Tusk: Your favorite songs, grouped by singer

[Villavic]

I don’t remember if this was asked before, if so anyway here's the 2023 edition poll.

From Tusk, if you had to choose one group of songs that you like the most, which will you choose? Lindsey’s songs? Stevie’s songs? Christine's songs?

[HomerMcvie]

I want to pick Lindsey, but Think About Me won't allow it.

[Mr Scarrott]

I feel I need to forgive myself for this, but I voted for Stevie. Paradoxically, my favourite songs on the album are Brown Eyes and Save me a place but somehow Stevie's five Tusk songs, as a body of work just have this memerising feel to them which to me as a comparison of the three on that album, give them the edge over the other two, which can occasionally veer into throwaway or self-indulgence (Lindsey) or underdeveloped musical ideas (Christine).

Having said that, I suppose there are a couple of caveats. Angel has grown on me over the decades but I still get a nagging feeling that it occasionally plods and runs out of steam. And of course, Mr Buckingham would have played a huge part in realising Stevie's best ideas, so my Lindsey bias is still somehow intact. :angel:

[FuzzyPlum]

Grouped in order by singer…..

Best collection…..
Stevie
1 Sara
2 sisters of the moon
3 beautiful child
4 Angel
5 Storms

Second best….
Christine
1 Brown Eyes
2 Think About Me
3 Over and Over
4 Never Forget
5 Honey Hi
6 Never Make Me Cry

Third…..
Lindsey
1 I Know I’m Not Wrong
2 What Makes You Think You’re The One
3 Walk a Thin Line
4 Tusk
5 Save Me a Place
6 That’s All For Everyone
7 That’s Enough For Me
8 The Ledge
9 Not That Funny

[bwboy]

Stevie’s songwriting on Tusk gives her the edge here. I love many of Christine and Lindsey’s songs too, but Stevie’s songs are storytelling at their best. I mean, Storms and Beautiful Child are slow ballads, yet the lyrics are so vivid and yet different from each other. Her songs on Tusk are also more straightforward than her usual material, yet still have that “read between her lines” mystery surrounding them. Sara is a perfect example, where once you realize the song is about Mick, it all sort of falls into place. That mystery in the lyrics is what gives her songs the edge over the other two songwriters. And yes, Lindsey’s production absolutely helps the songs stand out, as well. Well, most of them, anyway.

I agree with much of Mr Scarrott’s notes above, especially about Angel plodding along. Starts off great but quickly stalls.

Sara
Storms
Beautiful Child
Sisters of the Moon
Angel

Brown Eyes
Think About It
Over and Over
Never Make Me Cry
Never Forget

I hate Honey Hi

I Know I’m Not Wrong
What Makes You Think You’re the One
That’s All For Everyone
Save Me a Place
Tusk

I hate the rest of Lindsey’s songs on Tusk.

[HomerMcvie]

I Know I’m Not Wrong
What Makes You Think You’re the One
That’s All For Everyone
Save Me a Place
Tusk

I hate the rest of Lindsey’s songs on Tusk.

I would expect nothing less from you... have a nice day...

[cbBen]

That's All For Everyone
I Walk A Thin Line
–and not the album version but live:
Sisters Of The Moon

[Macfan4life]

This is really hard. Chris always has the best songs on Mac albums. But this is too much of a mix that makes it hard. Stevie always had great songs in these days but I am not sure her best was selected for this album. Sara is brilliant, and Sisters is pretty good but the album version would have been forgotten if it was not for the powerhouse live version. Beautiful Child and Storms are nice but I dont think they would have made another album if it was not for the "quirky" Tusk. I like Angel but its sort of cheezy coming from Stevie with all those "goods" thrown around. Lindsey is hit or miss on this album. I love What Makes You Think You Are The One and Save Me A Place. Chris brings her best songs for Think About Me and Never Forget. But songs like Honey Hi are cute but dont sound finished.
Long story short, they all have peaks and valleys on the album but they merge together pretty good. Think About Me sticks out like a sore thumb since its not drowning in the "quirkieness"

Brown Eyes, Think About Me and Never Forget are the win for me. So I would vote for Chris. If Sara was not on Tusk, Stevie's Tusk songs would be forgotten.

[DownOnRodeo]

Hugs Sara, Over & Over, and I Know I'm Not Wrong to his chest and runs for the door, refusing to cast a vote in this impossible competition

[mitzo]

Stevie's songs on Tusk are sublime and made me a (almost) lifelong fan. My disappointment when Bella Donna came out was huge, she went from these magical works on Tusk to the mostly flat thin boring stuff on her solo debut.

