Caillat Gives Rumours Analysis, Track by Track
 

From Music Radar, by Joe Bosso, Tue 7 Feb 2012
http://www.musicradar.com/news/drums...ack-528375#!12

Fleetwood Mac's Rumours track-by-trackProducer Ken Caillat reflects on the mega album's 35th anniversary


"Records like Rumours don't happen anymore," says Ken Caillat, who along with Richard Dashut and Fleetwood Mac produced the 1977 mega album that has sold a mind-boggling 44 million copies. "We spent a year and a lot of hell working on it. Lives were changed, people changed, everything became different. Something like Rumours could never happen these days. A record label would have shut us down after two weeks."

The soap opera that attended the making of Rumours has been extensively documented - married band members John and Christine McVie broke up, as did lovers Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks; even Mick Fleetwood's marriage dissolved, as well - and Caillat confirms that 1976 was a wild ride. "There were fights, breakups, drinking, drugs... We all indulged in substances. But I had to be a therapist and record producer. When everything was insane, I had to be sane. If there was a rule book, nobody game me one."

Although 1975's self-titled release was rising up the charts during the making of Rumours, Caillat says that the band was still learning how to play together. "Basically, you had two teams: Christine, John and Mick, the three Brits, were pros, and the two Americans, Lindsey and Stevie, had their shorthand, but they were still new to the group. During the making of Rumours, they became a real band, one that was very intuitive, musically and otherwise.”

This intuition lent itself to songwriting. Rather than work with demos, the group's principle writers - Buckingham, Nicks and Christine McVie - would present live fragments of ideas for the group to build work on. "Richard and I had to capture light in a bottle," says Caillat. "The band would be tuning up, and before you knew it, a song was going down. John and Mick would hear something, they'd start playing, and we had to react fast. That kind of creativity doesn't happen these days - it's frowned upon. In 2012, a band has to have a committee approve their songs. Can you imagine Fleetwood Mac making Rumours under such conditions?"

Released on 4 February 1977, Rumours hit like a meteor, permanently altering the landscape of all involved. "Like Richard Dashut, I went from being a mid-level engineer to a Grammy-winning producer in one year," says Caillat. "The record was like Jaws and Star Wars combined. Everybody saw those movies, and everybody during that time bought a copy of Rumours."

In his forthcoming book, Making Rumours: The Inside Story Of The Classic Fleetwood Mac Album, Ken Caillat and Steve Stiefel recount the producer's year behind the glass in brilliant, page-turning detail. "It's amazing how everything came flooding back to me once I started the book," says Caillat. "It's one thing to remember cutting a number one song, but to think about what I was wearing that same day, that's incredible.

"But that's the kind of record Rumours is: You remember your first time hearing it. You even remember where you were when when you heard it. Not every album has that power. This one does. I was just lucky to be a part of it."

On the following pages, Ken Caillat takes a track-by-track look back at Rumours. To order his book, Making Rumours: The Inside Story Of The Classic Fleetwood Mac Album, click here.

Second Hand News

“We called it ‘Strummer.’ Before Lindsey had the structure and the words, he would strum his guitar very very hard go these chords. I always thought he’d turn it all into a song.

“A lot of Lindsey’s lyrics sparked fights with Stevie. I didn’t know exactly what was happening at the time, but words were flying around, particularly Lindsey’s, about their breakup. Stevie hated when Lindsey got even a little literal. The minute Lindsey would start singing his lyrics, Stevie stormed out and the session would end.

“Originally, John McVie had an amazing, flowing and melodic bass part. Lindsey had a problem with that. It took him a while, but eventually, while John was on vacation, he put down his own bassline, one that was very simple, just quarter notes.

“It worked, though. Lindsey had a grand plan in his head, and he got his way. This was the start of him really calling the shots. It became a ‘my way or the highway’ thing with him, which he perfected on the Tusk album.”

