[This transcript has been automatically generated.]
00:01:03:11 - 00:01:07:14
Bryce
Hello, everybody. Hello, Jeff.

00:01:07:15 - 00:01:09:09
Jeff
Hello. Hi.

00:01:09:11 - 00:01:13:01
Bryce
This is a mini project that we're going to do.

00:01:13:01 - 00:01:13:11
Jeff
Okay.

00:01:13:12 - 00:01:21:15
Bryce
That I've been excited to do for a little while. I have, over the past couple of years, really gotten into Fleetwood Mac.

00:01:21:16 - 00:01:23:08
Jeff
Okay.

00:01:23:10 - 00:01:36:08
Bryce
And and it's not I don't think there's even a mystery of why. Like they have had multiple like video clips go viral even in the past couple of years. Okay. Yeah. The, the cranberry juice skater guy to dreams.

00:01:36:08 - 00:01:38:06
Jeff
I'm very I'm very not online.

00:01:38:06 - 00:01:43:07
Bryce
I have you had you had Silver Springs people found the cliffs of Silver Springs, which is very good anyway.

00:01:43:07 - 00:01:50:02
Bryce
But I've. I've especially been really struck by their 1979 album Tusk. Okay. Because

00:01:50:02 - 00:01:57:15
Bryce
I don't want to call it a puzzle box because I think I think that ascribes a little too much meaning to to the analysis.

00:01:57:15 - 00:02:00:11
Bryce
But it is a rather notorious album.

00:02:00:12 - 00:02:01:09
Jeff
Okay.

00:02:01:11 - 00:02:04:07
Bryce
It did sell. Well. It sold over 4 million copies.

00:02:04:07 - 00:02:24:02
Bryce
it was kind of a mixed reception when it first came out. It was a double album. So we've got 20 tracks in front of us. It's it's long. So that's two discs. In 1979, when it was vinyl. So you had it. I want to say it costs like 16, 50, $17, which to today would be like $60 for an album.

00:02:24:03 - 00:02:24:13
Jeff
Sure.

00:02:24:13 - 00:02:26:12
Bryce
Which would be crazy. Wow.

00:02:26:12 - 00:02:34:21
Bryce
Along with, you know, the the the music, to I would say is temperamental, as is, hot and cold. I have.

00:02:34:22 - 00:02:36:19
Jeff
I have some thoughts. Yeah, I have some thoughts.

00:02:36:19 - 00:02:49:16
Bryce
I guess before we, like, get into this, like, what we're going to do is go through each track of Tusk. Okay. And, we've it's a little like it's not an experiment, but I have manipulated the situation.

00:02:49:18 - 00:03:11:19
Bryce
I've asked Jeff to only really listen to the to the studio versions. Yes. Of, the the songs on Tusk. And, what I've got is something that they called the alternate Tusk. Okay. So I think this was for World Record Day or like, free record day. Like record Store Day. They had made a release of Tusk called the Alternate Tusk.

00:03:11:19 - 00:03:15:12
Bryce
And that you go to the, record store, and that would be what you got that day.

00:03:15:14 - 00:03:16:03
Jeff
Okay.

00:03:16:05 - 00:03:38:07
Bryce
And it was every every track, all 20 tracks, but using, in most cases, a different take, a day or a different recording session. In some cases the tracks are not varied. Different. It, it may just sound like another take or different, different types of arrangements, but then some of these are dramatically different.

00:03:38:07 - 00:03:42:05
Bryce
like I don't want this to be like a redemption podcast.

00:03:42:05 - 00:03:55:07
Bryce
This is not like trying to redeem this album like it is what it is. But I think when you hear Tusk and you hear the alternate Tusk, I think it opens up your mind a little bit on the original songs.

00:03:55:07 - 00:03:56:01
Jeff
Okay.

