Mick Interview on Rumours at 45 Years Old

[David]

Originally Posted by bombaysaffires

The studio version is perfection.

In Fleetwood Mac terms, it is.

The layers of guitar on the studio version are sublime and not really possible live because Lindsey has to pick ONE guitar to play live versus playing all the guitar parts in the studio.

The studio track exemplifies Fleetwood Mac's strengths with orchestration. And it has a quality that a lot of other top-notch examples of orchestration on Mac albums don't have: real heart instead of sonic puzzles and showmanship. Maybe that's why the studio track doesn't interest some listeners. When you listen to the shimmer and sparkle on other tracks, the arrangement of the instruments feels like a conscious demonstration of the technology in the building, Lindsey's serendipitous cleverness, and the expertise of the engineers. But Silver Springs feels totally committed to an expressive need to convey something that has profoundly shaken its songwriter. (Not in ten thousand years would any of Stevie's solo studio bands have built anything this complex and emotionally subdued around a song of hers.) That beauty is like a documentary of the moods in the room at Sausalito. The interplay of instruments -- like Japanese wind chimes -- feels like nature. What these musicians in their late 20s and early 30s did in 1976 with Silver Springs is the equal of the "feel" Peter, Jeremy, Mick, John, and Danny achieved with their greatest work in 1968 and '69.

Both Danny and Lindsey were devoted to the music of Django Reinhardt, and maybe there's a little Django in their best studio work.