Dreams
“Stevie didn’t always have a lot to do. If she wasn’t singing, she’d bang on the tambourine, but that was about it. She had a lot more free time than the other band members.

“There was a spare room down the hall called Sly Stone’s Pit, and it had a piano. This was like heaven to Stevie. She spent hours in that place, just writing simple, three-chord songs. One day she came out the pit with something called Dreams.

“Once Stevie and Lindsey figured the song out, we had some tempo and groove problems. Things felt fine, but they had to be perfect - the rhythm had to be rock solid. Mick Fleetwood is a great drummer, one of the best, but he’d shift his parts and dynamics around - every drummer does.

“We made an eight-bar loop of Mick's playing, which created this fantastic, deep hypnotic effect. It’s funny, but when people talk about the classic rhythm section of Mick Fleetwood and John McVie and they point to this one song, I’m always amused that they’re talking about a drum loop.”

Never Going Back Again
“Lindsey had a pretty cool song called ‘Brushes’ – we called it this because we were going to have Mick do a press roll on his snare with brushes. That idea kind of went away.

“A lot of our focus shifted to Lindsey and his acoustic guitar. I noticed that anytime he played, there was a big different in how bright his strings sounded after just 20 minutes. So I said, ‘Can we restring your guitar every 20 minutes?’ I wanted to get the best sound on every one of his picking parts. He said sure.

“It took a long time to nail everything – all day, actually – and I’m sure the roadies wanted to kill me. restringing the guitar three times every hour was a bitch. But Lindsey had lots of parts on the song, and each one sounded magnificent.

"And it did. The only problem was, when Lindsey went to sing, he realized that he played all of his guitar parts in the wrong key. Oh, man! So we recorded everything all over again the next day, dispensing with the changing of guitar strings – we had to lose all of that so we could get Lindsey singing in the right key.”

Don't Stop
“I never really liked this song. It was the first shuffle I ever worked on. I didn’t like the drum sound, either – maybe it’s because it started out kind of slow.

“This was Christine’s song, and she loved it, so that's all that matters. What did improve it dramatically was when she said to Lindsey, ‘It doesn’t sound that great when I’m singing it myself. Why don’t we make it a duet?’ That opened things up.

“The end is funny. The band kept changing their background vocals. Anytime I thought I knew what they’d sing, they’d do something different. That’s a hallmark of classic Fleetwood Mac, their backgrounds. They’re incredible singers.”

Go Your Own Way

“Lindsey was beating his acoustic guitar as hard as he could and screaming his lungs out. The first time I heard it, I thought, What the heck is going on? [laughs] It sounded so non-musical. I didn’t know if anything would come from it.

“As the months went on, we filled it out and it became a song. Lindsey figured out some fantastic guitar parts to lay down. In particular, he did an acoustic part on the 1, a flourish overdub, and that really drove the rhythm.

“There’s two guitar solos, the tag and the first one. For both, Lindsey didn’t know what he wanted - the song had progressed from an acoustic piece into this searing electric rocker. I gave him seven or eight tracks and he comped the solos. They sound seamless, as if they were totally composed, but they weren’t.

“The right drum approach was crucial. One day, Lindsey came in and said he heard Street Fighting Man by the Stones, and he thought that kind of feel would work well. I remember watching him guide Mick as to what he wanted – he’d be so animated, like a little kid, playing these air tom fills with his curly hair flying. Mick wasn’t so sure he could do what Lindsey wanted, but he did a great job, and the song took off.”

Songbird

“Christine started playing something she had written on the piano one day, and it floored me. It was so beautiful and special, so personal – I knew I had to get just the right recording of it.

“Before Rumours, I had worked recorded an album with Joni Mitchell at the Berkeley Community Theatre. I thought doing a similar kind of concert recital recording was perfect for Songbird. Christine and the whole band loved the idea.

“The Berkley Community Theatre wasn’t available, so we used the Zellerbach Auditorium, the same kind of vibe. Christine sat on the stage and played a nine-foot Steinway, and she sounded magnificent. I used 15 tracks for the piano – two close mics and the rest were distant mics. For something like Songbird, I wanted the room to really speak.”