00:03:56:03 - 00:03:58:03
Bryce
And I think it can create,

00:03:58:03 - 00:04:17:08
Bryce
a different understanding of them outside of just the one recording. So, that's, that's a little bit of like my preamble here. So I did ask you to listen to Tusk. Before this, we're only going to talk about the first five today. But, how did how did you feel listening to the various tracks?

00:04:17:10 - 00:04:18:11
Jeff
Well,

00:04:18:13 - 00:04:24:22
Bryce
Because this is not I would say that this is probably not any genre of music I would associate you with of like.

00:04:24:22 - 00:04:31:01
Jeff
Like it is. I'm just curious about that. At first, when I started listening to it, I was like, is this what is this what Bryce thinks I like to listen to?

00:04:31:02 - 00:04:32:09
Bryce
No.

00:04:32:11 - 00:04:32:22
Jeff
It's no.

00:04:32:22 - 00:04:35:12
Bryce
No, it's totally it's all selfish. It's completely me.

00:04:35:13 - 00:05:00:14
Jeff
Okay. Well, I will say that, for my own musical background, I'm very much, the this kind of 70s classic rock stuff and folk and and some of those kind of influences generally isn't something that I gravitate towards, being, a Gen Xer, I really liked the 90s stuff. I like punk rock, I kind of rock, that kind of stuff.

00:05:00:14 - 00:05:22:04
Jeff
But I have branched out over the years into pretty much everything, and I like some stuff from the 70s. But I like more of the rock, from the 70s. So when I first started listening to this and I completely blind on Fleetwood Mac, I mean, of course I've heard dreams. Yeah, they're big, you know, big, big singles that they've had over the years.

00:05:22:06 - 00:05:31:10
Jeff
But I never have listened to an album. I've never sat down and gone into anything outside of the big stuff that you would hear on the radio. Yeah. So I think that when I first started saying.

00:05:31:10 - 00:05:45:21
Bryce
I've given you a bad first impression on this band because my, my obsession with them has been, oh, I like some songs. Yeah. Oh, no, these albums are actually just great. They only really make bangers or jams like they're secretly a jam band. Okay, but I cut you off.

00:05:45:22 - 00:06:11:06
Jeff
That makes. No, that makes sense. But. So my first impression when I started listening to this was I got really worried because I was like, I did, you know, Bryce has been very cagey about what exactly we're doing here. I was just like, listen to this Fleetwood Mac album. We're going to talk about it. So I started listening to it, and it's funny that we're doing the first side, because every time I got to Sara, I said, oh my God, I can, I can I stop now?

00:06:11:09 - 00:06:17:14
Jeff
Can I? Because that song is very long and,

00:06:17:16 - 00:06:18:12
Bryce
It feels.

00:06:18:12 - 00:06:19:12
Jeff
Long. It feels like,

00:06:19:17 - 00:06:23:20
Bryce
That that's kind of the push, the only push back, actually. You know what? Now I'm seeing that it is six.

00:06:24:00 - 00:06:24:22
Jeff
It is six.

00:06:25:04 - 00:06:26:12
Bryce
And a half and, you know, as.

00:06:26:12 - 00:06:27:03
Jeff
Opposed to two.

00:06:27:03 - 00:06:49:14
Bryce
But I read that one back here. But we'll talk about more about that better. But yeah, I mean slow. Yeah. Atmospheric. I think, part of the story of rumors, the huge album that was right before Tusk was, that, it was only a single album, two sides. And so a lot of songs were cut for time, were edited down short.

00:06:49:15 - 00:07:12:07
Bryce
Right. Stevie Nicks, his songs, are were known for being really, really long. Yeah. That needed to get cut and cut and cut down. And so the, the part of the story of this album was they went in open to the idea that they were actually going to do a double album, so that there was no issue of like what gets cut cutting for time, cutting for pop sensibilities.

00:07:12:08 - 00:07:34:19
Jeff
Okay. I mean, that comes through like I was kind of getting that, like, I've, I've encountered albums like that in the past where, you know, a band gets big enough and then they get the kind of unrestricted artistic, freedom to do whatever they want to. And sometimes that works really well. And sometimes you'll listen to a song and you're like, I really wish that this was over a little while back.

