastic.
As soon as soon as I put this album on,
listening to it from beginning to the end, I immediately
was like, oh, I haven't heard this in a long time,
and dang, it's good. Such a great song.
Speaker 4: When Lindsay Buckingham wrote this song and they were recording
in the studio in Sosolito, he withheld the lyrics as
long as he could because he knew it would piss
her off and he didn't want to deal with the
craft that would along with that.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, so and the lay me down in the
tall grass. So I think we all have the right
idea about what he's talking about there, sure, but I
love the finishing bit and this is I think kind
of a send a signature Lindsay buck Him thing. I
think he does a similar thing in like Holiday Road.
But is that down down, down down down, down, down down.
Nothing bad to say about the song. It is definitely
did this song get released as a single. It is
not a single. How many singles are there on this
album four four.
Speaker 4: Out of eleven, but it got significant radio play.
Speaker 3: Now another thing that I'm gonna tease up. I forgot
to tease this up in the beginning, but we're going
to talk about a song on this album that is
currently in their top ten downloaded songs on Spotify, that
didn't make the album, didn't make the album, and didn't
even really hit the public's ears in a big way
until almost twenty years later.
Speaker 5: Hmm.
Speaker 3: It was a B side on one of the releases.
But this song, which you all know and you probably
all have heard recently, could have been on this album,
might have should have been on this album, but much
to Stevie Nix's anger and chagrin, I can't wait to
talk about that make it onto the album.
Speaker 4: I believe kN Khalay, the guy who produced this album,
says the most beautiful song to never be on album.
Speaker 3: It's crazy. Yep.
Speaker 4: All right, let's dive into probably the most well known
song on this album.
Speaker 3: This is their first and only number one hit, which
is crazy given how good this album is. What this
song is called dreams.
Speaker 2: Again? You say we won't agree.
Speaker 6: It's all.
Speaker 7: Sup Blamelay, Okay, So tell me between Stevie Nicks and
Lindsay Buckingham, who broke up with whom?
Speaker 4: The most evidence I can find it's that Stevie dumped Lindsay.
Speaker 3: That's kind of what I've got too. But she wrote
this song in response to go your Own Way, which
he had written right now. The words are now hear
you go again? You say you want your freedom? Well
who am I to keep you? Down? Right? And so
to me it's like, well, why is he saying I
want my freedom to you if you're the one that
broke up with him?
Speaker 5: Right?
Speaker 3: Is this just like, is this the girls testing of
I'm gonna break up with you to see if you're
upset that I'm breaking up with you? Definitely possible, no
question about it. You know. She grew up in kind
of a sheltered born in Phoenix, Arizona. Dad was a
vice president for Greyhound Buses, so they didn't move around
quite a bit with his job, but she kind of
had a sheltered life. Didn't go out much, but read
tremendously and was very much into fantasy and stuff, and
it kind of comes out in this quote. She says,
with this breakup, it was like the Fairy and the Gnome.
I wanted to be philosophical about it, and he was
just mad.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I can identify with that, you know, Yeah, you
know there's things in this life and whatever you dubbed me.
Speaker 3: But as acrimonious as the breakup was, she comes up
with this song. And you know, I happen to know
the chords to this song. It's pretty much two chords
for the entire song, except for in the solo. You
get one extra little chord in the solo, but not
as far as the lyrics go, right. And I doubt
she was really writing his solo part. I'm pretty sure.
And she brought it. She brought a two chord song
to him, okay, And so it's two chord song to him,
written to him and about him, about a song that
he had written about her. And it's just her and
a piano, and like the left hand is back and
forth between these two chords, and the right hand's playing
one note and then she's singing the rest of it right,
And he listens to it and obviously is going to
be hurt by what she's saying to him in this,
but because of his respect for her as a songwriter,
he smiles and says, this is this is great.
Speaker 4: I'm just imagining where they're at the piano and she's
singing this song that's like you suck. I tried to
love you, you wouldn't let me love you.
Speaker 3: You suck.
Speaker 4: You've got your freedom, And he turns to her with
a smile on his face.
Speaker 3: It's like, you did it, great job. You know. This
song hit number one June eighteenth, nineteen seventy seven. This
is the second single.
Speaker 4: Now we already talked about how this is the response
to one of Lindsay's songs.
Speaker 3: That we'll talk about here very shortly. Yep.
Speaker 4: She wrote this one day in about ten minutes in
the studio where Sliding the Family Stone used to record.
Speaker 3: Yep.
Speaker 4: She said it was a day that she was in
the studio, but she wasn't really doing anything, you know,
so she's just like, okay, fine, I'll just go over
here with my notepad.
Speaker 3: And I kind of got the impression that it was
inspired by slies like decor, like he had this kind
of red velvet style bedroom or something.
Speaker 4: Helped her a little bit. Yeah, but she goes in
there writes this song in about ten minutes. Rolling Stone
has this as the number ninth greatest song of.
Speaker 3: All time great song.
Speaker 4: I saw on Facebook the other day that this would
be in the Divorced White Women Hall of Fame.
Speaker 3: Now this song is I mean, it has gotten renewed
popularity multiple times because of social media over the last
few years. And honestly, when Gotier brought this to us
to go, hey, I want to do this song, I
was like, Eh, I don't know. But he showed me
this video and it's not even one of the things
that was on soundbacks, but it's these cowboys doing like
pelvic thrust to the rhythm of and I was like, yeah, okay,
we can go ahead and do this. Is this is
too fun not to do. Yeah, but it is there.
It is by far and away their number one downloaded song. Yes.
Speaker 4: So, Stephanie Lynn Nicks met Lindsey Buckingham at a Young
Life Church event in the sixties. Really, yes, I did
not know that she was one year ahead of him
in school, which you know at that time makes you
unattainable to somebody one year below you, right, But yeah,
they were playing the guitar and she joined in with
her harmonies, and he was like, Wow, this cute girl
is singing, and wow, she can really sing.
Speaker 3: It was a Mamma's and Papa song. Was it like
California California Dreaming? Yeah, that's right, remember that. I just
want to say this now.
Speaker 4: I'm not trying to tear down anything, but her voice
is still fully intact in this album. We talked in
our One Crazy Summer episode how Demi Moore's voice was
affected by her cocaine news. Yes, and I think there's
definitely evidence for that later on Stevie Nix's voice, that
it becomes more sort of raw and raspy.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, still real good though, it's it's it does
it does. I don't know if you know this or not.
Speaker 4: The guide vocal that they recorded for this track ended
up being the final vocal track.
Speaker 3: Oh okay, Well that's good because it's subtle in its delivery.
You know, Like we're going to talk about that song
in a minute where she's she is outright yelling the
lyrics at Lindsey Buckingham, but she's not doing that in
this one. This is this has that dreamy quality and
the guitar. He has this great effect on his guitar
where he's got a volume pedal, right, and so he'll
play a note and it's quiet as he plays it.
Then he swells the volume with this pedal, which is
how you get that whoa, whoa, whoa whoa. That's that
is the effect and it's just him that's cool with
a volume pedal to change that to have that song
that note swell in.
