The Chain….its a shame
 

Listening today on headphones as I was cutting the grass several of the tracks that eventually became “The Chain “ came on randomly . It was Christine’s and Stevie’s contributions. Lindsey took them added his piece of music and created “The Chain”. It made me think it’s shame we didn’t get anything else like that from the three of the songwriters. We did from Buckingham and McVie over the years but not with Stevie. Lindsey just used her demos and crafted them into a track. My point is its a shame he never took a piece of her music he liked of hers and pieced it into work of his and Christine’s to create even a better song.I know why it didn’t happen it’s just a shame. “The Chain” is a masterpiece. (Music & Lyrics)

According to Stevie the only lyric contribution Lindsey had to The Chain was "listen to the wind blow" All other lyrics were hers. The jam part was mostly John and Mick's and Lindsey joined in. The beginning was Lindsey too. I never heard what Chris's contribution was or they included her so she would not be left out.
The song is good and songs that are patched together from all sources are sensational when they work well.

I love The Chain and yes it’s a masterpiece. Now, at the Classic Albums – Making of Rumours video, Christine told about John’s part and also Stevie told they (I understand John and Lindsey) had the middle part of The Chain, where the solo starts to the end of the song, “but they didn’t have a song”.

However John’s bass and Lindsey’s guitar are in Keep Me There (Rumours: More From The Recording Sessions [Disc 3]). So I don’t get why the girls said the boys had some segments but didn’t have a song.

If you listen to all the Rumours outtakes you will get more of the sense of the origin . Lindsey crafted the song. Christine should have been credited for much of the music with Mick and John. Stevie had a great chorus. All IMO.

^^^ Exactly, if you listen to the Rumours outakes. The 5 million of them. You can hear Christine has nearly the majority of the structure written in Keep Me There and there's another track that she has The Chain in there.

Thank you! ….and my point of this post was i wish we had more of this!

The music was originally from “Keep Me There.”

Yes I am familiar with the song and the Chain parts. I was referring to the original origins of those parts that preceded both songs. Was it not Mick and Stevie that said it was John and Mick and Lindsey's warm up jam on stage that they thought was so good they desperately wanted to insert in a song somewhere. Was not the Chain intro an original Lindsey piece too? Was there not a Buck/Nicks demo of something that was almost identical of the Chain up to the bass and jam part?
Maybe my memory is wrong on that. I was just watching an old interview with Stevie where she almost took the entire credit for the song in the lyrics department. I've heard her say another time that the band just had the bass and jam part and they lifted everything else from her song. But we know Stevie can exaggerate.
Maybe it really was her that taught John that bass part.

The MLJ warmup jam became the intro and verses while Keep Me There became the chorus and ending. Stevie did the lion’s share of the lyrics and John obviously came up with the bass solo.

Was the warm up music not Tusk? Or is that a separate thing?

I think its in Mick's book (gosh do I dare say that). Tusk was a warm up. I think the Chain part was just a random jam on stage. Or maybe The Chain jam was the warm up too. I seem to remember Mick saying everyone loved John's bass part and Lindsey's jam. It was not a song (yet). They wanted to make it work in some song and it worked out perfectly in The Chain. But then again everything worked out perfectly for Rumours.

Yes, at 2:44 (Keep Me There with vocals from Rumours: More From The Recording Sessions [Disc 3]), but when her lyrics have a different music.

And the "If you don't love me now..." is in Stevie's demo include in the same disc.

I think The Chain is a complete puzzle, a well done and great puzzle.

It sort of is a puzzle especially with everyone contributing their parts. I love when great songs have multiple inspirations or the conflict in the band causes something unexpected and good. For example when REO Speedwagon was practicing Keep On Loving You, the guitarist was having none of it. He did not want the band to do ballads and wanted to rock out. As the band was playing in the studio he kept trying to interrupt the song with heavy guitar chords. The lead singer heard these interruptions and thought they added something to the song. Instead of a piano ballad you get these (muted) heavy guitar chords that just takes the song to an entirely different level. Next time you listen to the song you can hear how heavy those guitar riffs were but just toned down for the recording.
Edge of 17 is one of Stevie's best written songs IMHO. Its inspired by completely unrelated topics: her grandfather's death, John Lennon getting killed, and some bird from Arizona. Add them all together and you get one of the best poetry laced rockers ever at the same time ripping off the Police :lol:

Stevie's lyrics are the chorus. All kudos accordingly.

