[David]

Originally Posted by Ghost_Tracker

I think it was probably both Stevie screaming and Lindsey on guitar. Maybe L. screaming too.

I agree. Even on the March 1977 concert that was posted here, I think the guitar is part of the shrill sound. Lindsey used to do that: merge his high-pitched guitar tone with Stevie's vocal. Just listen to the middle of Rhiannon from the Osaka 12.04.77 tape. He & Stevie employ this effect right there.

I don't doubt that they were under a certain amount of duress, but so were the factory workers ten miles away being told to get the damn widgett made by 5 p.m. or they'd be fired. Don't get me wrong - Believe me - I GET it. But I really feel that Lindsey was playing things up in the Rumours Doc. for "dramatic effect." They wanted an "eerie" feeling at that part of the album and that's what they created on that particular day of very hard work.

I think you're absolutely spot on here. Like almost everything else on the album, the tag out on Gold Dust Woman isn't a Method exercise or a primal-scream therapy session. It's a calculated effect that must have been planned out & listened to on tape hundreds of times -- & maybe even spliced together from multiple takes -- to create mood & mystery (as Esquire put it in its review: "the Welsh witch howls that end the record"). People sometimes seem too naive when they mistake life for art, possibly from watching too many episodes of "The Real World" or "Temptation Island" & assuming it's transparent "real life." The idea that the Fleetwood Macsters are always living the emotional turmoil written about in the song AT THE TIME of recording it is as silly as the idea that the actors onstage performing the final act of "Long Day's Journey" are actually confronted with a morphine addict.