Speaker 4: Can I make one small complaint about this song? Of
course the title needs to be better because I don't
think like my daughter didn't reckon it nice? The title
knows the song, Yeah, because dreams. The word dreams is
only used three times in this song. Yeah, and it's
kind of buried in the verse.
Speaker 3: Thunder only happens when it's raining. Is a little bit long. Yeah,
but it's memorable. Yeah, and it's the hook that's true.
Speaker 4: By the way, do you want to know the number?
Speaker 3: I was thought the charge ago? You said number one.
I'm like, oh, we're about to hear the top ten.
What do we got?
Speaker 1: All right?
Speaker 3: I got the top five for you.
Speaker 4: June eighteenth, nineteen seventy seven.
Speaker 3: All right.
Speaker 4: I had just turned four years old, but I'm gonna
I'm gonna blow your socks off with this, Okay.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Number five Lucille by Kenny Rodgers.
Speaker 3: Fine, time to leave Me Lucy, Okay, I remember that. Yeah.
Speaker 4: Number four feels like the first time Foreigner love It.
Number three Gonna Fly Now by Bill Conti.
Speaker 3: Yeah, from the Rocky Sound Rocky love It.
Speaker 4: Number two Gotta Give It Up Marvin Gay Okay, and
then number one.
Speaker 3: Dreams love It. What a great time in history, man,
I wanna back up a second. Yeah, Okay.
Speaker 4: So this song was a song written to Lindsay about
their breakup, about their relationship, but this is a full
year after their first album with Fleetwood Mac, where she
had written song Jimino called Landslide.
Speaker 3: Coverty to the Vast lad Down Oh Miring Sky.
Speaker 4: Which was written about Lindsay and their problems.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I mean it's important to note that whenever, whenever
Mick Fleetwood heard Lindsay Buckingham playing the guitar on a
demo that they had done at Sound City Music, we
got to tell that story. She was working as a
housekeeper and a waitress, and a waitress. So he's off
trying to scrape together something as a backup kind of brother.
And she's waiting tables and cleaning houses and she's I
think she was visiting a friend in Colorado.
Speaker 4: She was in Aspen.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the idea of a landslide dawns on her her
as this is kind of what's starting to happen on
our relationship.
Speaker 4: So the interesting thing, she wrote that song Landslide in
nineteen seventy three, okay, and she and Lindsay were trying
to make it as a group and it wasn't happen.
It didn't happen, and she called her dad and it's like,
I just don't know what's going on. And he's like, well, you're.
Speaker 3: Not happy it's not happening.
Speaker 4: You ought to think about coming home, he says, but
what I would do if I were you give it
six more months and see what happens. And she said,
you're right, Dad, I'm going to give it six months
and if nothing happens in six months, I'm coming home.
That day she wrote landslide. Two months later, she gets
a call from Mick Fleetwood, or Lindsay gets the call
from Mick Fleetwood, and actually Stevie is the afterthought. She's
the girlfriend who gets added because Mick Fleetwood wanted Lindsey
Buckingham's guitar, and it turns.
Speaker 3: Out she's the biggest star of the group. Yeah, okay,
next song on the album. This one is called never
Going Back Again. She moved down.
Speaker 4: All right, So this is a fun little song, a
lot of plucking going on. This was one of the
last songs added to the album. He's still talking about
Stevie never going back again?
Speaker 3: Nope, no, no, this one actually is written about the
second woman after Stevie. This is a woman he hooked
up with on the road, at least according to my research. Okay,
because when I read the lyrics, I'm like, yep, here
we go, another song about Stevie. I'm not gonna go
back there again. But no, this is apparently about somebody
who he after breaking up with Stevie, hooked up with
on the road, maybe once, maybe twice, but he's never
going back again. Okay, she doesn't know what it's like
to win. Okay, Look, I mean the lyrics on the
song are essentially ten lines long, and two of them
repeat themselves a couple of times. So I like this
song a lot.
Speaker 4: It sounds like it should be played in the log
ride at Silver Dollar City.
Speaker 3: It's got that.
Speaker 4: It's got kind of a Country Branson kind of feel
to it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I didn't look it up. It sounds like he's
probably playing a twelve string or maybe a mandolin, but
probably a twelve string on this one. It's got the
sound of two strings being plucked at the same time.
Speaker 4: To me, well, so I read the producer, King Kleay
wanted the perfect sound for this song. Let me let
me get this right here.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: To achieve this, they restrung the guitar every twenty minutes.
Speaker 3: Wow, Okay, that's weird. There you go, Like, I'm just
gonna say, as somebody who's restrung a guitar many times
in my life, you're not going to significantly impact the
sound of a guitar in twenty minutes. That's nuts.
Speaker 4: Tell that to King Kalay, producer of rumors.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I guess he'll say, yeah, look at my look
at my album of the year exactly.
Speaker 4: You see all these Grammys right here. By the way,
here's a quote that I found. Okay, lyrically, it was
a bit naive because it was obviously about Stevie, Lindsay Buckingham.
Speaker 3: Man, I'm telling you the thing I read Stevie or
the Lindsay Buckingham was the one that said it was
about a girl on the road. Okay, Well, who knows?
It could be both. Maybe he doesn't want her to
think it is about her at some point, amster f.
Speaker 4: That stupid b All right, next song on the album,
maybe my favorite song on the album.
Speaker 3: Okay, it's in the running. I'm not gonna make that
case yet. Okay.
Speaker 4: This song probably most well known to our age for
a significant event in history that's associated with yep.
Speaker 3: This song is called Don't Stop. Okay. So this song
is preceded by three absolute bangers, two written by Lindsay Buckingham,
one written by Stevie Nicks. And now we have this
one written by Christine McVay, and it is yet another banger.
Speaker 4: It's a banger. This song, to me is an old
friend from the seventies, but it came roaring back to
life in nineteen ninety two at the Bill Clinton Inaugural ball. Yeah,
the President of the United States somehow got five people
together who hated each other, couldn't be on stage together.
Speaker 3: Yeah, to stand up and sing this song. Yeah, A
new idea about this song and the lyric you know
that kind of catches on this one is Yesterday's Gone,
Like that was the original name of the song. I
don't actually know why they would have changed it to
don't Stop once again. This is a song that needs
to be named better. Yeah, I think Yesterday's Gone is
a better title.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And that's what it was called. Yep, And that's
what the album was going to be called.
Speaker 3: Yep. You know why they changed it to rumors because
of all of the rumors that were going around about
their various relates.
Speaker 4: Leaving around and hating each other and breaking up.
Speaker 3: Yep, yep. Now, this song Christine wrote because she was
trying to encourage John to move on with his life
and hey, Yesterday's Gone, go enjoy your life, have fun,
live for tomorrow. And it was really effective, except that
he had no idea it was to him until like
the twenty first century, when someone was like, hey, John,
you know, what do you think of the lyrics of
the song that she wrote for you? He's like, did
she write that for me? Yeah? Yeah, John McVie, Ladies
and gentlemen, luckiest man on Earth, I don't get it.
Speaker 4: She wrote me a letter about not paying attention to
something it wouldn't really listen. So this was the third single,
released April nineteen seventy seven. This reached number three on
the charts. The two songs in front of it have
no chance that they're better than this song.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 4: The number two songs on the chart was float On
by the Floaters, remember that.