The Chain

“The very first song we worked on. It began as one of Christine’s things, something called Keep Me There. I remember Richard and I almost got fired while trying to record it because we spent five days on drum sounds – the band thought we were clueless.

“They ran through it one day and John McVie did that incredible bass line – just like that it just came to him. What a part! Next, the band began playing the tag at the end, that big rocking section. Amazing. Then, out of nowhere, Lindsey played a screaming guitar solo. Really exciting stuff.

“Over the next nine months, we’d revisit the song. There was great playing on tape, but it still wasn’t right. Finally, three weeks before we wrapped the album, Lindsey figured out how to connect everything. He took the verses apart, played a Dobro and asked Mick to play a straight quarter-note beat on the kick. Next, Lindsey rewrote the chorus and put a whole new rhythm to it. Everything clicked.

“The Chain changed drastically over the course of a year, but there was something about it that always made people think it was worth coming back to.”

You Make Loving Fun

“My favorite-sounding song on the record. I just love those four clicks on the hi-hat and bam! we’re right into it, with everybody playing. I still think it sounds great.

“Originally, it was done on Christine’s Yamaha electric piano. We wanted it to sound nastier and dirtier, though, because everybody was playing very hard. I made a remark about a Clavinet, and one of the engineers said there was one in Sly’s room. We ran out and grabbed it.

“To accentuate the ‘Clav-iness,’ we put it through a wah-wah pedal. Christine couldn’t play her keyboard part and work the wah at the same time, so Mick got down on his hands and knees and worked the pedal while Christine played. Being a drummer, he knew just what kind of rhythm it needed.

“I remember when we were doing background vocals, Stevie and Lindsey were having an argument. Vicious name-calling – ‘you mother****er’ this, 'you ****ing bastard' that. Back and forth it went. The tape would start rolling and they’d sing, ‘Yooooooou make loving fun,’ just beautiful, two little angels. The tape would stop and they’d be calling each other names again. They didn’t miss a beat.”

I Don't Want to Know

“We had a song called Silver Springs that couldn’t make the record because it was too long. That broke Stevie’s heart – she loved Silver Springs so much. But we needed something shorter, a little uptempo, and out came this kind of country thing she and Lindsey had been doing live.

“We cut the song with Lindsey and the others – Stevie wasn’t there that day – and Stevie came in later and sang her parts. It might have been the easiest song on the record. We were done with it fast. It’s a great sing-along.”

Oh Daddy

“Another early one. I think we did Oh Daddy right after The Chain. Christine played the organ and Lindsey had some wonderful guitar lines that he put down. I think he played a Strat on this song, but it could have been a Les Paul.

“We had something called a Stratoblaster that we used. It fit inside the guitar and added about a 15dB boost. I had the guitar designer Rick Turner build me one and stick it inside a little metal box. I kept it on the console and I could feed anything through it and give it a kick, just make it sound edgier and nastier.

“The song was called ‘Addy’ for a while because of a crazy studio accident. We were going to do some overdubs, and while rewinding the tape, a portable tape oscillator fell on the machine, sending it into free-wheel – the reels were spinning out of control. I jumped on the machine to stop it - and snapped the tape! Oh, man... [laughs] We listened back and there it was: ‘Oh ‘addy.’ The ‘D’ part of Christine’s vocal was cut off. My heart sunk.

“We fixed the part eventually, but for a month the song was referred to as ‘Addy.’ Nobody took my head off over the accident, but I felt terrible.”

Gold Dust Woman
“It was a weird song, and truthfully, I wasn’t very excited about it. I couldn’t tell where it was going. It was typical Stevie – most of her songs, in their inception, are close to 10 or 12 minutes long, with endless verses and epic stories.

“My job became one of editing, taking all of these sections and making them flow, cutting out the fat. Stevie would go crazy – ‘Oh, that verse was about my mother! That part was about my dog!’ [laughs] These things would mean something to her, but they had to work for the listener.

