Say You Will
 

I know I’m in a minority, but I like Say you will..
It grew on me and it was definitely a slow burner.

I often wonder why Stevie disliked the Album...
Was it the actual recording of it, (there is the infamous Bob Dylan argument)?
Was it the fact that it is a very long album?....it is about 3 songs too long.
Or what? Something more obscure?
Anyone got any real ideas....I know some of you more educated Ledgies will have some decent theories.

If this has been discussed before, please accept apologies.

I am with you that Say You Will is brilliant and Lindsey did an outstanding job. Stevie seems to jump on the bandwagon if something is not commercially successful. She stated that when she wrote Say You Will she thought instantly it would be a huge hit if she ever did write a hit. They spent so much time on the album and no doubt were disappointed in the sales and airplay. But there are many fans that think the same way if something is not commercially successful. Some of band's best music is the stuff that is not commercially popular.
I agree with Stevie the album could have been a bit shorter but hey.. the more material the better.
Here is why I love Say You Will:

Finally get the great Stevie songs Smile at you, Running through the Garden, and Thrown Down. Wow, she should have coughed them up earlier because these are some of her best written songs. Lindsey does them justice!!!

Illume is an outrageous poem about 9/11. How in the world do you put it to music. Buckingham shines with an angry growing musical orchestra that is so unpredictable that its confusing the first time you hear it. I think he captured the spirt and the unpredictability of 9/11 perfectly. Those that want pop songs can listen to Talk To Me instead.

Come. We get to hear Lindsey at extended play on an album. Nuff said

Everybody Finds Out - is a musical masterpiece and probably top 5 musical pieces from the Mac. The bass lines are out of this world. The percussion is a full orchestra. The music just builds and builds and then explodes. THIS should have been the first single off the album.

I don't think there are duds or any padding on this album. I love the opener, whats the world coming to.
Yes of course Christine would have been the icing on the cake but we cant change that.
This album gets flamed along with TOSOTM and Street Angel yet people will flock to songs on those albums as one of their favorites which is odd to me.

When this CD came out, I wore it out. I used to run down Ocean Drive every night with this CD playing. Gosh remember CD holders? Yeah, I was a bit old fashioned even for 2003 when digital music was coming out.

Its frustrating because Christine would have made the album so much better but she was not there.

As far as the album being too long...….I think Lindsey was very proud of all the songs and did not want to cut any. They all fit so WTH. IMHO Lindsey was just as creative as Tusk. I am not casting judgment but this is an album that I cant understand if you are a Mac fan how you cant appreciate this album. The music is so good even if you stripped all the vocals and singing.

The only song I don’t like that much is...Come..
It kind of just grates, not a fan.

So you think the main reason Stevie didn’t like it, is purely sales and finance.
The record didn’t sell too good, so didn’t make that much money...
Wow, I never thought that....
I’m not disagreeing it’s a very good point, but isn’t this supposed to be art..
Obviously not, and by 2003 it’s just money, money, money.

Well someone should tell her, that it’s a bloody good record and she should be proud...
I like it.

I think the whole record is dark and depressing. There's no bounce to it.

Hmm, what(who) was missing?

I like Time better than SYW.

not sure whether you are in the minority. in general seems that people who rank Tusk high / #1 Mac album rank SYW extremely high too. there is some fantastic stuff on this album. Lindsey was on the top of his game as all around still-innovative songwriter.

haha see Come to me is the ultimate example of how fantastic Mac can be as a band going in different directions instead of resting on their past laurels. i love it, and live has been always amazing.

Yes I think you’ve covered it. Everyone could predict going in that the album was not going to sell, at that stage in their lives. But then when you put 18 songs on it you ruined whatever small chance it had of catching fire. Plus you open it with two Lindsey songs, neither of which would necessarily appeal to her, and you have a recipe for disaster in her mind. And the recording process was no fun. Besides, I think she missed having Christine’s tunes in there, to balance out the Red Rovers. They tried to substitute for Christine, of course, but it is no surprise that Stevie was unhappy from dream catcher to album sequencing.

