I remember being seven or eight and hearing a song that I thought was utterly, spellbindingly beautiful...but lacking the resources or initiative (seven, yanno!) to find out who the hell it was, I let it go. But some of the lyrics - not the tune, oddly, but the lyrics - were still floating around my head years and years later:
well there is magic all around you, if I do say so myself...I have known this much longer than I've known you.
I remember being nine years old and walking around a record store, and seeing (what I later found out was) the cover of 'Timespace' and thinking whoa...whoever she is, I like the look (or whatever a nine year old thinks along those lines).
Fast forward to New Year's Eve, 97/98. I'm fifteen and sitting at home alone waiting for my parents to get back from their meal out with the family so we can go party...I'm channelsurfing. I end up leaving it on some station that's showing a concert just as my parents get back in, I get up, I go talk to them, we're all just chatting about their night when suddenly I hear this *voice* and it's like nothing I've ever heard before, I'm running back into the other room to see who the hell is singing...and there's this beautiful blonde woman with an incredible look and indescribable voice singing this beautiful song with beautiful words and a beautiful name...getting the point here?!
It was The Dance concert, Stevie was singing 'Rhiannon' and I was
gone. Bang.
Who's that?
Fleetwood Mac.
Fleetwood Mac...I think I have a couple of their tracks on compilations...
Well don't go bounding off to find out, we're going out.
Wah!
Cue another six hours of frustration while we go to some New Year party, when all I really want is to go home and check out this band. As it happened my Dad had 'Rumours' and 'Tusk' on vinyl. The entire Mac catalogue was bought over the course of the next two weeks (Christmas money - great timing). I was just lost in it. Totally obsessed. Gone. In love in love in love. You get me.
After about a year I was getting ready for something more, so I decided to take the plunge and try some Stevie solo stuff...I found 'Street Angel' in a second hand record store for three pounds. Bingo! Ah, youthful naivete (how did we find out about bad albums before the internet? We bought them!
) I was underwhelmed. I liked a couple of tracks, but it sounded so flat. Christ, even the typeface on the cover looked cheap and boring. Well, says I, never mind. Still got all those Mac albums.
A few months later I have some gift vouchers for a certain record store and I'm wandering around aimlessly with nothing to buy. And suddenly the 'Timespace' cover grabs my eye. I always noticed that cover when I was younger, I think to myself...hey, let's give the girl another chance. So I buy it, and I get home, and I throw it on and start playing Sonic the Hedgehog or something. 'Bitch' comes on and I think...well, it's a bit livelier at least! Hey, actually, I could totally get into this...
...and then the chorus to track 8 rolls around. And I stop what I'm doing and probably looked something like
. I'm pretty sure I actually did run around the house screaming
oh my god it's that song it's that song it's been in my head for years and years and it's *stevie nicks* it's like...fate or something argh ...I was slightly overexcited, fair enough
It just seemed like some sort of weird full circle thing.
And that's the long overblown story...but hey, I'm 21 and I don't think I've EVER managed to get anyone to sit through the whole thing before, so if you've managed to get this far, I thank you! hehe.