include silver springs on rumours?
 

I can't decide if Silver Springs should be included as a track on Rumours in my itunes...

I vote yes. On my Ipod, I have it in place of IDWK, not because it's a bad song, but SS is so much better, and IDWK was just a replacement song.

Well, of course you should. I surely wasn't a Tusk song, now was it? Nor was it a Mirage tune. It was a last second scratch from Rumours and actually was on the 45 that was released 5 months prior to the album*, so, if it were MY iTunes folder, you're damned straight "Silver Springs" would be included.

*-and if not for the limited technology of the vinyl LP, the song very well WOULD HAVE BEEN on Rumours from the get-go.

Actually, I'd place it after "Go Your Own Way" and move "Songbird" to after "Gold Dust Woman" to close the album (as they closed their concerts).

I couldn't have said it any better.

what he said

I've never believed that "not enough room on the album" line for a second. Rumours is only 39 minutes long, for God's sakes...Mystery To Me was 48! I would have gotten rid of IDWTK, relegated it to B-side status, and replaced it with Silver Springs. I'll take a slight drop in the audio quality of the album by making it 1:20 longer, over a more noticeable drop in overall album quality, when a merely decent song takes the place of a really good one. :wavey:

I dunno. I love that GDW closes the album. I think as a concert closer, Songbird works, but GDW really closed Rumours off with more high strung emotion.

I agree.
Sometimes I have thought about moving Songbird to the end, but ending the album with GDW was really strong and emotional.

Neither have I. The reason SS was dropped in favor of IDWK may have been a bit more delicate. My theory is that in order to balance out the lead vocals in the running order, the group wanted another Lindsey lead vocal on the record, otherwise the album--particularly side two--would have been too "girl" focused. So, although SS is generally regarded a superior song to IDWK, the latter duet provided the right vocal balance that group of songs needed.

If my theory is correct, this would have been a delicate matter for Nicks, who wrote and writes more music than Buckingham.

I grant your theory strong possibility. It's a theory that makes logical sense to me. But the idea -- expressed elsewhere & frequently -- that the band didn't include SPRINGS to hurt Stevie Nicks is asinine. The idea that a musician or an arranger would sacrifice his own exceptional achievement (and the achievement of SILVER SPRINGS in musicianship & arrangement is very high indeed) for some sort of illogical personal vendetta is preposterous. Those bandmates of Stevie's loved what they did on SILVER SPRINGS, & they had just as much interest in releasing it as she did.

Furthermore, the vocal harmonies on I DON'T WANT TO KNOW played a huge role in the band's reputation in those years as an amazing group of ensemble singers in the studio. See Robert Hilburn's comments on those harmonies in the L.A. Times in 1977, in which he stated that the Mac's singing far outpaced competitors (namely the Bee Gees & the Eagles) in terms of tightness & style.

I definitely think it should, especially if it is the 1977 version. It only makes sense.:nod:

Beethoven laid the groundwork for this sort of back & forth, as follows:

Beethoven originally composed (& intended for publication) the grotesque Große Fuge (or Great Fugue) as the final movement of the Op. 130 string quartet. For several reasons (length, audience response, publishing revenue, perhaps aesthetic reasons), he agreed to requests to replace the Fugue with a lighter, shorter, & considerably less complex finale, & published the Fugue separately as a stand-alone.

These days, musicians often put the Fuge back into its original spot in performances or recordings of the string quartet. Many of them believe they are carrying out Beethoven's original intentions & wishes. But this isn't necessarily true in Beethoven's case, & putting SILVER SPRINGS into the RUMOURS running order isn't necessarily true to Fleetwood Mac's wishes. RUMOURS is RUMOURS is RUMOURS, I feel. SILVER was removed from the track list for this reason or that, but the aesthetic upshot is that the decision to do so was made & carried out, & aesthetic history cannot & should not be rewritten.

i agree completely. its the most fitting end to that album that i see possible. though i do think that songbird is a good end to concerts.

To quote a line from Blazing Saddles:

"Blow it out your ass..." :laugh:

Amen. And no matter how unjustified its original exclusion may have been, the fact that it reemerged as perhaps THE song to epitomize the drama that was Rumors enabled that song to take on a new life that the others did not. We'd already heard "Dreams" 3 billion times before that night. But the unearthing of Silver Springs was an event.

Only the acoustic version of "Big Love" rivaled its importance in the set.

Silver Springs 7" Mix
 

I'd love to get the original mix of Silver Springs from the Go Your Own Way 45 on CD. The version found on The Chain comes closest to this original mix, but it's different. The same is true for the versions found on The Very Best of Fleetwood Mac and the Rumours reissue.

Daniel, do you mean that the mix is literally a different mix (between the 45 & THE CHAIN box)? Was every track on THE CHAIN mixed again? Could you describe in detail some of the differences? I never noticed it, but I never listened carefully for differences. Could the differences you hear be attributable to the remastering rather than the mix?

The main difference is at the end of the song during Stevie's ad libs. In The Chain version, her ad libs seem farther back in the mix, sounding almost muddied, whereas on the 45, they seem to jump right out. The remastering isn't all that great either. I'm not sure if that was just a technological limitation, or if Mick was pushing too many buttons.