“The song grew more evil as we built it. I called over to SIR and they send over a bunch of weird instruments, like an electric harpsichord with a jet phaser – that created a cool, whooshing sound. We weren’t looking for musicality, we were looking for accents, mood. We marked the keyboard with tape so Mick could play the right notes.

“Stevie had a lot of Courvoisier in her, and she did this incredible coyote-like howling at the end. She had become this witch she was always writing about. To accentuate her vocals, Mick went into this room we had miked up, and he broke sheets of glass. He was wearing goggles and coveralls – it was pretty funny. He just went mad, bashing glass with this big hammer. He tried to do it on cue, but it was difficult. Eventually, we said, ‘Just break the glass,’ and we fit it all in.”

That was hilarious him mocking Stevie objecting when he tried to edit and cut her songs, "That verse is about my mother. That verse was about my dog." So, funny.

For NGBA after going through all that trouble with the strings to not be able to use it . . . how frustrating. What painstaking work. So, Lindsey doesn't just sing off-key when he's trying to rile up his bandmates, huh? Sometimes, it happens quite by accident.

Michele

After reading through Ken's snippets/teasers, it's looking like this will be a good insightful read. Looking forward to this book!

The part about Stevie & Lindsey cussing each other out between YMLF takes, and not missing a beat is hillarious. :laugh:
Also, Kens recounting of GDW first incarnation as a "wierd song" that was close to 10 or 12 minutes long, with endless verses and epic stories.:thumbsup: -Would love to hear that version! That's our Stevie!:nod:;)

Thanks for posting the snippet! It does look like a fun read; however, I can't help but think much of the backstory was already covered in the Classic Albums DVD. Still, I find it interesting that all of the songs were written from the ground-up using only snippets of musical ideas. Hence, the absence of bootleg demos for Rumours tracks! I do find it interesting that Christine couldn't control her own "wah." I would have assumed it would not be unlike using the sustain pedals on a piano. :shrug: Or better yet, Christine could have controlled the "wah" with one of those straw contraptions in her mouth ala Peter Frampton.

Great article! I'm looking forward to his new book :thumbsup:

Very enjoyable to read. One wonders what else he'll have to write about.

I'm looking forward to it, too! I'm sure Ken will post on FB, and probably here, when it's finally coming out. There's not a release date yet, right?

i'm pretty sure there is a release date. i pre-ordered it on amazon a while back.

Excellent read!

Love the part about Mick's looped drum track getting the credit for the renowned rhythm section. :laugh:

I found it interesting that Ken very openly expressed his dislike of Don't Stop. I guess I just didn't expect him to say anything but glowing things about the music he helped craft. It's also one of the most well known, signature Mac tunes. You'd think he'd be heralding it's glories. Looks like he feels the same way as the majority of the Fleetwood Mac community, though... that the song just isn't so great.

Another illuminating tidbit was Ken's description of Lindsey's scorched earth way of doing things. I guess I didn't realize that aspect of Lindsey had begun emerging during Rumours. I cannot imagine the tension Lindsey must have created by either 1) booting John's bass parts altogether 2) basically demanding Mick play exactly what he wanted, and Mick doing it. It really piques my interest that Ken would again be this unabashed with his feelings- makes me wonder what kind of relationship he maintains with the band members these days, if any. I know none of the band members would agree to be interviewed for the book, and I'm starting to see why.

I tell you, though, my band plays Don't Stop, and used to play GYOW. We could never get anyone to dance to GYOW, so we dropped it. We consistently fill the dance floor with Don't Stop. So, say what you will....haters gonna hate!:laugh::laugh::laugh::wavey:

I thought I had heard Stevie claim many times that they took the chorus for The Chain out of one of her songs that she had written. Now Ken is saying it was a Christine song. And that Lindsey rewrote the chorus. What is the actual truth on that? Does anyone else remember Stevie saying that?