I like the album. There are places where the running order is mindnumbing. Tragically, people have fallen into comas during the back to back horror of Silver Girl and RTTG. Still, I was thrilled to have it. I consider Miranda, Thrown Down and EFO among my favorite FM songs.

We think alike but most in this forum rank Tusk the top or #2 of all time favorite and Say You Will gets very little love so I understand being in the "minority" on this one.
I agree. SYW is so Tusk like. Look how people are describing SYW.....cold and without a bounce or over-produced or under produced. Sound familiar?
Allume sounds like Stevie is singing into a tube in a bathroom. Sound familiar? Too many songs. Too long. Tracking is not right. Sound familiar?
This is why both of us agree that SYW is really Tusk 2 without Christine. Of course its more slick than Tusk being 1978/1979 vs 2003.

Having said all this. I have one question to all the comments on this thread.
Would any of you say any of this to Bob Dylan??

The great thing about these threads, it makes you go back and listen to them again.
So I’ve just watched...Come and then Say Goodbye, live from 2004.
Just fabulous, even though Come is not my favourite song,still fab..

To me this is actually Stevie's best solo album.

Come doesn't sound like a FM song.

I've told the story a million times, but I hadn't bought SYW yet when it came out(no Christine, so I wasn't in much of a rush). My cousin's roommate had bought the deluxe SYW and HATED it. She gave it to me. I asked her why she hated it so much. She said, "that Come song. It doesn't sound like FM. I can't stand it".

So at least Come got me a free deluxe SYW. :wavey: But it's just too "experimental hard rock" for me, too.

Count me as a fan of the album since the beginning. It is absolutely too long and some of the tracks are filler but I think it is a very solid later-day Fleetwood Mac album and certainly something that shouldn't have just been forgotten about. The running order is certainly a head scratcher in many spots. Pare it down to the list below and I'd like it more, although I'd reorder the songs and pick some different singles:

WTWCT
Thrown Down
Miranda
Say You Will
Peacekeeper
Running Through the Garden
Steal Your Heart Away
Bleed to Love Her
Everybody Finds Out
Destiny Rules
Say Goodbye
Goodbye Baby

Contrary to many, I love Running Through the Garden. I think it could have been a tour de force live if they would have done it more than once. Likewise, Everybody Finds Out should have replaced Stand Back in the set for Stevie's "fast" song.

Smile At You was a total disappointment in the form that it was released. Silver Girl should have been shot into the sun via cannon. Murrow and Red Rover are just not FM enough. Come, to me, is like I'm So Afraid. Amazing live, a real dud on the album. I hated his voice on that track, whereas live I thought it rocked hard. Illume never did anything for me - it just lacks the emotion I'd figure a song with 9-11 in the title would have.

Say You Will
 

Say You Will, to me, is Buckingham Nicks II. I only have Lindsey’s songs on my iPhone (and I am sure some only Stevie’s songs on their device).

I loved this record too. But the song Say you will is not a fav of mine. One of the few Stevie songs I really don't like listening too. I love alot of Lindsey's stuff and Thrown Down and Destiny Rules are some of my fav songs on the album. The documentary looked as though everyone was enjoying doing the album except when it came to the mixing and the argument between Lindsey and Stevie. I think something on the road is what caused her dislike of the Say you will expeirence

Say You Will (the song) was as clear an attempt at filling Christine's absence as anything. It's not a bad song per se, but it's middle of the road. Nothing special. It's not what people want or expect from Nicks in the context of Fleetwood Mac. It certainly wasn't a good single choice for Fleetwood Mac in 2003 and the fact that it was pimped at every concert on that tour over some far superior Stevie tracks from the album has always been beyond me.

Love the album, and will have more to say, but that Stevie or anyone else (record exec in Destiny Rules doc) thought "Say You Will" would be a hit is mind boggling.

