The story of "Smile At You"
 

I'm trying to do a little write-up of Stevie Nicks gems for my friends who are curious but not in the know, and one song I'm promoting is the "angry" version of "Smile At You." I tried using the search function for some info but I couldn't find everything I was looking for, so I was wondering if people could help fill in some blanks for me and correct me where needed:

The song was originally written in the 1970's, during the making of Rumors? Was it also recorded then, or was it recorded for Bella Donna? Or was it just that general time period? Is it known which album it was originally for? On this page there's an mp3 called 'Smile at You ("Non-Angry" Demo)' which sounds a lot like young Stevie's voice. Is that the Uncirculated Rumours version? If so is that all we have from the 70's?

The "angry demo" is a Mirage sessions outtake? Is this "studio demo" also from the Mirage sessions (quite honestly this one sounds really similar to the first one but slower and lower ...)? Or could it be from Tusk or earlier (as her voice sounds pre-Mirage to me)? Is there a recording from the Tusk era at all?

The reason Lindsey didn't want "Smile At You" on Mirage was because the arrangement at the time was done without him and Fleetwood Mac (by Iovine and the Bella Donna crew) and Stevie refused to let him change it. Yes?

Thanks for any help and I'm sorry for any mistakes.

Is this fact or assumption?

I don't know of any Bella Donna era arrangement of Smile at You. The demo of the Mirage versions sounds like a typical Fleetwood Mac arrangement.

In any case, Lindsey has the liberty to arrange a song however he wants. Many of the demos Stevie submits to Fleetwood Mac are initially arrangements made with outsiders.

In the process of making albums, it's par for course that some of the work doesn't advance, or make it on the albums. Smile at You is just one of those songs that got shelved, then unshelved decades later.

not necessarily true, especially as time has gone on. Stevie used to give Lindsey her raw songwriting demos... i.e. just her on the piano and he arranged it from the ground up. After they split she started making more 'elaborate' demos with other people, i.e. with more musicians and instruments and backing vocals etc. She tried to bring in demos that represented more accurately her vision for where she wanted the song to go. Lindsey would often have his own ideas and hence the tensions would begin anew. In many recent interviews Lindsey talks about how Chris sent him tapes of stuff in various stages of development and just told him 'do whatever you want with them' which he admittedly LOVED. He wants to do the same again for Stevie but she has resisted so far. It is ironic that he now wants to do this "for" Stevie, and says it would make him happy to do this for her again, when for years and years he talked about how much he resented as he said "having to DO for her" i.e. arrange all her music etc. How he was having to produce her songs and make them hits. This was the crux of his 'trying to be your better self' and 'put your emotions in one corner of the room and get on with your process in the other part of the room' . She got the message, and now he wants nothing more than to work on her songs unrestricted. :eek:

Mike Bise did a post about the story and versions of "Smile at you" before his site shut down and the song is also mentioned on one of Stevie's 1981 interviews (maybe Rolling Stone?) and I know two things about this song:

1) The earliest version(s) of Smile at you that we have is from the Tusk sessions but the song was written during the Rumours period.

2) During the Mirage sessions the song was ultimately pushed aside in favor of Straight back because (in Stevie's opinion) the song, that maybe was about Lindsey, was too angry and thus didn't depict the state of their relationship during that time.


P.S. As I thought, I saved the Smile at you demos on my PC time ago:

these two are from the Tusk sessions (the second is from "Uncirculated Rumours", but I think there was at least one more):
1) https://www.dropbox.com/s/qxd1f3zw22...u%201.mp3?dl=0
2) https://www.dropbox.com/s/4stknwamjw...Final.mp3?dl=0

these are the two Mirage versions that we have (and among them is the famous "angry version"):
1) https://www.dropbox.com/s/u1m8g6d1bu...e%201.mp3?dl=0
2) https://www.dropbox.com/s/4rwbrmr4x3...e%202.mp3?dl=0

I was always under the assumption that the "angry demo" version is from the Tusk sessions. The vocal certainly sounds more Tusk-era than Mirage-era.

All her vocals on the Tusk album are much more delicate than those on the angry version of Smile at you. Maybe it's more like Stevie's Tusk Tour voice, especially 1980; that wouldn't be surprising since the demo is from just a year after.

SisterNightroad, thank you so much for clearing up when the different versions are from, and for posting the downloads, I really appreciate it!

The "angry version" definitely sounds in between the Tusk album and the Mirage tour, to me.

I'm sorry if this is the wrong thread to post in, but I just discovered that Mike's site is down. Does anybody know what happened?

Regarding 'Smile at You', didn't Stevie say in an interview before the release of Mirage that Lindsey didn't want the song on the album because it was too angry?

The site shuts down periodically due to the too high number of downloads. Probably it will be rebuilt like all the other times.
I'm not an expert but maybe it would be better if he used a less troublesome drive than dropbox or mediafire.

No problem.

Yes, that's another way to put it.
I remember that in said interview she said that the song was "too angry" and so she believed it was fair to cast it aside since they weren't so angry anymore at that point of their relationship.

according to Alicia Bailey, Mike has it shut down for 2 weeks. I hope it's back up then.

Thanks SisterNightroad and sleepless child for answering my question!

The song is about Stevie walking in on Don Henley with Cher's sister.

Ooh.... That's interesting.