I think he's saying musically, it began as a Chris song, and that musically, Lindsey rewrote the chorus.

In what little recording evidence we have regarding the chain, it seems (to me anyway, I might be wrong, someone correct me if so) that they just kind of started jamming, and there wasn't really words, they were just kind of saying nonsense... then Lindsey came up with the 'listen to the wind blowwwww.'

I think what happened was that a majority of the lyrics were taken from something Stevie had written. I feel like there may have been a quote from one of them about that, but I'm not sure. Stevie has definitely mentioned before that The Chain was 'her song' - I think even as recently as one of the signings in the past year, to a fan?

I think in all likelihood, "listen to the wind blow, watch the sun rise, run in the shadows... was written by Stevie..."damn your love damn your lies" I'm going with either Lindsey or Christine. "and if you don't love me now" is Lindsey for sure. I think the song is actually a brilliant splicing of several different songs, hence the shared writing credits. And John McVie's baseline is hands down the best bass line ever recorded in rock history.

I just preordered the book on Amazon! Release date is April 10, I believe. It will be really interesting, for sure. Hopefully he'll provide a more unbiased approach than any of the band members could.

I know lyrically Stevie said that Lindsey did the "running in the shadows" part and, if you listened to her, not much else. It does make me giggle when I look at the Mirage video and she's just staring at him for the "running, yes I'm running in the shadows." Her expression (or non-expression) tickles me to death.

Michele

I can't find it right now but I thought I remembered Stevie saying "all Lindsey had was listen to the wind blow". And alluding to how long it was taking him to finish the song. That may have been on the Classic album doc. On the work tape they started out singing "write me a love song, take away the sadness that you gave me" as the opening line. Later Lindsey sings, "listen to the wind blow watch the sun rise" and says "something like that" and Christine says "yeah that's some really nice phrasing" and they keep hammering out the harmonies.

Here are some other quotes I found:

Lindsey: I think it was a really an interesting collaboration of forces. It started off as a song of Christine’s called ‘Keep Me There’ [Butter Cookie] and much of that did not end up being the song. We had the tag ending to the song.

Mick: Lindsey ran with whatever Chris had formulated and then basically ended up hitting a brick wall. And it felt like the whole thing was just never gonna work. They all got this revelation, and suddenly it just made sense, like a jigsaw puzzle.

Lindsey: I came in one day, and said why don’t we just remove the verses? And we can do some sort of measurement of what the tape is, and do a reverse count back from there to create a metronome to play to, and once we have the blank tape in we can figure out what we want to put in there! Mick or I laid down the kick drum that gave us a start point. Eventually I started fooling with the dobro and that became the foundation for what was written over that. The 3 part harmony of listen to the wind blow was a collaboration of the three writers.

Christine: I remember Stevie, Lindsey and myself sitting in my den and doing the 3 parts. Lindsey with his guitar and trying to figure out the chords things to go underneath the vocals.

Stevie: I had written another song. The whole ‘running in the shadows’ thing. And Lindsey said can we use this? So of course I said yes…so it was funny that I had that melody and those words or it never would’ve happened.

Mick: Lindsey is more prone to see different pieces of things. Not only in his own songwriting, but in the girls’ songwriting and picking parts out.

Lindsey: We were able to think of tape as a very plastic, cinematic and abstract way. Just to come up with pieces of music we could treat as pieces of film, and we came up with something that was truly a communal effort.

Stevie: I remember that great solo of John’s (hums the bass solo)…and it was like the monsters are coming! And we all loved that.

John: That was an Olympic fretless bass on a stainless fretboard with a pick. And I was just messin about in the studio and I just played the riff. Chris said ‘Oh! I like that!’ So we kept it in. If I had my way, I would’ve brought the band in a little earlier on the ending…it tends to stand out and look a little lonely out there, but it seems to work.