00:07:36:04 - 00:07:42:16
Bryce
Because I'm annoyed at that. So I also just read, Get Tusked. It is,

00:07:42:18 - 00:07:47:23
Jeff
Was that the was that the tagline for the album in the in the record store, the new album for people that it.

00:07:47:23 - 00:07:55:11
Bryce
Should have been that should have it now. So this was a biography by Ken Kiat and Hernan Rojas.

00:07:55:12 - 00:07:55:17
Jeff
Okay.

00:07:55:20 - 00:08:09:08
Bryce
Who were, engineers slash co-producers on the album. So they share a lot of the stories in the studio of recording it. And to say that, like, excess is,

00:08:09:08 - 00:08:18:05
Bryce
the backdrop of all this is like an understatement. Okay. The, the studio that the recording in, studio D is state of the art

00:08:18:05 - 00:08:47:10
Bryce
to, to put it very quickly. It's a very expensive, very new studio. And along on top of that, Fleetwood Mac, because of the way that their business, stuff was set up, made a lot of money on rumors because they were their own managers. Oh, okay. And so that meant that when it came time for this, whatever you need, they were, they joked that they were probably the first studio, the first recording studio to have a keg on tap.

00:08:47:12 - 00:08:56:04
Bryce
They even have a keg of Heineken for the boys. Christine would be drinking Cristal champagne chilled Cristal.

00:08:56:05 - 00:08:57:11
Jeff
My goodness.

00:08:57:13 - 00:09:08:17
Bryce
You know, catering for its excess, right? Yeah. And so I think that is a big, is a big brushstroke here of the sense of on restriction.

00:09:08:19 - 00:09:26:10
Jeff
Now let me ask I because I have some individual thoughts. I to continue my story of when I was listening to this. Oh yeah. The, just as a brief aside that people might find interesting is that I did, message price and say, is it important that I like this because I, I don't really yeah.

00:09:26:12 - 00:09:29:04
Bryce
And so I'm going to convert your buddy.

00:09:29:06 - 00:09:40:03
Jeff
I mean, maybe the thing is that after that I focused on the first side, and that was five songs. And so I was really able to listen to those over and over again.

00:09:40:05 - 00:09:42:09
Bryce
And then the first impression of the album. Yeah.

00:09:42:10 - 00:10:07:18
Jeff
You know, and I, I ended up some of them ended up growing on me. But as I listen to them and I have a very strange musical background, I used to be a drummer a long time ago. I kind of know stuff about music, but I, you know, I've never. I've never been the front man. I've never written a song or anything like that, but I've been kind of in it.

00:10:07:20 - 00:10:26:04
Jeff
So I ended up with kind of a, a bunch of questions about what has happened here. And I think the first question, I mean, and maybe this will be a good jump off point, would be, yeah. Is the producer different? Is this a different production team then? Rumors or.

00:10:26:04 - 00:10:26:20
Bryce
Rumors.

00:10:26:22 - 00:10:49:20
Jeff
Or is there somebody that was there for rumors that was like cracking the whip to to kind of, compress stuff that isn't present here? Because my overall first thought when I listened to this was that there was a lot of meandering going on in these songs, which I feel like can sometimes be good and sometimes can frustrate me.

00:10:49:20 - 00:11:13:12
Bryce
But, I would say, I mean, I think in general most of the personnel is, is is basically the same. I think some of the differences would be the situation, right? When they recorded rumors. So they recorded Tusk in LA, which is where they, generally were based. But when they recorded rumors that was in Sausalito, near San Francisco.

00:11:13:13 - 00:11:40:10
Bryce
Okay. So all five of them were kind of deeply displaced, equally, if you can think about it like that. And so, so that's a part of it, I think having to constrict it to 1 to 1 disc instead of opening it up to two, is a big part of it. There are also stories from the rumors, time of technical issues and reasons that they've that they needed to like, redo certain things.

