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Old 08-10-2012, 03:41 PM
mikephxaz mikephxaz is offline
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Originally Posted by michelej1 View Post
Still in Rotation is a feature that lets talented writers tell Midlife Mixtape readers about an album they discovered years ago that’s still in heavy rotation, and why it has such staying power. Want to play? Email dj@midlifemixtape.com with “Guest Post” in the subject line.

http://midlifemixtape.com/2012/08/st...n-rumours.html

Still in Rotation: Rumours (Fleetwood Mac)

By Nancy Davis Kho · August10th,2012

Today’s guest post is by my friend across the Bay, Tarja a.k.a The Flying Chalupa. Funny as all get out, Tarja also has a distinctive and poetic voice that puts her a cut above most humor writers. I’d resent her for being so much younger than I, but for the fact that she’s still changing diapers and I’ve gone a full decade without touching one. And even if she’s entirely wrinkle-free, she has the good sense to keep Rumours – the second album I ever owned - on heavy rotation over at her place.

Fleetwood Mac was an oasis in the desert for me. And while I grew up in the literal desert of Saudi Arabia, I’m talking about a pop cultural desert, because, well, it was Saudi Arabia. There was no radio and there was certainly no MTV. There was Channel 3, which started at 4:00pm and was interrupted by Prayer Intermission at least twice.

I grew up with whatever music my parents brought back from our vacations to the States, and in 1987, Fleetwood Mac Rumours hit me like a ton of acoustic bricks. Yes, for those who are counting, that would be ten years after the album debuted, truly second hand news, but wondrous to my ten-year-old ears: sexy, romantic, illicit even. These were not sedate people, these were people of action creating music of movement! The songs required singing and dancing! Stevie Nicks was wearing black pointe shoes on the album cover! This was no traditional performance of Coppelia – this was the daring and unpredictable theater of the heart. As a rule-following pink pointe shoe ballet dancer, I was hooked.

The beauty of Fleetwood Mac is that the fun of pop is grounded by a bluesy sensibility, with the voices of Christine McVie and Stevie Nicks bringing an emotional depth to Lindsey Buckingham’s eyeliner – I mean, guitar. I adore individual songs from other albums like “Rhiannon” and “Little Lies” and “Landslide,” but it’s the whole composition of the Rumours album that hits all points so well: high and low; light and dark.

The inkling of sex that the album revealed to me in 1987 was, of course, the romantic entanglements of the band. There was Lindsey and Stevie with their on-off affair, Christine and John McVie had divorced, and Mick Fleetwood discovered his wife was having an affair with his best friend. So what I’m saying is…Rumours is defined by love, the lack of it, the joy, the betrayal.

All I knew was that Lindsey wanted someone to lay him down in the tall grass and let him do his stuff (bow-bow-bow-bow-bow-bow-doo-de-doodlee-doo!) and jesus could that man play the guitar. He might have a name that would get him pummeled by a Texas pee-wee football team, but Lindsey Buckingham’s work on “Never Going Back Again” is pure magic.

Rumours took me through the horror of high school based solely on my certainty that Stevie Nicks wrote “Dreams” about how teenage boys were assholes: ”thunder only happens when it’s raining, players only love you when they’re playing.” Speak it, sister. ****ing players. Sob! Let me sell you my dreams of loneliness!

And here’s where the album provided much fodder for my theatrical nature. While a part of me loved – and took seriously – the drama of the songs, another part of me – let’s call her “John Cleese” – enjoyed ridiculing this very drama. Especially on the song “Oh Daddy.” OH DADDY! Is that great or what? It is this very song that epitomizes 1970′s cheeseball. Together now, let us picture the band in their little Sausalito recording studio (right down the street from me!), singing in all earnestness, “I’m so weak and you’re so strong!” With my sister harmonizing dramatically, “DAMMIT SO STRONG!”

So while I carry the beauty of “Songbird” and “Gold Dust Woman” with me, Rumours also provides me with a lot of laughs. Is that strange? I’ve felt so emotionally fulfilled by Fleetwood Mac, a band who’s watched me evolve through two and a half decades, and yet I have no desire to see how they’ve evolved. I don’t want to watch a reunion tour or TV special to remind me that they’re bloated and blasted from partying hard and that I’m bloated and blasted from mothering hard.

No. Stevie Nicks will always be wearing her black pointe shoes. Eyeliner and black vests will always accompany fingers that fly over a Gibson Les Paul guitar. The feathered hair nest still triumphs.
Everything about this made me happy!!
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