Lindsey's Song Comments

[michelej1]

I was looking at old Lindsey stuff today and thought that these comments were interesting:

1984 to Jim Ladd on I Want You: "The way in which 'I want you' is meant, really, it isn’t in the sense that I want you physically or sexually. It's more...'I want you..the way you were..when I met you.'

To Jim Ladd:

I see Bang the Drum and the D.W. Suite as being a pair that really had to be together because they're both about wanting to preserve hope. Bang the Drum is about someone who is afraid that they just can't do that anymore, that maybe they're gonna sink. They're trying to swim and they feel they're gonna sink. And, I think, D.W. Suite is sort of the aftermath of that, someone has literally sunk. And in this case, literally - considering the inspiration for that song. D.W. Suite really was written right after Dennis Wilson died. And uh, about two days after that happened and I was quite upset by that. I locked myself in the studio and recorded this whole thing. I emerged a week later with the D.W. Suite.

It was, to me, the visual that I had. It can refer to anything obviously.
"Going insane together" can refer to anything and anyone can relate to it in their own specific way. But I was thinking in terms of the Beach Boys, really, and the death of Dennis Wilson inspired the composing of this particular tune. Actually, you can't really call it a tune because it is a suite. It's three different movements and it's very cinematic. I like to think of it in that way because the threads that bind the three movements are quite cinematic.

About Dennis Wilson, 1992: "I knew him pretty well. He even had an affair with my girlfriend! But he was a good guy. He was kind of lost, but I thought he had a big heart. I always liked him. He was crazy just like a lot of other people, but he had a really big heart, and he was the closest thing to Brian there was, too. He was halfway there."

[I didn't remember that comment from him when I read CAH's story in Storms.]

Soul Drifter: "Soul Drifter is one of the more personal things on there. That just kind of spewed out. I don't know what to tell you. Most of the good ones, a lot of the good ones come out all at the same time, and maybe you hone the words down a little. But that was quick. That was also the first song that was written for this record and maybe there's some strength in that. Because we were still mixing Tango In The Night at my house and I was off in another bedroom putting together this. And I guess there's certainly a tie-in with coming to the realization that you're not going to be doing this anymore."

His bandmates: [About Stevie] "She was more or less selected by the world to do a job. She got singled out. She did what she had to do and that's all there is to it." [I don't even know what he means by that, but it kind of sounds like something she'd say about herself]

"It's hard to separate John and Mick, although Mick was somebody I had more contact with in terms of having someone as a soulmate or musical soulmate. John and Mick were just a great rhythm section. What can you say? They played together for so long that they knew each other's styles. Christine was just a great pop writer. She brought a piano sensibility in which brought other European aspects in which I didn't do and which Stevie didn't do because she's not really an instrumentalist per se. That was just a great balance the way we complemented each other. She brought a romanticism in that Stevie also brought in, but in a different way. She brought a sensibility in just the terms of the interaction of the group. Always had her feet on the ground." [Awwww. I feel sad.]

On Christine: "She and I have a real valid kind of rapport between us, something that was there before we even met." [I believe this. I truly believe that Fleetwood Mac was created to be together and were being built towards that until 1974, when it happened. I believe this, with a spiritual verve.]

Bleed to Love Her: "It does have the element of having to sacrifice your blood in order to get back what is sometimes worthwhile and the elusiveness of it. I mean the verses, that was written over a period of years actually, that song, and the verses were much later. In other words, the chorus, "bleed to love her," was written at the top of a new relationship and the verses, "pretending that she's not there," you know, the elusiveness of all of that, was written near the end."

More BTLH: "That song actually sort of evolved over about a two year period and when I wrote the chorus in which that appears - "bleed to love her" - uh, I had just entered into a relationship with someone and I really felt that I, you know, would be willing to bleed in order to make that work. And then of course maybe two years later, uh, things had kind of, um, drifted a little bit and the verses in there are talking about how elusive someone can be, ah, which I guess is the other side of the coin."

NGBA, 1978: "This song was written when I was, well, all of us were alot less happy than we are now and though we are a lot happier now, the song still makes us miserable when we sing it." [LOL]

More NGBA: "I remember writing that when we got off the road. It was written about a girl that I had met in New England and spent a very short amount of time with. Someone who really, initially, didn’t want to spend time with me, and I talked her into it. And of course, 'been down one time, been down two times, never going back again' is really a sweet sentiment. It’s a naïve sentiment. Because every time you are happy, you create this illusion for yourself that you’re never going to be unhappy again. Life doesn’t really work that way, and you have to learn to accept that you’ll have ups and downs your entire life. So that was really the sentiment of the song for me."