00:11:40:12 - 00:12:05:10
Bryce
But I would say in general, no, the, the, the personnel was not different. But the on the very first day, this is in the get test book, but they're describing the first day when the band is getting into the studio and, and everybody is coming in and they're bringing their tapes of their new songs and, Lindsey, the guitarist, shows up and he's got he's got this new short hairdo.

00:12:05:10 - 00:12:21:17
Bryce
He had had the long, curly like rock god locks for a long time. So he shows up one day, haircut short with his his new girlfriend in tow, and plays a demo for what I think was the ledge. And,

00:12:21:17 - 00:12:29:20
Bryce
in and at some point in an internet that he wants to guide the direction of the sound for this album.

00:12:29:22 - 00:12:51:03
Bryce
Rather, it's my way or the highway. And that put everyone, really off, off balance. You know, I think there is a bit of cheeriness that that was in this homecoming of everybody kind of, you know, coming in piece by piece and then sort of a strange flag in the ground.

00:12:51:06 - 00:12:56:16
Jeff
Start getting the ego power play. Yeah, I am an artist. It's my time kind of thing.

00:12:56:18 - 00:13:23:02
Bryce
And I think on that angle where, like Lindsay felt he was a technical necessity because he's gone and said, like he was a part of, of, of making rumors what it was, that from day one on this, he felt like he knew he was reinventing himself. Okay. And he he had this double stress of, I need to be a new man.

00:13:23:04 - 00:13:37:13
Bryce
And I also need to be the shepherd of this album for this band. Interesting. So I think that's where some of the intentional, the, the intentional 90 degrees on some of this is okay.

00:13:37:19 - 00:13:44:01
Jeff
Okay, I have some more thoughts, but I think, they'd probably be better saved for each individual track.

00:13:44:02 - 00:14:17:14
Bryce
Well, let's, let's, let's do that and start with our first track then. How about that? Sure. So the first one, is over and over. The very first song, this is, Christine McVie song. Kind of a slower jam here. We'll play, about a minute of it or so.

00:15:38:21 - 00:16:04:02
Bryce
So, a a decisive, I think, opening for the album. I think, especially when you compare it to the openings of the previous Fleetwood Mac albums, you had, Monday morning, which, was a bit of a rollicking sort of folk rock song and then Second Hand News, which is a rock pop song. Very poppy.

00:16:04:03 - 00:16:27:19
Bryce
Yeah. And so to start this with Over and Over, which is pretty plodding, I would say of a of a of a beat, but, but then also like the arrangement of it sounds strange. It does the guitar, the acoustic guitar, there's a lot of guitar on this album that is used almost like an accessory or, as an effect.

00:16:27:21 - 00:16:43:08
Bryce
And I think even in this album and this track that really, I don't know if it's because it's tuned really low or what, but it almost sounds a melodic. It almost sounds like it's just scratching. It's not a guitar. It's six nylon strings.

00:16:43:08 - 00:17:05:12
Jeff
Right? Yeah. I think, I did an experiment when I was listening to this song, listen to it a few times, and then I pulled it up on YouTube and I listened to it at 1.25 speed, and I found that I really enjoyed it a lot more because I feel like it's, it seems like I mean, I don't even know if audiences at the time maybe would think this.

00:17:05:12 - 00:17:18:23
Jeff
It was like listening to, a record on the wrong speed. It sounds like it's too slow, like it sounds like it needs to be either slower even than it is or faster than it is.

00:17:19:02 - 00:17:20:16
Bryce
Yeah.

00:17:20:18 - 00:17:48:02
Jeff
Especially because I and this is a something that most of the songs on this side and I feel like suffer from a little bit where the, lyrically and musically, it doesn't seem complex enough to demand this level of slow, methodical. So yeah, having it be a very basic song, it comes off as just very it's a.

00:17:48:02 - 00:17:48:19
Bryce
Little.