I think you should also include it as well....esp from the remasters. You have many versions to add as well. I don't think they didn't include SS on Rumours because of how long it was...although I still wish we had the original intended 7:00 or so minute version made from the original 45 that was released. Yes we do have the masters/demos but I still don't think the full 'original' version/complete one has been released??(from the 'edited' version as a single) Am I correct in saying this?? Please correct me if I'm wrong. Because on the Chain box set it is the orginial 45 version but not the full 7 minute or so version.....I guess Mick is waiting another release of something down the road?? Who knows.
Anyway, I'm guessing they didn't put SS on Rumours because of 'flow' of songs...as beautiful as it was....it somehow over powered the other songs....I personally love it on it....but I do understand the being pure to the original art in itself........I would still include it period.....:D

Include it, it's such a beautiful song. And it's on the extended CD, so you may as well.

It is definately NOT on my iTunes as part of Rumours!

By the way, the Silver Springs from Crystal Visions vinyl is UNBELIEVABLE.

Ha, I never even opened my vinyl. I didn't know it would sound different. You make me want to try.

Michele

It might be just me romanticizing vinyl, but for some reason I feel like I've never heard SS sound so good.

That said, the history of Silver Springs runs from b-side legend to return-of-the-repressed on The Dance. It does not belong on Rumours, in my opinion (I like hearing the album as it was experienced at the time of its release; as it impacted the culture).

I kind of agree with you...but it's such a good song...I can see that it probably would've been a nice single for them HAD it actually been on Rumours. And it may have been a staple of the live set during all the following tours. It's a shame it didn't really see the "light" until the Dance era.

But that's what made The Dance so momentous and made that song so cathartic. That's a great moment in pop. . . the return of Silver Springs.

It DID belong to Rumours, in some way, and definitely did belong to the RUMOURS ERA.

Why? because that song was not completely archived and forgotten in a studio warehouse, it appeared as side b of Go your own way vynil single. So.. it may fit.

But if listening an album just the way it was actually released is the most important thing, then don't included it.
I like my Rumours special edition with the bonus cd, but the experience of listening an original Rumours album (a chance i never had, though I had it with Tusk and Mirage, sound wonderful!) would be great also, kind of traveling in time..

Oh I agree. I actually prefer the Dance version. But the Rumours version is very beautiful too.

Right. But I guess maybe I'm not making sense. Rumours exists.

I often play Go Your Own Way and Silver Springs back to back to get the feeling of having that single record (which hopefully one day I will actually own).

I just think it changes Rumours to stick it on there when it doesn't belong there. We don't know what really happened or why it wasn't included. I mean. . . there's so much meaning in A-side / B-side switch from Songbird to The Chain. I can't imagine what they were thinking sticking Silver Springs in the middle of that (Songbird MUST end side 1, The Chain MUST open Side 2). "I Don't Want To Know" is also an essential song to the album's meaning: The Chain - YMLF - IDWTK - Oh Daddy - GDW.

So if in some strange parallel universe Silver Springs were to have been included on Rumours, it would have meant TWO songs would have had to be cut, the tracklistings would have been totally different, and who knows how it would have effected how other songs played (Go Your Own Way might have been longer etc. We just don't know).

Silver Springs gets to be the greatest B-Side of all time: what else would have been worthy to share a disc with Go Your Own Way??? That's enough for me. (Until Morrissey's "Christian Dior" but that's another story. . .)

And because it was that -- buried -- it got to EXPLODE in The Dance in a way it couldn't have otherwise -- and thank goodness. That single-handedly reinvigorated and validated the significance of Fleetwood Mac.

That said, I know we live in the era of mp3 and we get to play Make Believe (which is what I named my tracklisting of 15 solo stevie-lindsey-christine tracks from the 2000s. . . a never-released masterpiece sigh). I don't have a problem with that because we get to analyze these experiences by putting them in different contexts. It's just that when Rumours has Silver Springs it's no longer Rumours. . . it's something else. . . and maybe something wonderful!

If anyone takes me as being upset, I want it to be known that the degree to which that is true is aimed entirely at the people who put out the Rumours redeux -- and not anyone who wants to have fun with mp3 technology. Silver Springs really should have been put on the bonus disc of that Rumours re-release (or even just listed as a bonus track at the end of disc 1).

This is really interesting. A simple question started a long discussion.

visitas, finally what did you decide?

I think the DVD audio version is a bit more intriguing than any of the other mixes.

I agree with you on this TrueFaith. I like to hear classic albums the way they were released. There were reasons that bands chose the particular songs and the sequence. So why change a classic? I'm all for remastering sorry "sounding" CD's, but if they want to include extra's such as Silver Springs it should only be done if they release a 2 CD set. That way we can have it all, the original and a CD of unreleased material and outtakes.

And as it turned out with Silver Springs, it all worked out for the best. It was played more on MTV and VH1 than all the other "Dance" songs. I doubt the Dance Video and CD would have been as popular without it. Plus at the time of Rumours people might have had enough of Fl. Mac. So it could have hurt one of the other hits from Rumours. Think of other albums that were massive hits, at the end of their run we are tired of hearing them on the radio.

In response to Villavic's question-- I think for the time being I've decided to fight my OCD and just leave Silver Springs on Rumours. My reasoning is this: 1) it makes a great album even greater, 2) it feels like it belongs (after all, it WAS a last-minute omission), 3) it seems to be the will of the band to include it after all these years. Fundamentally it's just too good a song to omit, and (ironically since it was omitted) it sums up what Rumours was about better than any other song.

To me, SECOND HAND NEWS & GOLD DUST WOMAN sum up what Rumours was about.

humm.. interesting... that's another topic.. what sums up Rumours??

In my opinion... The Chain !!

My favorite track on Rumours is Gold Dust Woman. But if I had to pick ONE song that defines Rumours I would agrre with you and pick The Chain.

Mmm actually good call there on The Chain. Haha one might say that it sums up the band's entire body of work...