Chris comes in a close second on the TUSK album. Lindsey did an unbelievably incredible job producing but to me his songs here unlistenable.

Stevie

Storms
Sara
Beautiful Child
Sisters of the Moon
Angel (a bit too honky tonk and out of place here, IMO)

Christine

Brown Eyes
Never Make Me Cry
Never Forget
Honey Hi
Think About Me
Over and Over

Lindsey

None. Sorry.

[UnwindedDreams]

Stevie’s songs.
Angel to me is the best band song with Stevie on vocals. Christine and John leading the song, Mick giving a great beat and Lindsey popping in here and there. And the harmonies are delish. I would say same for Sara but the keys on Angel to me speak Christine so much more than Sara, in a great way.

[DownOnRodeo]

Mitzo, for the feverishly slooow Lindsey songs, I challenge you to listen to them at 1.5 speed on YouTube. They might still graze the throat but they're much easier to swallow.

Save Me A Place (1.25 x, or 1x)
What Makes You Think You're The One (1.5x)
That's All For Everyone (1.5x)
Walk A Thin Line (1.5x)

George Hawkins and George Harrison et al must have realized this as well, because their cover of Walk A Thin Line for Mick's solo album is much faster than the Tusk track.

[aleuzzi]

I listen to Christine’s more (far more) than the others. But chose Lindsey because, quite frankly, Tusk wouldn’t be Tusk without him. His songs really animate the record in endlessly surprising ways.

To my way off thinking, the title song is one of the best songs in all of rock-n-roll, the best song on the album, and with GYOW his crowning achievement.

Stevie’s Tusk songs are also great but would be considerably less interesting if not surrounded by the colors and tones provided by the other two writers.

[jbrownsjr]

I want to pick Lindsey, but Think About Me won't allow it.

You've made me love that song, just a little more.

[WalkAThinLine.]

Lindsey's nine songs on Tusk are all over the board, but are so endearing that I had to select this batch of material over the others. "I Know I'm Not Wrong" remains one of my favorite Fleetwood Mac songs, the title track arguably got me into Fleetwood Mac to begin with, and other songs like "Walk a Thin Line" and "Not That Funny" have grown on me over the years.

This is not to downplay the contributions of Stevie and Christine, who both bring their A game. With the exception of "Angel", Stevie's songs on Tusk are all grand slams. If I'm not mistaken, "Sisters of the Moon" was one of my most played songs of 2021 on Spotify when accounting for the studio version, the remix, and the live version found on the deluxe edition of Mirage. While I don't listen to "Storms" or "Beautiful Child" much, I recognize the wonderful songwriting that went into them. "Sara" is absolutely immaculate.

"Think About Me" was an instant favorite of mine, but it took a while to enjoy her other offerings. "Over and Over" is a sublime opener and "Never Forget" is bittersweet bookend to the Tusk album. Recently, I've been listing to "Never Make Me Cry", a song that I usually skipped over on my first dozen playthroughs of the album. Now, I'm a huge fan of it. "Honey Hi" has some of Fleetwood Mac's best vocal harmonies, at least on Tusk, and Christine McVie has never written a song like it since then.

[moon]

It's incredible, but even when Lindsey has the biggest number of songs here, Chris definitely had the best ones.
Over & Over, Think About Me, Brown Eyes, Never Make Me Cry and Never Forget. What else!!
Then Lindsey with The Ledge, WATL, Tusk, WMYTYTO...
Well, and then, Sara and Angel...

[BLY]

If I HAD to pick….

Best collection…..
Stevie
1 Sara
2 Sister of the moon
3 Beautiful Child
4 Angel
5 Storms

Second best…..
Lindsey
1 Tusk
2 I Know I’m Not Wrong
3 Walk a Thin Line
4 Save Me Place
5 The Ledge
6 That’s All For Everyone
7 What Makes You Think Your The One
8 That’s Enough For Me
9 Not That Funny

Third best….
Christine
1 Think About Me
2 Never Forget
3 Over and Over
4 Brown Eyes
5 Honey Hi
6 Never Make Me Cry

[GypsySorcerer]

Even though I think Christine's songs are generally undertated here, I'm going with Stevie: her strongest songwriting on any album.