00:17:48:21 - 00:18:01:10
Jeff
Like white bread, like there's not a lot of spice to it. The one thing, and I don't know if, you know, this is something that I started hearing last night when I was really drunk and listening to this album.

00:18:01:12 - 00:18:02:20
Bryce
The way it was meant to be, like.

00:18:02:20 - 00:18:29:14
Jeff
The way it was meant to be listened to. The other thing, I don't know whether it's something that's noted in the book, is that I listened to some of their previous songs and I don't really know very much about Fleetwood Mac. I know that Mick Fleetwood was their drummer. The drums here seem like shoved into a closet somewhere, whereas I listen to just some of the big pop stuff that they had.

00:18:29:18 - 00:18:49:03
Jeff
Yeah, and those drums are tuned much further forward, like, you really like you really feel it. There's a lot more snap to the like, the snare hits and stuff. They really kind of they feel like they have more of a hand in the song, like the lyrics come on the beats, the, you know, it's much more traditionally set up where it follows the drums.

00:18:49:06 - 00:19:07:17
Jeff
Yeah. And here the drums just seem shoved way in the back, the shoved way in the back. And they also seem really muted, like, like they're barely part of the song. Very slow fills and uncomplicated beats.

00:19:07:19 - 00:19:24:20
Bryce
And, and you see that a lot in this album, especially on Lindsey's songs where the drumming was the drumming and the bass, the rhythm section were both really tall, kind of told to keep it very simple, to a frustrating level.

00:19:24:21 - 00:19:26:01
Jeff
Sure.

00:19:26:03 - 00:19:55:00
Bryce
And so but it's, it's funny because you're thinking about the, part of what they do talk about in the book is kind of the construction of studio D. Partly because it's it's like a spaceship of, of a recording studio. It had a big it had a big central room that you could put drums in, but you could also you would also have players in there with their amps or their cabinets in another isolated room.

00:19:55:02 - 00:20:13:23
Bryce
So if you could think about it like, back in the day. So it's very I'm going to oversimplify this really a lot. But back in the day, the way you would record music is you and your band would spend a lot of time rehearsing it wherever. Yeah, wherever you could do it for fucking nothing. And then you would rent time in a studio, go record.

00:20:14:05 - 00:20:31:18
Bryce
Yeah. Recording the thing that you had spent a lot of time Fleetwood Mac famously did not do that. Fleetwood Mac spent a lot of their time writing in the studio, which is why they're out. This album was considered the most expensive album at the time. Okay, they spent a similar amount of time doing this for rumors. Mirage.

00:20:31:18 - 00:20:52:02
Bryce
They did the same thing, but they did it in France and they hated that. Good lord. And so, I, I, I, I'm a little surprised to hear that because my sense of that space was it was meant to unify, all the players, especially on one of the non-electric songs.

00:20:52:07 - 00:21:21:20
Jeff
Well, I mean, this is all just kind of conjecture, but I do think that sometimes, I've seen scenarios in the past where things work well for a reason, and then you decide, I'm going to break this paradigm by catering to everyone, and then it doesn't. It ends up making a an inferior product, because there was a better reason to have everybody kind of, you know, in a practice space practicing over and over and over again.

00:21:21:20 - 00:21:47:22
Jeff
And then suddenly if you disconnect this process thing, you get a more disconnected. I mean, I think that there's a lot of songs on here that do feel strangely disconnected in ways that, like, the vocals will seem disconnected from part of the music, or they just seem more fragmented, where when a band is working well together, there's just a really good feeling when you feel like all the instruments are, you know, in synchronization and everything's going well.

00:21:47:23 - 00:22:05:17
Jeff
A lot of these, I don't know, maybe it's just because I've just been, I wish casting based on the things that you're saying, but it almost feels like they were all kind of like some of this were recorded in very separate ways and then brought together, and that you might be able to feel that because there's less.

00:22:05:22 - 00:22:06:17
Bryce
Yeah.