Speaker 3: One I do? Actually is it better than this one?
Speaker 5: No?
Speaker 3: Okay?
Speaker 4: Number one, Best of My Love by the Emotions, Good Song,
seventy song, a Little DISCOI yeah, not better than Don't Stop.
Speaker 3: Four for four on this album so far, of absolutely brilliant, beautiful, hooky,
wonderful songs. I totally agree with you.
Speaker 4: You know you mentioned something that I just want to
point out. This song was written by Christine, but I
think the magic happened when they turned it into a
back and forth duet with Lindsay.
Speaker 3: The blend of their voices on the chorus is I mean,
it's perfect, like her voice and his voice together just
seamlessly mixed, and I absolutely love it. I like that
he sings a verse and she sings a verse. But
I think the magic happens when sing together.
Speaker 4: I got one tidbit for you on this one, okay,
Producer kN Kiley, I told you I read the book
Making of Rumors. Never really a fan of this song
as it was kind of becoming demoed and born and
worked on, he said, But once they got that chorus
down and they all jumped in and sort of blended
their voices, it won him over because they were such
great singers.
Speaker 3: Yeah, all right, next song on the album this is
go your own Way.
Speaker 4: Is the right?
Speaker 3: Okay. So we know that Lindsay Buckingham wrote this song.
We know that Stevie Nicks wrote Dreams in response to
this song. So what did he say to her and
his song that made her say? Players only love you
when they're playing.
Speaker 4: So the lyrics in this song that drove her absolutely
bonkers was the packing up, shacking up is all you
want to do.
Speaker 3: And she's like, that is not true.
Speaker 4: Take that off, and she like demanded that it be
taken off and he's like, no, how about this. It
stays oh, and you're singing it every night with me
and it is under her skin decades decades. It's one
of those things where it's not like he didn't know
it drove her crazy. He knew it drove her crazy
and still made her do it.
Speaker 3: The wounds are deep and the scars are permanent. Loving
you isn't the right thing to do. How can I
ever change the things that I feel? If I could, baby,
I'd give you my world? But how can I when
you won't take it from me? You can go your
own way, which I would translate to you can go
outside and play hide and go fick yourself. He's like,
I'm trying. I'm like, how do I just not love you?
How do I just quit doing things? If I could
do that, I would just give you the whole world.
But you wouldn't even take that. Yes, you sorry? Witch?
That's right.
Speaker 4: This was the lead single. This was actually released well
ahead of the album. It was released December of nineteen
seventy six. Reach number ten, Top ten, I Know that
I do? All right, say hey, are there nine songs
better than the song?
Speaker 1: No?
Speaker 3: But it's pretty good list.
Speaker 4: Okay, all right, all right, go your own way? Reaches
number ten. Number nine is rich Girl by Hello Notes.
Speaker 3: Oh, which we talked about yeah just a few weeks recently. Okay.
Speaker 4: Number eight You're the Cat by Al Stewart. Number seven,
Torn Between Two Lovers Mary.
Speaker 3: McGregor swinging to Miss Twice now, yeah, okay, hang in
there all right.
Speaker 4: Number six Dancing Queen by Aba Okay, sure, yeah, yeah,
I mean yeah, defining song. Iconic number five, Blinded by
the Light by Banford Man.
Speaker 3: Sure yeah. Number four Night Moves by Bob Seeker. Great song.
Speaker 4: Number three I Like Dreaming by Kenny Nolan.
Speaker 3: It's okay.
Speaker 4: Number two Fly Like an Eagle Steve Miller.
Speaker 3: Oh that's huge. We got cover Steve Miller. Yeah, we
need to do Steve Miller versus Leonard Skinner. Okay yeah.
Speaker 4: Number one ever Green by Barbara Streisand I told you
my mom liked that song.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: That's from the original Star is Born, right right, right right.
So here's an interesting story I have about this song. Okay, yeah,
So this was released ahead of the album, as I said,
And when they played it in LA there was a DJ.
His name was Michael Reid, Okay, And when he spun it,
you know, DJ's back in the day.
Speaker 3: He had a lot of power.
Speaker 4: After he played He's like, I don't know about that one.
Everybody keep in mind Fleetwood Mac is all in on
this album. They think they got it, and this is
the lead single and it's got a hit in.
Speaker 3: All that stuff. Yeah, rumors isn't even out at this point,
and he's already trashing the first single, right, So this
this DJ in LA is like, I'm not sure.
Speaker 4: So Lindsey Buckingham calls him it's great, yeah and says,
I mean, imagine a day where we say something on
here like I don't really like that song. And Lindsay
Buckingham calls us, right, but he calls him and said,
why did you like it?
Speaker 3: Like what's wrong with it?
Speaker 4: And the guy said, well, you know, it's hard to
find the beat, and I just I don't know. I mean,
I just didn't really like it that much.
Speaker 3: I have to say words, and so I said words, right, And.
Speaker 4: So he has softened a stance on that, of course
as it became a major classic from the seventies, but
just the idea that the artist would hear that and
call the radio station to talk to the DJs.
Speaker 3: Why didn't you like my song? Yeah? I don't like
it in either, lindsay, why don't you give me a call?
Please call us. By the way, Lindsay Buckingham and I
share the same birthday. Really, yeah, and Steve Yvaughan and
Frank Cannon and Tommy Lee. That's a pretty good day. Yeah,
what happens nine months before the first week I each other?
It's a little Christmas time, a little New Year's action.
Speaker 4: Okay, So I want to talk about the B side
to this song.
Speaker 3: Okay, do you know what the B side is?
Speaker 1: I do. So.
Speaker 4: Stevie wrote another song for this album called Silver Springs,
and it was long, and it was beautiful, and it
was left off the album.
Speaker 3: Seven minutes roughly is how long this song is. Now,
keep in mind this album came out in nineteen seventy seven,
and as you've alluded to, this was the B side
to their lead single. But being a B side means
you pretty well fly under the radar about ninety nine
point nine percent of the time, which is what happened
with this B side as well. It's true until nineteen
ninety seven, nineteen ninety seven, nineteen ninety seven, so twenty
years go by. Now I want you to tell the
story of because silver Springs is a Stevie Nick's song.
It is, and she expected it to be on this album.
Speaker 5: Hmm.
Speaker 3: Tell the story of the new when she got the
news that it wasn't going to be on the album.
Speaker 4: Okay, so first of all, she writes this song. They're
traveling on the highway. They're in Maryland. She sees a
sign that says exit next exit Silver Springs, and she
thinks to herself, that sounds like a really nice place,
like a place where somebody could go with their lover
and just retire and just be. And so she writes
the song and it's too lindsay that you could have
been my Silver Springs, the place where we just are
together forever, and it's just all good. So it's seven
minutes long. She presents it to the group and they're like,
this song is way too long.
Speaker 3: It can't fit on the album. We got too many
great songs. We can't do it.
Speaker 4: So it's mixed job to take her out to lunch
and you know, tell her what's what's up.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Well they only make it to the parking lot
because women have this intuition of like, listen, if you're
if you're about to tell me something, just tell.
