[Gazza]

Greil Marcus writing about Go Your Own Way...

“Go Your Own Way” was rough, harsh, hard to follow. From its opening notes it was a maelstrom, excitement, and nothing else. It was an assault, a hammering, the singer moaning and threatening, pleading and damning; it didn’t let up for a second.

Coming two thirds of the way through the performance, the requisite instrumental break should have provided a rest; instead it raised the stakes. When Lindsey Buckingham dropped his words for a guitar solo – a shattered, severed solo almost drowning in a dozen more overdubbed guitar parts, the off-beat rhythm chasing his lead, then overtaking him, then seeming to wait for him to catch up, which he never quite did – the song began all over again. Ten years later, I flinch every time it comes on the radio, knowing what’s coming, knowing that no matter how completely I can predict what’s going to happen, I won’t be able to catch up: the instrumental passage supersedes not only the singing that precedes it, but the ability of memory to enclose it.