Mick: You can’t change it now John, you’d break too many people’s hearts! (laughs)

Christine: I guess we must’ve just loved that bass part so much to do something with it. And Lindsey raved and put that guitar solo on it.

Mick: It’s one of the best examples of how things can work from a different point of view. The collaboration of the band brought it back to the shape it’s now in. It’s one of those songs that could’ve ended up in the dust bin, and it didn’t.

Source: http://www.fleetwoodmac-uk.com/album.../thechain.html

***
Mick Fleetwood: "'The Chain' basically came out of a jam. That song was put together as distinct from someone literally sitting down and writing a song. It was very much collectively a band composition... Originally we had no words to it. And it really only became a song when Stevie wrote some. She walked in one day and said, 'I've written some words that might be good for that thing you were doing in the studio the other day.' So it was put together. Lindsey arranged and made a song out of all the bits and pieces that we were putting down onto tape."
(Courtesy: lucky98fm.com. Thanks, Edward Pearce - Ashford, Kent, England.)

***

"That started off as---jogging the memory here---it was really Stevie’s and mine to begin with in the verse: [sings] "Listen to the wind blow . . ." And my ever-present pseudo-blues riffs in there. And at some point I think Christine fashioned the feel of the chorus, and the chorus was certainly Stevie’s lyrics." Lindsey Buckingham 1993

***

Ugh...I'm probably the only one that thinks this way but i actually cringed when i read that and almost stopped reading the rest. When i used to listen to Dreams, for example, i could picture mick playing throughout the song if i wanted to. Now, this knowledge kinda kills that mental image/fantasy thing.

I've had this thing lately where the curiousity is definately there but i find that when i learn all the behind-the-scenes stories it takes something away. The mystery is gone. Don't get me wrong, there's so much that i've discovered over the past 30 years of following this band and what else is there about Rumours that I need to know - but, apparently there's still stuff I don't know and not sure if i want to know any more.

i don't know, maybe someone can enlighten me...

and, not knocking Ken at all for writing the book...

I can understand where you are coming from. It does take away from the "magic" a little. I get into all the technical stuff but a friend of mine hates anything behind the scenes, how it's made, stories behind songs, etc. She says music is personal to her and her experience and knowing anything about how it really happened ruins it for her...

I also remember for the Chain lyrics that Stevie said for once in his life, Lindsey just stepped up to the mic and sang the song just the way she had written it, which astounded her.

Michele

"Video killed the radio star"
It's true. Back before MTV, and the ensuing technological explosion of the past 20 years, music was far more magical, when there was so many details, left unknown. An artist could be butt ugly, and it didn't matter, because there was only radio. And like Ken said, "Rumours" would never happen, now. The indulgent time taken recording, making it the perfect album. Music(major label anyway) is ONLY a business now.

I too, feel different about Dreams now, knowing that Mick wasn't sitting there, playing the whole song.

I like Stevie's comments on her valiance re The Chain. Lindsey and Christine crawling to her after nine months of helplessness:

I was disappointed about the pedal too.... :(

:laugh::laugh::laugh:

Oh, that girl!

This is the second time I've heard about broken glass in Gold Dust Woman (the first being Carol Anne's book) and I just... can't hear it at all =/

Really? I have just that sound as a track.

In reference to NGBA.......How can you record all day in the wrong key without knowing??? I suppose if you're really really high... lolol

guess he didn't try whether he can sing it in that key :p

Caillat told the same anecdote about "Brushes" - with a just a bit of a different detail - when they were presenting Les Paul Award to Lindsey last year:



Caillat comes on at 1:49.

Thanks!! I like that version of the story better.. which sort of says... yeah I knew what key we were in, but I don't like it after sleeping on it..

Except I strangely remember CAH saying it was Lindsey who was breaking the glass, not Mick, and this showed her how much of a GENIUS Linds was because the breaking glass just completely changed the whole song into a masterpiece! ;]


Yeah, I am pretty sure Stevie was the main and possibly sole lyricist for The Chain.