It's so far from what a love song should be: "Girl begs boy to stick around at least long enough so she can change his mind." That's your archetypal love song? Are you kidding me? Boys chase girls or, if you want to turn the archetype on its head in an interesting way, girls chase boys. Girls don't beg boys to stick around so they can plead with them. That's a sort of mushy limbo, and not a hit love song in a million years.

The melody is pretty good but the lyrics are pretty weak. Had they brought in a lyricist to revise them into more of a classic story, then the song may have fared better.

They went so middle-of-the-road with the single choices. "Everybody Finds Out" might have been a hit. "Say You Will" and "Peacekeeper"?: not a chance.

Again, I will have more to say. I love Lindsey's production, and the album overall (though, yes, it is too long). I think she's great but on this one I don't miss Christine. It was a nice change of pace without her. I do think it would have turned out better with Lord-Alge mixing, but hindsight's 20/20.

Say you will is in my least favorite half of songs on the album but it still would have been better than Peacekeeper as the first single.
But one thing the Mac kept consistent is not letting Nicks ever have the first single off any album (even without Christine).
I catch the groove of Say You Will and I have a soft spot because it was written for or inspired for Christine. I just hate the ending.

This has always been Lindsey's issue/gripe. It was certainly his concern for SYW which he talks about in the documentary. he knew the powers that be would pick the most conservative songs from all of the songs he could contribute and he'd have to fight for more experimental or just less conservative songs. But even then they'd pick the most conservative of those for singles. he was right.

Stevie herself has said, when talking about her solo career, that she's never been good at picking singles, at knowing which songs would make great singles. Jimmy sure was, and she relied on him and others (Fishkin, Danny Goldberg etc) to make those decisions. So she wouldn't be much help on that front.

It is laden with cheesy lyrics.

Had they brought in a lyricist? Can you IMAGINE $tevie's response to that?
Ben, would you say that to Bob Dylan?:lol:

Now THAT would have made great TV and made the documentary so much better.
Could you imagine Lindsey:
Stevie, lets bring in a lyricist and change some of the lyrics.

She freaked out because he was trying to correct her constant changing tenses in songs.
She would have melted down

$he's a poet. Just axe her. $he is so full of herself it makes me want to puke coat hangers.

I would have loved to have seen a larger meltdown, though.:angel::angel::angel:

A lot of people love SYW, especially the Buckingham-Nicks fans. I was initially hostile to the record’s existence. The thought of FM releasing new music without Christine was difficult to support. But when I did sit down and listen to it I was amazed at the abundance of high quality music on it. It’s not always even and I believe the middle of the sequence sags in comparison to the first five and last five songs. But that’s okay, too—because the writers were stretching out, giving it their all. Much of Stevie’s material is VERY STRONG. But some of my favorite moments come from Lindsey’s: Red Rover, Say Goodbye, Steal Your Heart Away. My favorite Stevie tunes here are: Throw Down, Illume, and Everybody Finds Out.

But if you are impersonating Christine, those are the lyrics you write because Christine writes lyrics like that, pleading to the man, begging to be deceived just a little longer, just to keep him. Stevie eschews Dutch sentiments. I remember when she did Reconsider Me she said that words like that were not really her thing.

Trouble, Did You Miss Me. He knows how it goes.

And those pop concerns were why we got SYHA again.

Lindsey said that the first time he met her she shared some of her writing with him and considered herself a poet even then. Sixteen. He may have only smirked internally at that time.

Actually she was a great poet and was a great singer.

Well, she's definitely smirkworthy. I'm sure more so now than back then.

When did she earn his full blown smirks? Tusk era?

At what stage in a relationship does Lindsey’s desire to mock someone outweigh his desire to sleep with them?

Waddy said he tried to get Lindsey to come on the road with him where he could make real money. He implored Lindsey, told him not to spend his life working on Stevie’s the flower and the vine songs. Oh the irony.

