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Old 04-15-2021, 08:22 AM
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Default John McVie the songwriter

Quote:
Originally Posted by Macfan4life View Post
Now, who feels old LOL

Believe it or not but Say You Will was released this month back in 2003. The song Peacekeeper always takes me back to the Iraq war invasion because that song was breaking right as the invasion was happening and thought it was sort of spooky because we all wanted a peacekeeper at that time.

Anyway, you can tell I am a history buff to always remind everyone of certain dates, etc. I know this album does not get much love around here but IMHO its a musical masterpiece and the best Mac album since Rumours/Tusk era. I just watched Destiny Rules the other night in its entirety that I never did before. I had seen so many snippets here and there and never watched the complete documentary. OMG will it make you feel old. It was shot almost 20 years ago. I had to laugh at the phones they were using and the cars they were driving and OMG was everyone so young in their 50s! Poor Lindsey, its almost like he is Charlie Brown with a football and the record company and the rest of the band are Lucy. Lindsey's only concern was another Tusk like double album to showcase the artistic value of the band. He put off yet another solo album, brought those songs, was going to surrender royalties just to put something out he would be so proud of. The record company and the band liked the idea but realized the younger generation who buys albums does not care about artistic value and how "deep" the album is. Lindsey did not get his way but the album ended up still a tug of war being much longer than a conventional album. They really fought over mixing. The sad part for me was Mick saying when the album was being recorded how disappointed Lindsey and the band would be to only sell 500k copies so that was their benchmark of a commercial failure. Sadly, that's what the album ended up selling more or less and everyone was disappointed but especially because of how they worked their asses off on this album. I think Stevie's writing was some of her best. But OMG we FINALLY get Smile at You and Running Through the Garden on an album. Hello!! That alone is enough to love the album. Musically this one of the Mac's BEST album IMHO. Yes Rumours has more catchy stuff but musically speaking Say You Will is much more intricate and artsy. Yes of course the album needed Christine. But like John said, if she was there, she would not want to be there and it would have ruined the mood for the entire album. Maybe because of the mixing controversy I thought maybe that is why some say its cold? I like every song on this album but my highlights are:

What's the world Coming to
Ilumne
Thrown Down
Miranda - genius
Say You Will - its catchy for me
Smile at you
Running through the garden
Bleed to Love her
Everybody finds out - most explosive Mac song ever. Dear God listen to this song with headphones

I admire the effort. The effort shows. I don't judge albums or music by commercial success and they should be so proud of this album especially to go forward without Christine in a declining music industry time. I give this album a solid B+
I revisited the Say You Will album listening to it on Apple Music tonight, Australia time. Let me reiterate to the dumber members on here who have commented about me posting at 3 am. I rarely if at all post here at 3 or 4 o’clock in the morning. I do sleep! I am just in a different time zone to most Ledgies. For the record it’s 11.20 pm Thursday here.

Anyway, the point of this post was that on Apple Music I was able to bring up the lyrics for every song except Come. Much to my surprise, John McVie was credited as a co-writer on almost every single song on the album. I think Thrown Down and Come were the only exceptions.

Can anyone clarify if John did indeed co-write on all these songs and if he did, what would he have written? Would it just be writing his bass progressions? Or did John contribute additional lyrics? I have also seen him credited as playing “black keys” on this album. Does that mean playing the sharps and the flats on a piano or keyboard instrument? If so isn’t that something that Lindsey and Stevie are perfectly capable of doing without John? So why would he have done it?

Please. Enlighten me if you can.
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