Love the album, and will have more to say, but that Stevie or anyone else (record exec in Destiny Rules doc) thought "Say You Will" would be a hit is mind boggling.

It's so far from what a love song should be: "Girl begs boy to stick around at least long enough so she can change his mind." That's your archetypal love song? Are you kidding me? Boys chase girls or, if you want to turn the archetype on its head in an interesting way, girls chase boys. Girls don't beg boys to stick around so they can plead with them. That's a sort of mushy limbo, and not a hit love song in a million years.

The melody is pretty good but the lyrics are pretty weak. Had they brought in a lyricist to revise them into more of a classic story, then the song may have fared better.

They went so middle-of-the-road with the single choices. "Everybody Finds Out" might have been a hit. "Say You Will" and "Peacekeeper"?: not a chance.

Again, I will have more to say. I love Lindsey's production, and the album overall (though, yes, it is too long). I think she's great but on this one I don't miss Christine. It was a nice change of pace without her. I do think it would have turned out better with Lord-Alge mixing, but hindsight's 20/20.

Say you will is in my least favorite half of songs on the album but it still would have been better than Peacekeeper as the first single.
But one thing the Mac kept consistent is not letting Nicks ever have the first single off any album (even without Christine).
I catch the groove of Say You Will and I have a soft spot because it was written for or inspired for Christine. I just hate the ending.

This has always been Lindsey's issue/gripe. It was certainly his concern for SYW which he talks about in the documentary. he knew the powers that be would pick the most conservative songs from all of the songs he could contribute and he'd have to fight for more experimental or just less conservative songs. But even then they'd pick the most conservative of those for singles. he was right.

Stevie herself has said, when talking about her solo career, that she's never been good at picking singles, at knowing which songs would make great singles. Jimmy sure was, and she relied on him and others (Fishkin, Danny Goldberg etc) to make those decisions. So she wouldn't be much help on that front.

It is laden with cheesy lyrics.

Had they brought in a lyricist? Can you IMAGINE $tevie's response to that?
Ben, would you say that to Bob Dylan?:lol:

Now THAT would have made great TV and made the documentary so much better.
Could you imagine Lindsey:
Stevie, lets bring in a lyricist and change some of the lyrics.

She freaked out because he was trying to correct her constant changing tenses in songs.
She would have melted down

$he's a poet. Just axe her. $he is so full of herself it makes me want to puke coat hangers.

I would have loved to have seen a larger meltdown, though.:angel::angel::angel:

A lot of people love SYW, especially the Buckingham-Nicks fans. I was initially hostile to the record’s existence. The thought of FM releasing new music without Christine was difficult to support. But when I did sit down and listen to it I was amazed at the abundance of high quality music on it. It’s not always even and I believe the middle of the sequence sags in comparison to the first five and last five songs. But that’s okay, too—because the writers were stretching out, giving it their all. Much of Stevie’s material is VERY STRONG. But some of my favorite moments come from Lindsey’s: Red Rover, Say Goodbye, Steal Your Heart Away. My favorite Stevie tunes here are: Throw Down, Illume, and Everybody Finds Out.

But if you are impersonating Christine, those are the lyrics you write because Christine writes lyrics like that, pleading to the man, begging to be deceived just a little longer, just to keep him. Stevie eschews Dutch sentiments. I remember when she did Reconsider Me she said that words like that were not really her thing.

Trouble, Did You Miss Me. He knows how it goes.

And those pop concerns were why we got SYHA again.

Lindsey said that the first time he met her she shared some of her writing with him and considered herself a poet even then. Sixteen. He may have only smirked internally at that time.

Actually she was a great poet and was a great singer.

Well, she's definitely smirkworthy. I'm sure more so now than back then.

When did she earn his full blown smirks? Tusk era?

At what stage in a relationship does Lindsey’s desire to mock someone outweigh his desire to sleep with them?

Waddy said he tried to get Lindsey to come on the road with him where he could make real money. He implored Lindsey, told him not to spend his life working on Stevie’s the flower and the vine songs. Oh the irony.

Say You Will is a long album indeed. It was intended to be a double album. Reprise wanted a single album with more tracks. The band could have countered with two albums, one released in 2003, and the other released in 2004.

Say You Will could have used more keyboards. "Smile at You" could have used a piano. "Running through the Garden" could have used synthesizers.

Exactly
I actually think its a very cleverly written song. Begging someone to stay around and to get them to "dance" i.e. extend the Dance tour

Talk about something bound to go over the public's head. The point is it was not a hit song, and those in the FM camp who thought it would be were misguided and self-deluding.