[Penguin Emeritus]

Even though Think About Me is absolute perfection, I still had to go with Lindsey for Tusk. I took the double record out of the library in 1981 (I can still remember how it smelled...that musty delicious old record album smell...) and played them to death for a week. the first time i heard all LB's tusk songs, i thought they were just too weird. but they did grow on me. Now i think they are pretty brilliant. :-)

--Lis

[Macfan4life]

Even though Think About Me is absolute perfection, I still had to go with Lindsey for Tusk. I took the double record out of the library in 1981 (I can still remember how it smelled...that musty delicious old record album smell...) and played them to death for a week. the first time i heard all LB's tusk songs, i thought they were just too weird. but they did grow on me. Now i think they are pretty brilliant. :-)

--Lis
very true. They called Tusk "quirky" and it was in 1979. But when you listen today its not quirky at all. The songs hold up. Its more folksy than quirky. What Makes You Think You're the one is brilliant. Its one of my favorites from the album. But back in 1983 it was not speaking to me at all.

[sue]

I’d choose Stevie in this poll.
Her songs are at the top of her craft.
Angel is my out and out favourite song on Tusk.
Especially Live when it’s played a bit more up tempo.

Sara is magical and I still listen to it now.

Sisters of the Moon is a tour de force and I prefer the album version to anything Live.

[Wdm6789]

I say this every time about Christine’s Tusk songs. They needed more production. They needed to be popped up more, like Say You Love Me, You Make Loving Fun, Hold Me, and Little Lies. Christine’s strength was writing the pop songs. I don’t know it if was Lindsey’s overbearing presence on the production of Tusk, but they did not do Christine’s songs justice on that album.

[KenB]

It’s Christine for me, because I like all of her Tusk songs but one (Never Make Me Cry). There are several of Lindsey’s here that I don’t care for, and I’m in the minority in that I actively dislike two of Stevie’s Tusk songs that others seem to love: Sara and SOTM.

I’m also in the minority in considering Honey Hi a perfectly produced masterpiece with some of their best three-part harmonies ever.

[anusha]

I'm going to go with Lindsey on this one. I loved all of his songs except Not That Funny (which I loathe even more live). I also loved all of Stevie's songs on this album -- I think that her songwriting was really vibrant from BN through The Wild Heart, and then much more gimmicky after (though I love individual songs from the rest of her solo and FM output through TISL).

I think not having a real single from this album reflects that Chris' songs, while all solid quality, aren't really remarkable to me. I actually love Honey Hi and Never Forget, but compared to the absolute home runs she had on the rest of the Mac albums (and solo and BuckVie) work she did, it did feel like she was more lost in the shuffle this time.

[HomerMcvie]

I'm going to go with Lindsey on this one. I loved all of his songs except Not That Funny (which I loathe even more live). I also loved all of Stevie's songs on this album -- I think that her songwriting was really vibrant from BN through The Wild Heart, and then much more gimmicky after (though I love individual songs from the rest of her solo and FM output through TISL).

I think not having a real single from this album reflects that Chris' songs, while all solid quality, aren't really remarkable to me. I actually love Honey Hi and Never Forget, but compared to the absolute home runs she had on the rest of the Mac albums (and solo and BuckVie) work she did, it did feel like she was more lost in the shuffle this time.

I HATE Not That Funny -LIVE as well.

I think IF they'd been trying to do Rumours II, Christine would've written differently for the album. But at least we got the greatest song of all time - Think About Me!!!:blob2::blob1::blob2::blob1::blob2:

[BLY]

[QUOTE=HomerMcvie;

I think IF they'd been trying to do Rumours II, Christine would've written differently for the album. But at least we got the greatest song of all time - Think About Me!!!:blob2::blob1::blob2::blob1::blob2:[/QUOTE]


I think Christine’s songs would have been written the same just produced to be more Rumours 2ish.

[Villavic]

I think IF they'd been trying to do Rumours II, Christine would've written differently for the album. But at least we got the greatest song of all time - Think About Me!!!:blob2::blob1::blob2::blob1::blob2:

I'm one of those very few who don't say WOW when I listen Think about me. I like the song but, and I really don't know why, it is not within my favorites, either from the album, from Christine, or in general from Fleetwood Mac.

It has all the elements to be one of my favorite songs. But it is not. And I really often spend time analyzing why. Didn't find any logical explanation. The only reason I could say is, and it is just a feeling... It is too Christine.

But now that you mention this, it starts to make sense to me. Think about me sounds like the less "Tusk" song of the album. So if at some point I said to myself "why didn't they make a Rumors 2", this confirms that making Tusk was the best.