Say You Will is a long album indeed. It was intended to be a double album. Reprise wanted a single album with more tracks. The band could have countered with two albums, one released in 2003, and the other released in 2004.

Say You Will could have used more keyboards. "Smile at You" could have used a piano. "Running through the Garden" could have used synthesizers.

Exactly
I actually think its a very cleverly written song. Begging someone to stay around and to get them to "dance" i.e. extend the Dance tour

Talk about something bound to go over the public's head. The point is it was not a hit song, and those in the FM camp who thought it would be were misguided and self-deluding.

$tevie pretending to be Christine is almost the same thing as Neil singing Lindsey's songs.:lol:

That's your opinion. Its probably the most pop song she has ever written. Stevie stated that and I agree. And that's my opinion. The song also is a metaphor and philosophy about the direction of the band after Christine. It did not go over anyone's head. The band and Stevie promoted the album with the story. I don't think there is anything cheezy about the song at all. Its written from the heart. If you want cheeze, break out your RAL album and you can breakdance to Sister Honey :eek:

17 years today! :]:thumbsup:

It's horrid even when she sings on Don't Stop and World Turning. Say You Won't.

You forgot Say You Love Me. $he sucks on that, too.


As always, this is my favorite song of hers.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NGBqB_k84Ms

The Say You Will tour was amazing. It was the only time I ever saw the band more than once on an album tour. There was no reason for them to do any Christine songs with the exception of Don’t Stop. Say You Love Me wasn’t necessary to do. We didn’t need to hear that without Christine.

I just realized that BuckVie is the only FM tour from which I ever saw two shows. Nashville and Louisville.

I've seen one show from every other tour, Tusk forward.

As much as I liked the album SYW the tour is when it hit home with me how much Christine was needed in the band. IMHO Stevie looked sad. I like how they dug into some material but unfortunately did not take enough risks live to cater to the casual fans. I would have loved to hear more material from the new album. Also it would have been the perfect time to do Frozen Love and I Don't Want To Know.
A lost opportunity. They tried to stick to the traditional Mac live performance and Christine's absence was just too much for me. The magic was gone. Christine is the soul of the band IMHO.

I missed Christine very much on the tour and on the album.This was the opportunity to reissue Buckingham Nicks. They could have done a four song set on the tour. Stephanie, Crying in the Night, Don’t Let Me Down Again and Frozen Love.

A few things that are maybe a little interesting that I remember from the SYW time.

1. About a month before release day, AOL would launch one new track or snippet of a track every week or something. It was a big deal and I remember making sure I was online to hear them. It was really exciting.

2. The band filmed a segment for AOL Sessions and Stevie had a perm. She also looked hugely sad and depressed while filming this segment. I believe this was due to the passing of Howie Epstein of The Heartbreakers. I don't remember if his passing was announced after AOL Sessions was filmed and released or before.

3. I remember going to pick up a special copy of USA Today because it has a big giant 1 page insert advertising the tour - I think I still have it somewhere.

4. This might of been the last tour with an uptempo version of Never Going Back Again being performed, with Stevie on harmony.

5. Hearing the initial recordings of "Sara" from opening night 2004 in Madison was amazing. We hadn't heard that song live in 25 years.

6. I saw them early in the tour in Buffalo - May 15, 2003 I believe and again in June 2004 at Blossom Music Center in Cleveland. Two very different shows in my opinion.

7. Peacekeeper was featured on an episode of Law and Order (I believe) before the album was released, it was a big deal to watch and hear as much of the track as possible.

8. The final, final show of the tour kept changing due to all the rescheduling that took place when Stevie was sick. I believe the tour wrapped up at some relatively odd venue at an Indian Casino in California that had a pretty small venue.

It was really an exciting time. Between '03-'04 I was a senior in high school and freshmen in college. Hard to believe all that time has gone by so quickly.