"Lindsey wanted to finish the song himself so he didn't let me or anybody else help him and finally it just wasn't getting written so I had another song that I had written out of the BuckinghamNicks era that went with it perfect so I pretty much just gave them the song!"

She actually said it was Lindsey's idea but that Mick jumped at the idea to do it.

And you know they probably spent two months using every type of glass known to man - coke bottles, Murano glass, wine goblets, test tubes, etc. - just to get that perfect glass-shattering sound. But then after someone spilled a bottle of Southern Comfort on the rmaster reel, they had to go back and re-record the glass again (because someone accidentally melted the safety reel while freebasing in the console). :rolleyes:

Lindsey said that those were definitely Stevie's words. Although, she said he wrote a line. Dee was right about the line being "Listen to the wind blow." That's all she said he wrote. Stevie went on:


Christine said:

Why would the session need to end just because one of the singers went home early?

So the simpler, later bass line was something Lindsey recorded, not John? Uh-oh. Cruisin' for a bruisin'.

I wonder just how many wonderful Mick Fleetwood drum tracks are loops. "Dreams." "Tusk." "Angel"? "Annabel Lee"?

You ought to know better than that, Ken. Any time that amazing shuffle player Christine McVie is doing her unique stuff, you're going to have something memorable, something with texture that has no correlative.

To me, the one flaw on Rumours is the murky sound on "Songbird." Done deliberately, too, which is puzzling, considering that Dashut & Caillat had such fantastic ears.

Christine wrote the chord progression on the chorus, too.

Not Yamaha, Ken. Hohner.

Well, everybody did that at the time.

Never mind the stupid glass that everyone talks about. It's that electric harpsichord or Clavinet with the phaser that makes "Gold Dust Woman" have that ultra-cool Navajo sound: American Indian hippie music mixed with Appalachian hillbilly. It's masterly atmosphere they all created on that track, & the band never recaptured that in all its live performances.

Are you implying that Ken has some sort of vendetta against the band? I don't think that is the case. Give him credit for not sugar-coating his stories. He's just revealing his un-candid perspective. To me it's refreshing that he feels no restraint from the band. The most illuminating observations don't come from the band members, but from those who are around them.

I totally agree. I thought this book would just be another Rumours Classic Albums rehash, but it looks like Ken is really dishing out the opinions in a no holds barred way. I like it. I look forward to reading the book!

I also love the story of "The Chain" in that it's not only a metaphor about the five surviving and never breaking THAT chain, but it's also very much on a literal level about how the song itself is a chain created out of the five's different musical parts. Nice one. :thumbsup:

Couldn't agree more. Just like Carol Anne told "her" story. Ken is telling "his".

Classic Albums is telling Fleetwood Mac's story. And we've hear that a billion times.

What a fun take on the sessions. I imagine there is a certain authenticity in his accounts because he was working as an engineer and was not as bound up by inner-band tensions and jockeying for control. He could remember things with some detachment.

A couple of comments: I have always preferred the McVie bass line on the alternate take to SHN. It really gives the song a force I don't hear in the album take--save Mick's drums and Lindsey's guitar.

I agree with Ken that YMLF has the best sound on the record. It's really a great song because it has all the energy of a live performance with all these amazing studio touches.

With re: to IDWK being chosen over SS, I still don't buy the excuse for length. Even if SS was too long, it might have been cut down a bit more. Or the fade out to GDW could have been shortened to accommodate the overall running time. I still think IDWK was chosen over SS because IDWK is a duet vocal that allows Lindsey some presence on side two. Without that duet, the majority of the second side would have been Stevie and Christine--and this would have offset the vocal balance of the voices.

I agree totally.

Yes, I have an interview with her from the Bella Donna era on tape where she says the "if you don't love me now, you will never love me again" part was hers, and "Lindsey said 'can we use it' and I said, "well, you're ripping the chorus out of my song and, well, he didn't care that much" She then goes on to say Lindsey wrote the "listen to the wind blow" part.