00:22:06:19 - 00:22:11:07
Jeff
I don't know. It would be interesting to hear what a live version of this maybe if it sounded any different.

00:22:11:09 - 00:22:36:23
Bryce
And one of the interesting things on that regard, Fleetwood Mac did record a lot of their live shows. But, very few songs from Tusk ended up on the setlists or remained on the setlist. Interesting. Really, I mean, thinking about it, Tusk itself has been played a lot. Sisters of the moon, especially at the time, was, I mean, sister live.

00:22:36:23 - 00:22:51:00
Bryce
Their live version of it is so amazing. We'll get to that. And then like, Sarah was performed a bit so, you know, some of these were performed a bit, but a lot of them I was not I'm not aware of any recordings of so and I think over and over again.

00:22:51:03 - 00:23:08:05
Jeff
I think Sarah would be a much better live, much better live, experience and listening to it on an album, because it does go on for a while, but you could see it being the thing that closes out a huge set, this kind of just meandering thing where everybody can kind of. It's also loose enough that I feel like you could add more to it.

00:23:08:07 - 00:23:14:09
Jeff
And maybe that's part of this, is that some of these songs are so basic that if you wanted to add more to it, you definitely could.

00:23:14:11 - 00:23:36:19
Bryce
That that's something that I, the other thing I'll talk about as far as their live recordings is that the songs that are on here, that they did record live, the Lindsey songs that are on here, that they recorded live, sound great live. I think they sound even better only because they have to really fit within what the five piece rock band can do on stage.

00:23:36:19 - 00:23:47:04
Bryce
they sound better live. I think a lot of task also has to do with. If you think of, like, the, kind of if you think of, like, rise and falls of different instruments.

00:23:47:07 - 00:24:10:01
Bryce
Types of instruments. Yeah. Around this time, this is the start of the rise as the studio of the studio, as an instrument, using other studio space as an instrument. Okay. Having, and not even digital effects like the in fact, another great anecdote from the book is that, if Tusk came out a little bit sooner, it would have been the first digital album.

00:24:10:03 - 00:24:32:03
Bryce
The first album recorded or replicated digitally like they had. They one of the early days of the sessions, someone comes in with a digital, dubbing machine, okay? And they test it out and they test it versus tape. And they, they actually like the digital because the it was so accurate to what they were looking for.

00:24:32:03 - 00:24:42:14
Bryce
Interesting. So there is some amount of like bleeding edge here. And also an intentional lo fi low fidelity.

00:24:42:16 - 00:24:52:08
Jeff
So he's using, a 4k, video recorder to record like a VHS, right? Like the screen of a VHS. Exactly. Yeah.

00:24:52:13 - 00:24:57:20
Bryce
Well, let's, take a listen over here, too. Over and over the, alternate mics.

00:24:57:22 - 00:24:59:07
Jeff
Very excited.

00:24:59:09 - 00:25:35:01
Bryce
Oh, the one thing I will tell you ahead of time that's not here in this version, the, the studio version of Over and Over kind of ends with this big swelling crescendo. Yeah. Where the vocals start to get drowned out a little bit. This version doesn't have that. Okay. So that's that's one of the big things you would, you would see here.

00:29:56:21 - 00:29:59:18
Bryce
So that's, the alternate over and over.

00:29:59:20 - 00:30:05:10
Jeff
Okay. I might have a checkmark next to that. I like that quite a bit more.

00:30:05:12 - 00:30:28:16
Bryce
Yeah, it's a little bit of a subtle sound. A subtler, little different sound. I think the, over and over is at the end, repeating into the end. I like that way better than than fading out so early in the original song. Yeah. I think that kind of reinforces, I feel like that reinforces the content of the song a little bit over and over.

00:30:28:16 - 00:30:38:05
Bryce
I'm asking over and over, over and over, like, I don't know, maybe, maybe that's too literal, but I, I think that's.