Pretty certain that Lindsey's lyrics are the verses (not just the first line).
When Stevie says "Lindsey wrote Listen to the wind blow" I'm sure she means those parts of the song, not that line.

Listen to the wind blow
Watch the sun rise
Run in the shadows
Damn your love, damn your lies

Classic Lindsey.

It's possible the second verse lyrics were a collab, with Stevie riffing off what Lindsey presented for the first verse.


Before Lindsey came up with the first verse, didn't Stevie come up with a rather dreadful lyric first?
Write me a love song
Take away the sadness
That you gave me
Where is the demo with that version? I can't find it anymore.


My guess is that the intro music was hewn from the same stone as Lola.

Have never heard that verse by Stevie; it's not in the demo of her song The Chain (or whatever it was called at the time) that is on whichever of the zillion Rumours reissues.

She always said she wrote the chorus, he wrote the verses. From the bass solo onwards it's Keep Me There with the tagline added (chain keep us together).

In one of the many Stevie interviews in my cassette archive I am slowly working through she explains in one that dates from around 1980-ish that she wrote her "the chain" and Lindsey wasn't particularly impressed by it, but he did quite like the chorus. He said, according to her, can we use that? and she replied, "You realize you are taking the chorus out of my song.." and she then added, "He didn't really care that much" that he was "ruining" her song. It's not clear whether he had the bit "listen to the wind blow" in his mind, or whether in fact he'd already started working out the first part of the song Clearly that bass solo and then searing guitar bit had registered with him and he was wanting to try and build out a song that could lead into it.

The truth is out there
 

Someone must have the bootleg mp3s lying around.

I've lost them in changing computers over the years, but I used to have at least two tracks of about 7 minutes each, ripped right from the studio where they were playing around with the track in its very early stages. My favorite part was when it's just Lindsey and his guitar playing the verse music, and you can tell everyone likes it. Then you have Stevie singing that dreadful "Write me a love song" lyric over Lindsey's guitar, and you can tell even she doesn't like how it sounds. Then Lindsey comes in with his lyric, singing Listen to the wind blow... and you can tell everyone loves it. The rest of that track is endless iterations of that part with differing attempts at harmonies.

The conspiracy theorist in me tells me Irving and Team Stevie had them buried on Youtube etc because they take the air out of the recent myth that it was Stevie's song.

I'm going to look for it again. About 2 weeks ago I was watching an old interview of Stevie and she mentions the Chain. She was very specific about the lyrics part. She is not a musician and of course wrote none of the music. Her exact words were that the only line Lindsey contributed to The Chain was "Listen to the wind blow". She claimed all other lyrics were hers. Its a very bitter song so it does sound like her.
I suspect "Chain will keep us together" was not hers and a group idea adding some positivity to the song. IMHO its a more angrier version of Silver Springs. Silver Springs is heart break with a little vengeance. The Chain is ultimatums and anger.

Here it is at the 9:00 mark. This interview is just 4 years after the Chain was written. She takes credit for the chorus and melody of the song and Lindsey asked her to use those in this new song. She claims he only wrote "Listen to the wind blow" She also sort of infers she is the one that came up with the name The Chain.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sjzvaintkJU

Yes, this is the interview! Much better quality than my old cassettes, which alas have become very wobbly after sitting in boxes for years...no, DECADES...:eek: (how can that be when I have barely aged? :lol:)

I began listening to Rumours on 8- track, and I'll be 24 this coming December, so, it is possible.

Bah. Irving doesn’t decide what we consume online.

Stevie wrote “If you don’t love me now / You will never love me again / I can still hear you saying you would never break the chain,” confirmed by her demo on the Rumours Deluxe set.

Christine wrote the music for the chorus and outro, confirmed by her “Keep Me There” on the same set.

Lindsey obviously wrote the guitar weave and orchestrated the verses musically, which is audible here:

http://sndup.net/pdnb

http://sndup.net/j9zm

http://sndup.net/r8hx

http://sndup.net/qnnw

Thank God for Keep Me There. And thank God "love song" never saw the light of day.

THANK YOU, DAVID.:D

I never thought I'd have the peculiar pleasure of hearing Stevie sing "Listen to the sun blow" again.

Hearing Christine's input into the process and her haunting harmonies have such added meaning now.

Cassettes are making a comeback, of all things!

Even Taylor Swift has been putting songs out on cassette.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vr2_CUAldjQ