Speaker 4: Me now, what's what is it?
Speaker 3: What is it?
Speaker 4: Freaking tell me right now. And he's like, well, here's
the deal. H we're not putting Silver Springs on rumors. Yeah,
And she's like why not, Like what's the deal? And
he's like, well, it's just too long and you know,
it doesn't really fit the tone and blah blah blah.
So anyway, she's mad and she's like, what the f
you know, like she is about to lose her mind,
about to kill everybody. And he says, but we're gonna
put another one of your songs on the album instead, yes,
And she's like, which one? And we'll talk about that
song here in a second. But it's one of those
moments where she's like, I want to kill you, but
I also like that song. Yeah, And so it's not
really okay, but it's bitter pill. It's okay, but sweet
right or sweet? But the rest of the story is
so it's a Fleetwood Mac song, but she wants to
include it on her Greatest Hits album in nineteen ninety one.
Speaker 3: Right now, she has had her own substantial solo career.
By nineteen nineteen, she is a huge star. She has Belladonna,
Belladonna in eighty one Edge of seventeen with about uh Competty.
It's about Tom Petty. Did you know that okay, So
I don't know. Yeah, I was gonna say, I don't
know that we'll ever cover Belladonna. Maybe we'll, but I'll
tell the story again if I need to. So you know,
I don't know where they meet, but I mean they
were close with the Tom Petty band. They both recorded
in Sound City some of their most iconic stuff. But
when she first met Tom Petty's wife, Tom Petty's wife
was telling her about the first time that she met
Tom Petty, and she said he was the age of seventeen,
but she had this very southern kind of drawl in
the way that she spoke, and so it came out
he was the age of seventeen, and what Stevie heard
was the edge of seventeen. Oh, I love it. That's
how she came up with the title of that song. Ah,
that's good, that's really good.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And also is kind of remarkable that they have
a song called stop Dragging My Heart Around on Meladanna.
So anyway she goes on, she has talked to me
and stand back and all these big hits. She actually
Prince sent her Purple Rain, the demo to Purple Rain, Oh.
Speaker 3: That's right, and said, what can you do with this,
and she's like, what, I can't do anything with this.
This is too good. You gotta do this. You do
this because you this is Yeah.
Speaker 4: So anyway, in nineteen ninety one, she wants to add
Silver Springs to her Greatest Hits album because it's this
beautiful song that has never been released into the wild,
and Mick Fleetwood stops.
Speaker 3: Her says, you can't, you can't do it, yeah, and
she said, what you were the that wouldn't let me
put the album in the first place.
Speaker 4: And so he wants to hold it for a box
set the Fleetwood Max's gon to release in nineteen ninety five.
Speaker 3: Guess what, they don't include it in that album either.
Speaker 4: So in nineteen ninety seven, Yeah, they get back together,
kind of patch things up, and they create an album
called The Dance where she is on stage with all
these people for the first time in years, and her
performance as she is singing, screaming, hollering at Lindsey Buckingham
in this he says, outstanding.
Speaker 3: You sent me this video and you can watch her.
You can watch her in the video. The whole time
she keeps looking over, just looking over, getting ready to
just lay into him. And she keeps waiting, but he's
like he's looking at his hands, you know, he's he's
singing into the microphone, not looking at her, not looking
And at the moment that he turns to her and
it's a part where they both have to sing back
and forth to each other. That is where she fully
turns to him and lays it in and then he's
almost responding in kind and they are back and forth.
I mean, this is what would you say? It was
ninety seven, ninety seven, twenty years after more than twenty years,
she was still hesitant in seventy three when.
Speaker 4: She wrote Landslide and she's blasting like me my voice while.
Speaker 3: Han Jinnam is still hot. And so I don't know,
you know, I'm just going to disclose to you listeners
out there. We don't put the music in to these
episodes until after the fact, So I don't know what
Jason will have put in up to this point about
this song. But this song right now, because of social media,
is blowing. It's huge, and you won't recognize it for
probably about the first minute or so of the song.
But when it comes to this part right here.
Speaker 6: There, it is everybody knows that song it is.
Speaker 3: That's it. Yeah, that's it hot right now hot.
Speaker 4: And then to put all that together, Silver Springs gets
released as a b side to Lindsay's Fu to Steve.
Speaker 3: Well, but didn't I mean when that video that we're
talking about, didn't it win something?
Speaker 4: It won the Grammy, It won the Grammy, won the Grammy,
and has since become their one of their staple songs.
There you go, not good enough to make ruvers?
Speaker 3: All right? Next song on the album, Yeah, Let's do it.
This one is called Songbird. All right.
Speaker 4: D About the time we think we're due for a dud,
we get this magnificent, beautiful, tear jerker of a song.
Speaker 3: This is tragic in what it says and how it's delivered, heartbreaking,
And I mean most of the songs leading up to
this have been kind of up tempo, kind of maybe angry,
but they're they're danceable angry right right, And this is
very this is very much I'm sitting alone at the
house in the rain crying a little bit.
Speaker 4: Christine said this song came to her from the angels. Okay, yeah,
and I love the creation of this song. She said,
the song came to her. She said, It was around midnight.
She was playing at her piano and she had it.
It was like locked into her brain. But she didn't
have anybody to share it with at that moment because
it was late. Yeah, So she did what any normal
person would do. She stayed up all night long so
she wouldn't forget it, and went straight to the studio
the next morning.
Speaker 3: Zero sleep. She needs by herself tape recorder.
Speaker 4: Holy cow, she just held it in their noggin until
she got there.
Speaker 3: Right. Well, I can't tell you how many times I've
said to myself or I've said to some other people
who I know who write music, you should record that
right now before you forget the melody. That's right. Yeah.
So if you don't have something to record with, then yeah,
that's that is the answer. You just keep you stay
awake until you find something to record yourself with. Yes,
So I love this quote.
Speaker 4: So Christine would often play the song at the end
of any Fleetwood Mac concert. John McPhee, who is her
ex husband who they were having nasty fights with, said,
when Christine played songbird grown men would weep.
Speaker 3: I did every night. Well, that's going to be the
best quote that John mcviee has in this episode, and
it may be the only one.
Speaker 4: It may be the only one. I thought this was
interesting the way they recorded Songbird kin Kole Ay, the
producer of this album, wanted to do something special for
Christine mcviee, so they rented out Zellerbach Auditorium, which is
University of California at Berkeley. It's their big concert space.
Rented it out, wanted it completely empty, but they wanted
that sort of echoe full sound when she came in
to record it. This is March third, nineteen seventy six.
He actually documented the date. Lights were low, three spotlights
on the piano and a bouquet of flowers on the piano.
How sweet, completely empty place and let her do her thing.
Speaker 3: Nice paint the picture, great, the atmosphere. I like it. Okay,
So we're to the end of side one of this album.
But before we jump intside too, I just want to
talk about a little bit. This group started in nineteen
sixty seven. They've been together for ten years. And I
say they and together in quotes here because it's a
crazy story. But I'm going to try to sum it
up as best as I can. But there's no way
that it's a simple summary. Okay, you're ready for this, Okay.