00:30:38:07 - 00:31:02:08
Jeff
I, I mean, I'm not this this one is not one that I'm super familiar with, but what I could hear, and it's possible that I just did listen to the other version in headphones and didn't zone in on it, but it seemed like, the plodding pace of the song was better used here because there was a lot more of everybody.

00:31:02:08 - 00:31:21:00
Jeff
The it wasn't just the vocals, but even just the guitar fills in between the individual lines in the beginning were more complex and then, especially as the song goes forward, I felt like, you know, there's a little bit of here's some, here's some keyboards for you, kind of coming in, here's like the drums get more interesting towards the end.

00:31:21:00 - 00:31:51:11
Jeff
You even get a little bit of kind of the mini bass solo where the bass kind of comes up. And I think that I like that quite a bit more, because as a thesis statement, it felt more like, you know, we're using this basic structure, but then we're giving everybody kind of the freedom. It felt like the whole band was represented in the song as opposed to before, where it felt very, very vocals and guitar fronted like the other stuff seemed like it was faded way into the background.

00:31:51:11 - 00:31:52:00
Jeff
I like that.

00:31:52:02 - 00:32:21:08
Bryce
So yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And, and, this this I think, was one of the earlier songs in there session that they were working with. I think this was one of the two songs that, Christine had one of her first songs that she brought in on cassette. But, yeah, I think I think it's such an interesting, statement to make this, the first track, because it is so plodding.

00:32:21:14 - 00:32:23:01
Bryce
It feels just.

00:32:23:03 - 00:32:36:23
Jeff
I really do think that the whole song would work if if it had a little bit higher RPM like that, it was just like, you can still have it be very basic, but it's just very the tempo of it is too calming.

00:32:37:01 - 00:33:06:01
Bryce
So the other so maybe one other element here, to kind of talk about where Christine, the songwriter is at this time. During the recording of this album, she is with, Dennis Wilson, who, was one of the Beach Boys and Lindsey, especially is a major Beach Boys fan. Okay. And it's like, was I a know, kind of mouth agape when whenever Dennis would come by.

00:33:06:01 - 00:33:33:15
Bryce
But I think that informs a lot of Christine's writing where, her writing is very sweet on this album. Okay. Saccharin, almost like, I mean, to the point, like. Honey. Hi, honey. Hi. It's a very catchy song, but I have a lot of problems with that. That fucking song. But, that her hers are the sort of sweeter song, so I, I, I understand it is a very sentimental song.

00:33:33:17 - 00:33:58:13
Bryce
And, maybe this will kind of come up when we get to it on the fourth side. But Never forget, which ends the album kind of feels similar. It's not a showstopper. Yeah, it's not a big leftfield hit like Tusk or some of the other more bombastic songs. It actually kind of fits in with over and over a little bit in almost a cyclical sense.

00:33:58:15 - 00:34:17:07
Jeff
Okay. I mean, I think that, the the other thing is that by having a more ambiguous, say, opening statement, yeah, I think that it puts a lot of pressure on what comes after that. And, not to not to push too far forward.

00:34:17:07 - 00:34:18:04
Bryce
Too far. No, but.

00:34:18:04 - 00:34:20:18
Jeff
Quickly. But I'm not a big fan of.

00:34:20:20 - 00:34:21:14
Bryce
You don't like the.

00:34:21:16 - 00:34:23:11
Jeff
Song very much, so.

00:34:23:11 - 00:34:34:21
Bryce
Okay, well, let's let's play it and get this. Only two minutes. Sure.

00:35:17:16 - 00:35:22:08
Bryce
I like about not a fan of the ledge.

00:35:22:09 - 00:35:29:17
Jeff
Nope. And it's very possible. This is just a personal thing. So what I'll say is that.

00:35:29:19 - 00:35:36:02
Bryce
I mean, you don't need to couch it like it is. It is a rather acrid song.