[On Ice]

Like the White Album and Mirage, Stevie steals the show on Tusk. A run of 5 great songs on a double album full of short quirky and half-finished sounding songs, hers sound completely developed and produced. Both Christine and Lindsey finish with only 1/2 of their songs being truly great. I love Sisters of the Moon and think it's her best Tusk song, although admittedly, it's an album track not a single, and I do think a slightly edited Angel would've been a better single choice. Sara is a 6+ minute masterpiece and sounded great on the radio back in 1980. Storms and Beautiful Child were both great ballads, I would love to have seen them try Child live back then with a signature growl Rhiannon type ending. As for Christine, Over and Over and Brown Eyes are great songs but Think About Me, was crying out loud trying to believe it should've been the first single?!! WTF were they thinking? Lindsey's crown jewel is What Makes You Think You're the One, a great song and it holds up well today- I love the live version on the remastered live album. Tusk, like others have said is as folky as it is quirky and it was interesting in the remastered version to hear the song in its development stages. Lastly, he does well on I Know I'm Not Wrong, although it would've benefited from a slicker production job. His others are sub par and dangling threads of various song ideas that are harder to get through.

[aleuzzi]

I'm one of those very few who don't say WOW when I listen Think about me. I like the song but, and I really don't know why, it is not within my favorites, either from the album, from Christine, or in general from Fleetwood Mac.

It has all the elements to be one of my favorite songs. But it is not. And I really often spend time analyzing why. Didn't find any logical explanation. The only reason I could say is, and it is just a feeling... It is too Christine.

But now that you mention this, it starts to make sense to me. Think about me sounds like the less "Tusk" song of the album. So if at some point I said to myself "why didn't they make a Rumors 2", this confirms that making Tusk was the best.

While it’s not my favorite Christine song, either, I like it and it’s a very good one. Just not among my top-tier favs.

I think the song is one of the most Tusk-like songs on the record. On Rumours (and Mirage) it would have been given a lush, ear-wormy arrangement. On Tusk, it is presented with a rougher, crunchier edge. The interesting thing is that Sara and Brown Eyes DO get the lush arrangements, but Think About Me is as close as Christine gets to Lindsey’s garage rock/basement tape approach. And that makes it (along with Stevie’s Angel) a key track on the record.

[SteveMacD]

Christine, though just barely. Everyone was superlative.

I love how inspired Lindsey was, but I hate how he didn’t use the others on his songs that much. I can’t say anything bad about Stevie’s songs.

I naturally gravitate towards Christine, so it might be as simple as that. But “Over and Over,” “Think About Me,” “Brown Eyes,” “Never Make Me Cry,” “Honey Hi,” and “Never Forget” were maybe the most significant progress she ever made as a songwriter.

But, it was a moment for all of them, and really should have been their final album. Nothing they’ve done since has been nearly as good.

[bwboy]

Christine, though just barely. Everyone was superlative.

I love how inspired Lindsey was, but I hate how he didn’t use the others on his songs that much. I can’t say anything bad about Stevie’s songs.

But, it was a moment for all of them, and really should have been their final album. Nothing they’ve done since has been nearly as good.

Now that’s a pretty strong statement! I totally disagree for many reasons. For one, Tusk was considered a major disappointment when it was released. It sold ok, especially for a double album, but compared to Rumours, it was a poor seller. It didn’t make it to #1 even once. And unlike Rumours and the White Album, it came and went on the Billboard charts rather quickly. Tusk and Sara did well as singles, but Sisters of the Moon was a total bomb. Even Think About Me was a disappointment, considering Christine’s other singles had always charted higher, and were radio favorites for yers. The first and only time I ever remember hearing Think About Me on the radio was probably 1991, on a station that was playing classics like CCR and the Supremes.

Then of course, you had the critical and fan reactions. I was a kid, but my older brothers were huge fans of FM. They bought Tusk, and the album was promptly placed on the bottom of the stack. I remember listening to Rumours long after Tusk had come and gone. It took years for folks to appreciate how good much of Tusk is, and I think one of the reasons for that is because Mirage and Tango weren’t so strong, and in retrospect, the fans realized Tusk wasn’t so bad after all, eventually rating it much higher. But back then, there’s no way FM would have wanted to go out like that.

Third, even though the latter albums may not have been as incredible as the others, there are too many good songs that became a staple of FM- Little Lies, Everywhere, and Gypsy, for starters. Also, it would have been unlikely FM would have toured if they didn’t have new albums, so there’s that.

I’m curious what other folks think about whether FM should have quit recording after Tusk.

[HomerMcvie]

I’m curious what other folks think about whether FM should have quit recording after Tusk.

Of course they shouldn't have stopped. We wouldn't have got Mirage or BuckVie. :laugh:

Tango, BTM, SYW and even Time(my favorite of these four) JUST AREN'T CLASSIC FM ALBUMS.

Isn't it funny how the ones that stand the test of time are the ones that sound like an actual band recording? No computers, no squawking birds, no tracks, no gimmicks. Quite the concept, huh?