So it really starts with the Blues Breakers, right, This
is the first band that we have a matching of
people that ultimately becomes Fleetwood Mac but Blues Breakers together.
They want John McVie to be their bass player. They
love him so much that even though he routinely gets
blistering drunk and they fire him, they re hire him
over and over and over again. Right, And the guitarist
from the Blues Breakers is this at the time kind
of unknown guy that got a little famous later on.
His name's Eric Clapton. Never right. What happens is that
Eric Clapton leaves the band. He goes to pursue other things,
and so they find the other closest equivalent they can
to Eric Clapton, a guy named Peter Green. And Peter
Green is like, hey, I'm coming. I'll be your guitarist,
but I got to bring my drummer with me. And
they're like, whoa, We've already got Ainsley. Just James Buckley.
That's Ainsley dune As is their drummer of what journey
I think in White Snake and and there, and he's
like Hey, if my drummer doesn't come, then I don't come.
And they're like, all right, sorry, Ainsley, you're out. Who's
this drummer you got? Oh, it's a guy named Mick Fleetwood, right,
who drinks more than John mcvee does. And so the
guy that they the guitarist that they want is a
guy named Peter Green, and they would call him the
Green God. He was so good at guitar right, as
a little thank you for hey coming and joining the
band and sorry to Ainsley Dunsbar. But John Mayle says,
why don't you got You know, Peter, if you want
to go play in my studio, you can have some
of my studio time. So Peter Green goes to the
studio and he takes John mcvee and Mick Fleetwood with
him and they record some songs together, which they promptly
put on the shelf and don't give to the Blues Breakers.
And then when Mick Fleetwood's drinking does come to a head,
they fire him, and unlike John McVie, they're like, we're
not hiring you back. You're gone and you're going to
stay gone, right, And so Peter Green, after a little
while he's like, I don't know. And then Eric Clapton's like, hey, guys,
can I come back to the band And Peter Green
sees the writing on the wall and he's like, I'm
out of here. You guys can have Eric whatever he's
going to do. So Peter Green leaves, goes and finds
Mick Fleetwood and whatever bar he's holed up in, and
he says, hey, let's start a new band. And he's
like that sounds great. Who should we get to play
with us? And they're like, well, let's get John McVie
and like, well, but he's still playing with the Blues
Breakers and they're like he'll join us, And Mick Fleetwood's
like he likes having a paycheck, and you're talking about
starting a new band, and Peter Green comes up with
this brilliant idea. He says, what if we call all
the band Fleetwood Mac. Now, this is the guy who's
gonna sing and play lead guitar, and he wants to
name the band after the rhythm section, just to get
John McVie. And so they say, John, come join, we're
naming the band and band after you, and he's like eh.
But after about two months of finally pushing him and
pressuring him. John McVie says, okay, fine, I will come
join you guys. A month later they released their first single,
which is called I Believe My Time Ain't Long. A
little while later, a few months later, February nineteen sixty eight,
they release their first album called Fleetwood Mac. They today
call it Peter Greens Fleetwood Mac because, as you know before,
rumors there's another album called Fleetwood Mac. Right, So Peter
Green's Fleetwood Mac came out in February of sixty eight,
does okay, actually does pretty well. And then they release
another album where they bring on a guest piano player
to kind of round things out, a cute little girl
from a band called Chicken Shack. Her name is Christine Perfect.
Yeah I heard her say this.
Speaker 4: She of course goes on to Mary John McVie and
she says, you know, I was perfect until I met John.
Speaker 3: Then before their next album they hire another guitarist. Right,
and now, if you've heard of Fleetwood Mac, then you
absolutely have heard of Danny Kerwin, right me, I didn't,
not before this, not me, big Fleewood Mac fan. Maybe
you did, but most of us probably haven't heard of
Danny Kerwin, but it's Danny Kerwin's guitar in a song
that they wrote together called Albatross that literally breaks the band.
And this is just a single. They released the single Albatross,
but it goes nuts, their manager says. In nineteen sixty nine,
in one day, they sold sixty four thousand units. He said,
we sold more than the Beatles and the Rolling Stones combined.
And this is way before the Fleetwood Mac that we
all know and love. So then with Danny Kerwin, nineteen
sixty nine, they release another album, This one's called Then
Play On. They're on a big tour with this album.
Everything seems to be going great, except that suddenly Peter Green,
the leader of the band, lead guitarist, lead singer, has
an absolute breakdown and is diagnosed as schizophrenic, becomes a recluse,
refuses to play with the band anymore. And now what
are they going to do? The guy who is literally
the pilot of the plane just jumped out in a
pair of shipe. What's going to happen? Well, they decide
we're going to press on. Well, what are we going
to do about a singer? Hey, what about that girl
that helped us out when we did mister wonderful? What
was her name? Christine? Almost as good as the best?
Speaker 4: Right, Christine Perfect?
Speaker 2: Ah?
Speaker 3: Yes, So Christine Perfect now joins the band as an
official member, and in nineteen seventy they release Kiln House.
It is also very successful.
Speaker 4: You're about to get to my favorite part of the story.
Speaker 3: On that album. They also bring on another guitarist, guy
named Jeremy Spencer. Right, Christine and John are actually happily married.
At this point, everything seems to be going good, and
then John Spencer says, hey, guys, I'm gonna go grab
a magazine real quick. I'll be right back there in
California recording some music. And then where's Jeremy? Where'd you go?
Where's Jeremy? No time to record? Where's the magazine store
he went to? He literally left the door. Joined a cult. Yeah. So,
their manager that they've had for this whole time, his
guy named Cliff Davis. Cliff Davis finds out about the
Children of God thing, and he goes to find Jeremy. Right,
and he goes in and he says, there are literally
hundreds of people chanting in his face, and he says
he spends the next two hours just trying to get
them to let him talk to Jeremy Spencer. I don't
I'm not trying to take him from you. I just
need to know that he's here of his own free
will and that you haven't got him as a captive,
you know. And Jeremy comes out and he's had his
head completely shaved, and he says, I feel like this
is my place in life, and Cliff Davis is like, well,
good luck to yadios, And just like Mark Stone and
Van Halen, he fades into the obscurity of time. So
now again they're down a guitar player. What about Bob Welch.
He's a great guitarist, good singer. Maybe he would be interested.
And they're like, maybe, what's he doing. Well, he's still
in France. He's an American, but he's been over in
France and probably barely scraping by, right, And so whenever
they call him up, he's like, I'll come out, but
can you buy my plane ticket because I don't have
any money. And he's kind of the head for the
next three albums. And I saw a journalist say he
was the one that really brought the band to where
the Americans could listen to them stuff isle of play
was palatable to the American taste. Right now, Fleetwood Mac is,
Bob Welsh, Christine now mcvee, John mcvee, Mick Fleetwood, and
Danny Kerwin, who's the one that broke the band with Albatross.
Everything's going great, except that Danny Kerwin has begun to
drink more than John mcvee and Mick Fleetwood put together something.
And he literally he at some point in one of
their shows, puts his guitar down, goes into the audience
and is applauding and cheering for the band as though
he's not a member of the band anymore. And so
they have to say, hey, listen, Bud, you got it.
