The story of "Smile At You"

[bombaysaffires]

Originally Posted by PenguinHead

Is this fact or assumption?

I don't know of any Bella Donna era arrangement of Smile at You. The demo of the Mirage versions sounds like a typical Fleetwood Mac arrangement.

In any case, Lindsey has the liberty to arrange a song however he wants. Many of the demos Stevie submits to Fleetwood Mac are initially arrangements made with outsiders.

In the process of making albums, it's par for course that some of the work doesn't advance, or make it on the albums. Smile at You is just one of those songs that got shelved, then unshelved decades later.

not necessarily true, especially as time has gone on. Stevie used to give Lindsey her raw songwriting demos... i.e. just her on the piano and he arranged it from the ground up. After they split she started making more 'elaborate' demos with other people, i.e. with more musicians and instruments and backing vocals etc. She tried to bring in demos that represented more accurately her vision for where she wanted the song to go. Lindsey would often have his own ideas and hence the tensions would begin anew. In many recent interviews Lindsey talks about how Chris sent him tapes of stuff in various stages of development and just told him 'do whatever you want with them' which he admittedly LOVED. He wants to do the same again for Stevie but she has resisted so far. It is ironic that he now wants to do this "for" Stevie, and says it would make him happy to do this for her again, when for years and years he talked about how much he resented as he said "having to DO for her" i.e. arrange all her music etc. How he was having to produce her songs and make them hits. This was the crux of his 'trying to be your better self' and 'put your emotions in one corner of the room and get on with your process in the other part of the room' . She got the message, and now he wants nothing more than to work on her songs unrestricted.