Music that sounds like the lyrics

[Macfan4life]

I may need some help with adjectives here. The music to Why moves me so much. It moves my soul and is the most beautiful track Fleetwood Mac has performed like Oh Daddy but more solemn. Bob Weston's slide guitar at the beginning is so lonely. He starts to play and almost trying to find a good melody. Then the piano kicks in and joins the solemn guitar and gives the song direction. Chris's singing is pure blues but the music is her full partner in this song. When the strings start echoing the guitars is so moving. I dont know how to describe it. It fits/sounds like the lyrics perfectly. We feel Chris's pain and her heartbreak. So could there any other song that the music feels like the lyrics? Early Fleetwood Mac with strings? Clearly they were going for an effect and it sucks you in.
I wish we could have had a round table of Chris and both Bobs and the rest of the band about this song. I want to know who came up with these ideas.

[FuzzyPlum]

I find the music to warm ways evocative of the lyrics….kind of.
For some reason I get the sense of the song being set by the sea. I imagine Christine waking up early morning next to her lover in a house by a beach. Maybe Malibu beach or something.

[Macfan4life]

Originally Posted by FuzzyPlum

I find the music to warm ways evocative of the lyrics….kind of.
For some reason I get the sense of the song being set by the sea. I imagine Christine waking up early morning next to her lover in a house by a beach. Maybe Malibu beach or something.

I can see that. Its funny how music makes us picture settings. The Oh Daddy track makes me think of a magical forest at sunrise. I can totally sense the gentle surf against the shore during Warm Ways. Its morning there too.

[FuzzyPlum]

Mystified…..the whole musical arrangement conveys something magical and mystifying. But in particular when she sings ‘the light that shines around you….’ There’s a twinkling guitar (or are they keys? IDK). The sound really conveys a sparkling, twinkling light.

[Penguin Emeritus]

Originally Posted by FuzzyPlum

I find the music to warm ways evocative of the lyrics….kind of.
For some reason I get the sense of the song being set by the sea. I imagine Christine waking up early morning next to her lover in a house by a beach. Maybe Malibu beach or something.

That's where she and John were living when she wrote that, in their tiny 'bedsitter' (as she called it) on the beach-- she said it was basically one room with a balcony...she wrote it on a Hohner 'Pianette' that she kept in the alcove that was their bedroom. When the interviewer asked John if he was there, he said no, but chris insisted, 'You were!! You were reading!!' Apparently he had no recollection lol

--Lis

[David]

On “Dragonfly,” you hear three or four broken chords strummed which sound like an English garden, followed by an electric guitar figure that sort of bobs up and down and sideways as if to mimic the hovering of a dragonfly.

When Christine launches up an octave on “I’m OUT of my mind” on “Only Over You,” it’s like hearing a woman who’s a little out of her mind — one octave out of her mind, to be precise.

Somebody mentioned the brushes on “Sara” sounding like a heartbeat, which is cool — I see it — but the “Dreams” drum is also heartbeat-like.

[jbrownsjr]

Originally Posted by David

When Christine launches up an octave on “I’m OUT of my mind” on “Only Over You,” it’s like hearing a woman who’s a little out of her mind — one octave out of her mind, to be precise.

Kind of like, "Some WHERE OVER THE RAINBOW" as if to jump up there.

[aleuzzi]

Originally Posted by Macfan4life

I may need some help with adjectives here. The music to Why moves me so much. It moves my soul and is the most beautiful track Fleetwood Mac has performed like Oh Daddy but more solemn. Bob Weston's slide guitar at the beginning is so lonely. He starts to play and almost trying to find a good melody. Then the piano kicks in and joins the solemn guitar and gives the song direction. Chris's singing is pure blues but the music is her full partner in this song. When the strings start echoing the guitars is so moving. I dont know how to describe it. It fits/sounds like the lyrics perfectly. We feel Chris's pain and her heartbreak. So could there any other song that the music feels like the lyrics? Early Fleetwood Mac with strings? Clearly they were going for an effect and it sucks you in.
I wish we could have had a round table of Chris and both Bobs and the rest of the band about this song. I want to know who came up with these ideas.

I believe the strings were Christine’s arp string ensemble, which she played herself. I could be wrong. Certainly, the ase is frequently used on Heroes.

The effect of matching riffs, first played by the guitar and then by strings is a kind of call-and-response unison—and it’s very powerful here. That was often used by Green and Kirwan (ie: Like It This Way, World in Harmony, portions of the Madge jams). And, on Rolling Man from Mr. Wonderful, the horns and guitar play off one another this way, too.

In his Penguin Q-A, Weston breaks down a bit of his contribution to Why. He wrote the intro and claims to have arranged the guitar riffs while Christine was focusing elsewhere in the studio on “a trifle concerned with her part.” He believed he should have received partial arranger’s credit for the song.

[Macfan4life]

Originally Posted by aleuzzi

I believe the strings were Christine’s arp string ensemble, which she played herself. I could be wrong. Certainly, the ase is frequently used on Heroes.

The effect of matching riffs, first played by the guitar and then by strings is a kind of call-and-response unison—and it’s very powerful here. That was often used by Green and Kirwan (ie: Like It This Way, World in Harmony, portions of the Madge jams). And, on Rolling Man from Mr. Wonderful, the horns and guitar play off one another this way, too.

In his Penguin Q-A, Weston breaks down a bit of his contribution to Why. He wrote the intro and claims to have arranged the guitar riffs while Christine was focusing elsewhere in the studio on “a trifle concerned with her part.” He believed he should have received partial arranger’s credit for the song.

According to the album a guy named Richard Antony Hewson is given credit for strings. He has worked with many artists including the awesome Jigsaw for their hit single "Sky High" which was just a year or so after Why. I love both songs. The strings offer great effect on both songs. Would it not be wonderful to have sat down with Chris and asked her all these questions.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Anthony_Hewson