You gotta get You're fine. You gotta get out of here, right,
So they bring in another guy to sing, another guy
to play guitar. The guy they have to play the
guitar is a guy named Bob Weston. Okay, this is
another great story. So then, okay, we can still make
it with the members that we have. We've got Bob,
he'll be okay, and we've got our extra guitarist, Bob
Weston And what what did you say? What's Bob doing? Oh,
he's pounding mcfleetwood's wife. Ah, should we let him stay
in the band. So Jenny Boyd, mcfleetwood's wife is having
an affair with Bob Weston, or he's having an affair
with her. They're having an affair together, and so Bob
Weston is giving his pink slip. You gotta go, he's
sliding his pink. He you're gonna, but I don't think
we can put it on a stag rated show. Okay.
So they're all heavily addicted to various chemicals. They've just
fired their guitarists who was having an affair with the
boss's wife. And at this point, Bob Welch calls Cliff Davis,
their manager, and says, we're breaking up. They're in the
middle of a tour. He says, you're in the middle
of a tour and they're like, yeah, we're not gonna
do the tour. He's like, hmm, that's a problem because
lots of people have paid us money and we will
be breaking contracts and we will be liable. And he's like,
I don't know what to tell you. We're wreaking up.
Fleetwood Mac broke up. They were done over. No Christine mcviee,
no John McVie, no Mick Fleetwood, none of it. And
yet somehow the tour continued. Yeah, so I guess. And
some point in this process Cliff Davis realizes this band's
a little bit volatile, they're a little unhinged. Maybe I
should get Mick to agree to give me the rights
to the name of the band, which they make some
sort of handshake deal allegedly. And so when he gets
a call saying the band broke up, he says, well,
we're going to finish the tour anyway, and I will
just bring in an entirely new set of musicians and
then we'll just play all of the Fleetwood Nobody will know.
How would anybody know? Why would they know? Right? And
so obviously that doesn't go over so well with the
members of the band. They have to have a lawsuit
about being able to use their name or not being
able to because not not only are they playing with
this substitute band under the name Fleetwood Mac, they won't
let them record new songs under that name Fleetwood Mac. Right,
and Cliff Davis is like, hey, you broke up, why
you wanted to record songs. You gave me your name, yeah, exactly,
and so lots of litigation. Ultimately they get the band
name back. I'm sure that probably they parted ways with
Cliff Davis after that, but Bob Welch says, hey, I
want to be the next led Zeppelin, which is interesting
because led Zeppelin is still producing albums at this point,
so it doesn't make any sense, right, So they literally
with Peter Green inspired one of the biggest songs that
led Zeppelin has, and now Bob Welch is saying, I
want to beat them, I want to imitate them, and
they say listen, that's just not going to work, and
he says, well buy yeah.
Speaker 4: Right, So you're left with Mick Fleetwood, John McVie, Christy
mcphe and now you're looking to fill some singer rolls
and some guitarists.
Speaker 3: Yeah, as it turned out just before this. Now this
is obviously hard times. They've gone through lawsuits, they were
breaking up and now they're not breaking up. They've lost
their manager, they've lost their kind of lead singer, lead guitarist.
And in the midst of all of this, Mick Fleetwood
runs into Kenneth Olsen at the grocery store of all plays, right,
and he's like, hey, you guys should come over to
sound City, which if you haven't seen the documentary about
sound City, you should because there are incredible albums that
have come out of that place. Good. But it looks
it's like a little hole in the wall in some
industrial park somewhere. But I mean it is Fleetwood Mac songs,
Fleetwood Mac, that original album, Tom Petty's got some big
hits out of there, and Nirvana never mind yeah, I
mean it was Dave Grohl who produced the sound City
documentary because sound City was going out of business and
he went to go get the knave board. Yeah, so sorry,
this was rolling on. This told you there's no way
to see me out this history, right, And so as
he comes over, as Mick Fleetwood comes over to check
out this new studio, he's like, here, listen to this
demo that I've got, and Mick Fleetwood is like, this
guy is really good at guitar, and he's like starts
air guitar and jamming out. And then the guitarist who's
playing walks in. He's like, hey, you listen to my stuff.
He's like is this you? Yes? And they meet each other,
and that guitarist name.
Speaker 4: Is Lindsay Buckingham, Lindsay Buckingh and that song is called
Frozen Love. So Mick Fleetwood eventually calls Lindsay Buckingham and says,
and what do you think about joining my band?
Speaker 3: Yeah, and Lindsay's like, I don't know.
Speaker 4: My girlfriend is also kind of an important part here.
I mean, if I come, she's gotta come.
Speaker 3: I keep in mind at this point they had recorded
their album. They had recorded and released Buckingham Nicks, right,
which is man, have you seen that album cover? Smoking?
Hubba hubba? She looks good too. No, And and it
didn't do well. Not the door kicked them off of
the label.
Speaker 4: They released it three months later, drop it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they are dropped as and so they are not
assigned duo anymore. And yet Lindsay Buckingham is like, hey,
I'm just I'm not coming unless she comes with me.
Speaker 4: And actually she's the one who convinces him.
Speaker 3: I don't know. I listened to these band, these guys,
I think we can.
Speaker 4: Add something to this band. And there you have the
classic lineup of Fleetwood back.
Speaker 3: Yeah. All right, so now you getta lift the needle
lift the needle, pick it up, flip it over her
side too. We start this one off with the I
thought you might have heard of fore. This one's called
the Chain Shadow, Change of Mind. This is my favorite
song the album. I think it might be mine as well.
I told you. In my band when I was a
young man in my twenties, we covered gold Dust Woman,
which was very fun to play. In my current band,
we have covered Landslide a couple of times. Dreams is
on our regular rotation. We'll be performing it again on
June twentieth, but this song never covered. I really want
to you should. I heard a band in a tiny
little hole in the wall bar in Norman, Oklahoma, heard
a band doing this. I don't even know if they
sang the words. They might not even have sang. They
may have just like sang the first five lines and
then played for the rest of the song. But people
literally came out of their seat and got on this
tiny little dance floor to dance to this bang banger.
Speaker 4: Yeah, this song is so good, And the crazy part
about it is it is a complete Frankenstein of leftover
parts and stuff they couldn't make work with other songs.
This is the only song in their entire catalog, where
the writing credits are attributed to John McVie, Christy McVie, Mickfleetwood, Lindsay.
Speaker 3: Buckingham and Stevie Nicks. It's incredible, blows my socks off,
Damn your love, damn your lies. If you don't love
me now, you will never love me again. I can
still hear you saying you would never break the chain,
never break the chain. Not only do Lindsay and Stevie
sing this song, they sing the song to each other. Right,
it's about him and he has to sing it to
He says you will ever break the chain, which is
what she said to him, and then she says it
back to him when she sings it. I know it's crazy.
Speaker 4: This is often the song that they lead their concerts
off with. This has one point five billion downloads on Spotify.
Speaker 3: Wow. I think the beauty of this song. Like you said,
it's it's a Frankenstein of things, but it's the simplicity.
