Originally Posted by dougl
From Steve Hoffman Music Forum
"The Farmer's Daughter" (Beach Boys Cover)
As promised, we'll have a short ride through some "outtakes" from Tusk - I thought it would be good to talk briefly about a couple live tracks
from the Tusk tour that did not make the album. I'm not sure there are really any "true" outtakes but there are a couple of songs to discuss. First up is
"The Farmer's Daughter", which first appeared on the 1980 release "Fleetwood Mac Live". This song is a cover of The Beach Boys track from from their 1963 album Surfin' USA. The sleeve for the LIVE album indicated that this song was recorded at a soundcheck in Santa Monica, CA, but there is some evidence indicating that it may be a studio track after all. It seems our Fleetwood Mac heroes were possibly telling a little lie about this track.
One of the clues that this track was not among those recorded at the soundcheck was that for the 2004 re-release of "Tusk", "The Farmer's Daughter" was included as a bonus track and the liner notes indicated "tracks recorded at Village Recorders". The version appearing in the 2004 release also did not have any crowd noise in the beginning or end of the track, but the version sounds nearly identical to the song on the live album. The 2004 version does sound like a different mix, but that's about it. The song was released as a single, but did not do very well, except for in Austria - where it cracked the top 10. I was going to post a pic of the sleeve , but I never have any luck with that on this site, and maybe some kind soul could do that.
I never knew much about how this song came to be until I read the story in an earlier SH forum thread. The story actually comes from the John Stebbins book - The Real Beach Boy - Dennis Wilson. The story is basically told the same way in Ken Caillat's book too.
"One night, while Lindsay Buckingham and Stevie Nicks were working at Village Recorders, Dennis, Christine, and Ed Roach stopped by. "We all started talking about Brian," remembers Roach. "Stevie and Lindsay were saying what big Beach Boys fans they were when they were teenagers." Then, in a casual a cappella style, Buckingham and Nicks started singing Brian's old song "The Farmer's Daughter" from SurfinŽ USA. Dennis teased Christine, saying, "See, I told you we were good." At that point, Dennis and Ed left the studio to paint the town. In the early morning hours, they returned, worn out, to pick up Christine. "We knocked on the studio door and Christine unlocked it to let us in," recalls Roach. "She had tears rurming down her face and said, 'My God I was hoping it was you guys!"' When Dennis asked, "What's the matter? Are we late?" Christine just led them quietly back into the studio. She wanted them to hear what had made her so emotional. Lindsay, Stevie, and Christine, all fighting tears, played back the arrangement of "The Farmer's Daughter" they had been working on all night. "Dennis freaked out when he heard it, and he started crying, too," says Roach. A short time later, their beautiful rendition of Brian's classic song would reach a whole new audience as a cut on a Fleetwood Mac live album."
It's a great story and a great track - the harmonies are truly stunning and Lindsey's guitar work is awesome - much different than anything else he was doing at the time. He was using a "Fender Bass VI" guitar, which gave the track that nice, warm sound. The reason I'm not sure this should be called an "outtake", is that I'm not sure it was ever seriously considered to be included on the album and I always thought it was mainly recorded for fun or as a potential "B-side" to a single. I thought it worked great as a closer for the live album and a nice treat to have a "new" song.
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