Steal Your Heart Away: "That was one of those ones that sort of just rolled out and that doesn't happen with me very much. That song is exactly how it sounds. It's sort of bordering on generic in a way almost, not too, I hope."

Mr. McV: "John is an aggressive bass player. It took me a long time to appreciate that. When he and I first were in the studio, I was always saying, 'make it simpler, make it simpler.' Sometimes there was 'this town ain't big enough for both of us' kind of vibe. But somehow we made it work. I had to back off. And sometimes he backed off if I hounded him. It's not so much of a problem now. I appreciate his artistry alot more." [My puddy cat. I always say that one of my favorite quotes of his is when he says that there's something good about the tension of thinking that someone is going to step all over you and then they don't. I just think it says a lot about relationships in general].

Mononucleosis: "I'm So Afraid was written in San Jose. I don't think it was necessarily tied to that. Uh, yeah, I had mononucleosis for quite awhile. That was another weird thing: my family doctor for years, something wasn't right. He said, 'well, yeah, you got mono.' So I was just hanging out at my parents' house and I would go back every couple of weeks and 'you still got it' and months and months went by, eight months, maybe. And so, I said, 'This is weird' and I went to another doctor and he said, 'oh, you don't have mono.' So I don't know where along the line I dropped it, but it makes you wonder. It was a fertile period creatively. I had nothing to do but sit around and watch Merv Griffin in the afternoon and we got alot of musical things worked out that ended up going on Stevie's and my album. And yeah it [ISA] was then." [Someone was poisoning you, buddy]

Mirage: "I was kind of just drifting through Mirage myself. I didn't know why we were doing it or what we were doing really. It was sort of reactionary; that's the way I felt about it." [oh man, Mirage is an unwanted stepchild, but I love it]

Somebody's Gotta Change Your Mind: "A lot of the things I say there came from visualizing if there were, not a God, but a bunch of gods, in the Greek sense, looking down on these people really going off the track down here and saying, 'What are we going to do about this? Are we going to cut them loose?' And there's also a personal vibe. It's sort of a memory about my childhood in the second verse, things I did with my family, and how much I valued them." [But he's said that thing about Greek Gods in relation to another song too]

Country Music: 'Landslide' is a great song, but I don't want anyone to get funny ideas about Fleetwood Mac and country. Somebody at our label was talking about how we should broaden our audience, and they started talking about putting us on Country Music Television. I had to say, 'Whoa! Stop right there.' There's a certain kind of profile you want to put out there. And that isn't it. [said the man who eventually showed up on Crossroads. I still think of Lindsey together with Karen and Kimberly. I think about it a lot. I am into it. Pontoon baby].

Murrow: "Edward Murrow gave that famous parting speech when he left CBS, warning what would happen if we didn't take responsibility for TV and use it in the right way. Obviously, we haven't. So 'Murrow' is just a song about how the media gets abused and how it is used for propaganda. Even the fact that somebody like GE would own NBC. That whole connection down to the agendas that go into what you see on NBC, because it is owned by a weapons maker. It's just kind of weird and not very good. Not good for the kids. It diverts and deludes." [this comment reminds me of One Take]

The penguin: "It would never fully inflate. It must have had leaks or something. This thing was limping and floundering at the back of the stage. It never flew. It was a disaster." [but do penguins ever really fly??]

His short-lived telemarketing job: "That was very embarrassing too cause as you can tell I'm pretty soft spoken. I got this job trying to sell advertising space. I had to get up at five in the morning to call back east and uh. 'Hi, this is, uh,' and you'd give a fake name and give the name of the directory and you'd say 'would you like to renew this year?' and half the people would say, 'oh, sure if we had it last year' and you'd write them down, but there had not been the directory the year before. It was such a scam, I couldn't believe it. I couldn't take that for more than a month, I just got, uh, too traumatized. I just wasn't cut out for that type of thing." [this story actually corresponds to Stevie's. Pretty funny stuff. Lindsey, you're not that soft spoken. Your voice was high, yes, but that's really another matter]

Mick in Bwana: "Mick and I were having a little tiff one day and uh, it's funny. This particular song was written and completely recorded - all those crazy, cartoon background vocals that are on there and everything. At that point, it really had no reference to bwana. And Richard Dashut who was helping me through the second phase of the album, said, 'Why don't you go out and sing it sort of 50s style a little bit.' And I went out and started singing a different way and really in a short period of time, a whole new melody evolved. At that point, the lyrics just sort of went with the new melody. Don't ask me how [laughs]. There's nothing really negative about Mick in there. It was just that it was on my mind at the time [laughs]. Mick and I are close enough to make reference to one another in songs without really having to worry about it." [I think he loves Mick only slightly less than he loves Stevie. Love and conflict]