There's some variations on what's going on, but you literally
have a four on the floor boom boom boom, which
sounds like chains, like it could be a work song
on a chain gang. Right, Sure? I can imagine, you know,
I can imagine guys in the old days, in the
old chain gangs working on the railroad to that beat,
and you have a doughbro sounding I don't know if
he's playing a doughbro or not, but that old blues
kind of simple hook that he does variations on throughout
the song. But damn.
Speaker 4: Sing it, get up and dance.
Speaker 3: Wrote a little song, but I'd like to hear.
Speaker 1: Here go.
Speaker 3: And then these just brutal, brutal lyrics that they have
to sing you to each other every single time that
they play the song, which I can't I can't imagine
how many times they've had to play and sing the
song with each other.
Speaker 4: And that doesn't even talk about the magical mix of their.
Speaker 3: Voices and harmonies. And it's amazing. All right, we're due
for a dud? Are we up for a dud? Let's
say nope, No, this one's yeah. This one's called you
Make Loving Fun. Okay, So who wrote this one? This
is a Christine song? And I have the idea that
maybe it's not to John McVie.
Speaker 4: On this time, John McVie, there's the there's who it
was actually about, and there's who she said it was
about Okay, well, who did she say it was.
Speaker 3: She said it was about her dog, so that it
would cause any.
Speaker 4: Problems with John okay, but she was banging the Fleetwood
Mac lighting director.
Speaker 3: His name was Curry Grant. Oh my gosh.
Speaker 4: At this point in time they were divorced. John had
his girlfriend in the studio, so he would bring her
in and she and Christine were friends.
Speaker 3: Like oh wow.
Speaker 4: She's like, hey, great, you're taking this guy off of me.
Speaker 3: I love you.
Speaker 4: And they would hang out. Christine would bring Curry to
the studio and John would want to fight and she's like,
wait a minute, I'm cool with your girlfriend and you're
not cool with my boyfriend. Right, So anyway, Yes, this song,
she said, was written about her dog.
Speaker 3: About the dog. We named the dog Indiana.
Speaker 4: This song was the fourth single released September of nineteen
seventy seven.
Speaker 3: This reached number nine on the charts.
Speaker 4: Get Ready, I'm Ready, This will blow your socks off
Okay number nine, Member nine, Fun You Make Love and
Fun Number eight Baby Come Back by Player It's a
big one. Number seven We're All Alone by Rita Coolidge.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, okay, yeah.
Speaker 4: Number six Every time I turn around LTD. Number five
It's So Easy Linda Ronstat is huge.
Speaker 3: Love that song.
Speaker 4: Number four, Don't Make My Brown Eyes Blue Crystal Gale
love it, number three Blue by You. Linda Ronstadt also
love it. Number two How Deep is Your Love?
Speaker 3: Begi's Yeah Wow?
Speaker 4: And number one You Light Up My Life by Debbie Boone.
Speaker 3: Wow. That's a stout list right there. It is it's
December of seventy seven.
Speaker 4: That is December of seventy seven.
Speaker 3: Yes, wow, amazing.
Speaker 4: I love the story about the recording of this, Okay.
So the lyrics are this joyful occasion of a newfound
love where I'm having so much fun hanging out with
you because you make love and fun.
Speaker 3: Okay, not miserable like my not miserable like this efing
guy who's standing right next to me.
Speaker 4: So, while they were recording the song, Kiin Kalay, who's
the producer, said that Stevie and Lindsay were singing these amazing,
beautiful harmonies, and Kim Kalay is just loving what they're doing,
and then when he hits cut or pause, they immediately
go into name calling, screaming at each other, he said.
While they were recording it, they were two Little Angels
singing this beautiful harmony about how love is fun. Yeah,
and as soon as he would stop the music, they
were like, you e f and suck all right. Next
song on the album is a song called I Don't
Want to Know.
Speaker 3: You hear this song and you want to go skipping
down the beach going trila la trala la. You read
the lyrics to the song and you're like, oh gosh,
this is somebody who's very hurt. Really, yeah, okay, what
do you got for me? We've all kind of been
through it where you're like, I just want you to
be happy, but really you're like this sucks, right, Like
you keep saying that you want your X spouse or
ex girlfriend or whatever to you know, I just want
you to be happy, and that's I'll go on with that.
But it's really about like you say you love me
but you don't know anything, and I just, yeah, I
want you to feel fine. Yeah you go, you love me? Yeah,
I know you don't know whatever.
Speaker 4: So this is Stevie song. This is about Lindsay. This
was the song that got on rumors instead of Silver Springs.
This song was released as a single in Japan. Next
song on the album, This song is called oh Daddy,
Oh Daddy.
Speaker 2: You know you make me cry.
Speaker 3: Fucking love?
Speaker 5: What?
Speaker 2: Ah daddy?
Speaker 3: Okay, So this is Christine McVie song. Yes, And did
she write this about John McVie.
Speaker 4: She wrote this about McK fleewood. So Mick Fleewood at
the time was the only one who had kids, okay,
and he was going through this nasty divorce with Jenny Boyd,
who he had found out had was having an affair with.
Speaker 3: His best friend. This is a recurring story.
Speaker 4: Right, So just in case you didn't catch it, pain
and heart is the main theme for this entire album.
Speaker 3: So we talked about how Lindsay had a rebound girl
that he wrote the Never Going Back Again about who
was Stevie's rebound guy. Stevie Nicks's rebound guy was Mick Fleetwood. Yeah,
what I told you.
Speaker 4: So we call, we talked to each other, and I
told you that they had to keep that a secret.
Speaker 3: Well he's married.
Speaker 4: Well he's married, and her lover, who's psychotic, is standing
five feet to her left.
Speaker 3: Oh gosh. Yeah, I saw Stevie talk about this and
it was just like, this was just the worst idea
ever and I think she did to this day regrets it.
But yeah, Mick Fleetwood had secondhand news from Linduck, right,
that's right.
Speaker 4: Yeah, did you know that there's actually so more bad blood,
more distaste, you know, more just hard feelings when Lindsay
left the band eventually, which that to me is a
great story. It's a cocaine fueled fistfight with Stevie Nicks.
Lindsey Buckingham Stevie Nicks to the store. Well, okay, so
I would love to talk about Tango in the Night,
which is their nineteen eighty seven sort of comeback album,
which it has some great songs on their like Little
Eyes Everywhere, Seven Wonders and Big Love. Those are all
top ten hits, yeah, right for those Yeah. So in
the middle of this, they've just come out with these
massive songs, this big album. It's their whole comeback thing,
and they still hate each other. But Mick has gone
through bankruptcy and Stevie has this massive cocaine habit.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I mean she's very successful in her own right, yes,
but yes, the drug dealers are probably knocking at her door.
Speaker 4: Right, So Lindsay says, I'm not sure I want to
do this and they're like, what do you mean to
do this? He's like, I don't think I want a tour.
They're like, well, see, we've already lined up the tour.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's already been planned. You signed on the dotted line.
You know how this works.
Speaker 4: We put out an album, then we tour. Yeah, and
he goes nah and Stevie Nicks came off.
Speaker 3: Might have had a little bit of cocaine in her
system at the time.
Speaker 4: Sclevitated off the couch and flew over and tried. She says,
in her own words, I tried to murder Lindsay bucking
him and so she attacked him physically. And then when
she realizes this is a bad idea. I'm outmatched here,
she makes a run for it, and Lindsay goes after
her and chases her down in the parking lot, catches
her and starts to beat her up and throws her
up against the hood of his car and like this
is the big reunion thing and gets physical with her,
and at that point they the other members break it up,
and then Lindsey goes back in the house to say,
oh boy, that was terrible. Anyway, let me finish what
I'm saying and John mcviee is like, no, you gotta go, man,
You're out. See Yeah, yeah, anyway, I would love to
cover Tango in the Night at some point. Okay, this
is the only song on the album that doesn't grab me.
Speaker 3: Yeah, once again, it's kind of It's kind of like
Hotel California, where I'm like, this is the worst song
on the album, and I still would listen to it.
That's right, I absolutely would. I tell you, I read
the book Making of Rumors.
Speaker 4: They make a big deal out of a mistake that
Kim Koley makes when he was producing this song. Yeah,
somehow he bumped something or hit something, or there was
a technical error on this song. And it was one
of those where they're like, oh, okay, we messed it up.
We'll come back and fix it. But it was one
of those where its kind of long standing. What had
happened was he bumped the d off of Daddy and
so the song sounded like Addie for a long time.
As a joke to dig him, they called it Addie
for a long time.
Speaker 3: Well, they were all addies at that point. What did
you tell me about their drugs of choice?
Speaker 4: This so Christine, John and Mick loved booze, Lindsay loved pot,
and Stevie loved all of it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, throw cocaine into the mix.
Speaker 4: Oh and cocaine.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah yeah.
Speaker 4: By the way, According to the book Making of Rumors,
cocaine showed up on the ninth day.
Speaker 3: Of recording and quickly everybody was on it. It took over. Yeah, Okay,
it's fine. It can't hurt you. It's not even addictive, right,
all right, just intensifies your personality. Yes, but what if
you're an hoole? Am I allowed to still? Yes? Bill
Cosby is the best, don't know. We can't say that anymore.
Speaker 4: No, all right, last song on the album. This has
got to be a throwaway track at this point.
Speaker 3: This is junk, there's I mean, they're gonna just tag
this on at the end. Oh this is gold dust woman.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, back.
Speaker 3: Daniel, Daniel. I'm gonna go out on a limb here
and say this is a song about Lindsay.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So, I wonder if the she that she's referring to
in this is herself. I think so, because just in
case you've missed it, it says, well, did she make
you cry, make you break down, shatter your illusions of
love and is it over now? Do you know how?
Pick up your pieces and go home. This is really
like stop being such a little bit.
Speaker 4: And it's a give you chills on stage show stopping song.
Speaker 1: Take down.
Speaker 2: They go to and.
Speaker 3: I told you that we covered this song, and I
will tell you I admit freely. I was not familiar
with the Fleetwood Mac version of the song back in
the mid nineties. What I was familiar with was the
whole version of the song. Okay, and they I don't
I'll just say it, I don't like whole but they
absolutely took this up a notch. They took the edge
and sharpened it for this song. If you want to
play a sample of it, this would be the perfect spot.
But here's the whole version of this song.
Speaker 5: SLMs fantastic, pretty, pretty nasty.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 4: Along with that, you know what version Stevie Nicks says
is the best version of this song. She got on
stage and played this song with the Foo Fighters and
when she got done, she said, that is the best
version of.
Speaker 3: Gold Dust Womani Wow nice. I love to hear that
this song is.
Speaker 4: So good that she had two different versions of the
song on a demo and the demo that she didn't use.
She rated those lyrics and that gave birth to the
song if You Ever Did Believe, which she then performed
with Sheryl Crow, which became the theme song of the
movie Practical Magic.
Speaker 3: Oh wow.
Speaker 4: So that brings us to the end of Rumors.
Speaker 3: It does.
Speaker 4: So the big question that you and I are asking ourselves, Yes,
if you're walking out the door, which album are you grabbing?
Hotel California or Rumors?
Speaker 3: So shall I go first? This song?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Go, okay? So these two albums are both literally perfect albums.
There is there's no skipper, there's no filler, there is
no song, like I said, worst song on the album
I would listen to every day. So we picked a
couple of incredible winners. My god right, and at the
time the world chose Rumors. They said this is the
album of the year, and it beat out Hotel California.
Now question is which of them stands the test of time,
And the answer is both of them. Do both of them?
Every freaking song on the album is still song. Are
still songs that people are listening to today in the millions.
So I could pick either one of these and walk
out the door with it and have a fantastic car
ride wherever I'm going to go. Yes, but we don't
get to pick both on the show. And so I
will say, and this again goes to this goes to
history and nostalgia, because I have a history with one
of these and less so with the other one. When
it comes to picking between two pieces of perfection, I
have to find something to land my balance on. My
balanced lands with nostalgia. I've seen him in concert when
I thought I never would, I grew up playing their music.
And I have to say, comes down to it, you
only pick one walking out the door, It's going to
be Hotel California.
Speaker 4: Okay, I'm not surprised by your pick. I am surprised
by my pick though, because I am such an Eagles fan.
But after diving into Rumors, there is a variety of songs,
There is a variety of singers and the amount of
show stopping give you chills songs on Rumors. Literally, the
best thing that Lindsey Buckingham has ever done except Holiday Road,
is on this album. The greatest songs that Christine mcvieh
has ever written is on this album, and the greatest
stuff that Stevie Nicks has ever written is on this album.
Those are three incredibly gifted songwriters at the peak of
the powers. So if I'm walking out the door, I
can't lose literally close my eyes and pick one. But
today I'm choosing Rivers.
Speaker 3: I'm my mind is blown. I thought, sure this was
we were both picking Hotel California. I would have bet
one hundred dollars on it. We're both picking Hotel California.
I can't believe it. Wow. And and don't think. Don't
think that just because I picked one, he's picking the
other one. That's not the way we do this. We
have picked the same one many times, that's right. So yeah, wow,
blew my mind. Well there you go, folks. You got
one pick for Hotel California and one pick for Rumors.
You guys, tell us what you think. Hit us up
in the comments down below. Email us Shirleypodcast at gmail
dot com. You can catch us on x you can
catch us on Facebook. Tell us what you think is
the best of these two albums. Jason, what have we
got coming up for our next pair of episodes? Next week?
We are going back in time? November fifth, nineteen fifty five.
We're going back to the sixties.
Speaker 4: I would say we are comparing stand by Me, the
Rob Reiner classic, to the Sandlot.
Speaker 3: I love it.
Speaker 4: A day in the life of young boys just trying
to figure out who they are in the.
Speaker 3: World, reminiscing about the past, the old times. Yeah, it's
gonna be fun. Yeah, guys, join us for that. Thank
you so much for hanging out till the end of
the episode. Don't forget to go to patreon dot com
slash Surely Podcast, sign up for free and donate some
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see you next week. Thanks say okay, great, before we jump,
I better go get the manager.