00:35:36:04 - 00:35:59:18
Jeff
And I'm not the biggest fan of the jam band. Sound. Yeah. I also, the first time I heard this, the first three times I heard this. I'm also not a fan of what I would consider the jug band sound. It sounds like a very, I think that the fuzz on the guitar kind of muddies the whole sound.

00:35:59:20 - 00:36:12:10
Jeff
I think it's very, basic musically, but then I don't really like that. Like the lyrics don't work for me either. Oh, really? Because they're.

00:36:12:12 - 00:36:13:05
Bryce
Really biting.

00:36:13:05 - 00:36:40:22
Jeff
You can love me, baby, but you can't walk out. And I don't understand what that is saying. I might be just two basic of, of, a person, but sure, I don't know it. The thing is that I wanted more. I wanted more complexity, or I wanted the I didn't want as much repetition in the lyrics, or take that fuzz like, one of the things with really complicated studios is you can do really interesting digital effects.

00:36:40:22 - 00:36:43:12
Jeff
You could do left to right, or you know.

00:36:43:14 - 00:37:09:15
Bryce
Where. Here it is. This is still relatively early days of stereo. Yeah. And so again, it's on some of the Lindsey songs, which is what this is. You know, you have a really hard pan on different instruments. The snare is pretty hard in the right ear. The bass is really hard in the left ear. And you, you keyed into something with the guitar with which is, it's it's it's so low.

00:37:09:17 - 00:37:31:09
Bryce
It sounds pretty equal to the bass. Like if you kind of listen left ear, right ear, sometimes it's like, which, which one is the bass. Yeah. Because it's, it's that like really low and dark sounding. So yeah this is, this is Lindsey Buckingham. This is another one of the early songs from the session.

00:37:31:14 - 00:37:52:04
Bryce
Supposedly this is a song that he went in and played and they got everybody ready and, and they get ready. And so and then he tells the engineer in the control room right now, flip all of the knobs 180 degrees. I want to do the opposite, okay. And that's a lot of what you get here on the lead.

00:37:52:04 - 00:38:19:19
Bryce
Wow. To talk about the lyrics a little bit and a little bit of what that process looked like. Apparently, again, coming off of Get tasked, a lot of Lindsey songs would start off music first, and then the lyrics would either would slowly come in or you hear, on the second disc of Tusk there, or, sorry, the, the bonus and a bonus disc of demos and stuff that they put out.

00:38:19:19 - 00:38:40:11
Bryce
Okay. There are, I want to say, eight different versions of I know I'm not wrong because it was one of the earliest written songs. And what was one of the last songs that they finished? And you go through the progression of these songs, these versions of I Know I'm Not Wrong. And they're all pretty different, especially lyrically.

00:38:40:16 - 00:38:49:14
Bryce
So the first one doesn't have any lyrics, but a lot of them is just a little bit bad about, you know, like he's just kind of mumbling gibberish just to get through the music of.

00:38:49:16 - 00:38:52:07
Jeff
The Lorem ipsum of, songwriting.

00:38:52:12 - 00:39:05:01
Bryce
But but like, that's part of the music writing process. Sure. You know, that's just how it goes, is sometimes you start with the music, sometimes you start with the words,

00:39:05:03 - 00:39:31:02
Jeff
The few bands that I was at Beckett High School began years ago. I found that we were least successful when we started with kind of a fully formed song, or even 50 to 60% of a song, and then asked a poor lyricist to come in and try to graft something on top of it. Yeah. And I can kind of, I feel like saying that I can kind of feel that a little bit in this, in the ledge, but.

00:39:31:06 - 00:39:55:17
Bryce
Also, to to talk about lyrics a bit like, I think one of the things that really kind of catches my eye with this whole album is the very, the three very different perspectives that the songwriters have. You know, Christine's is very sweet. And, Stevie is who we'll talk about a little bit later. Is much sadder.

00:39:55:19 - 00:40:19:03
Bryce
And Lindsey is very angry. It is coming from an angry place. And I think I think especially back in 1979. But I think even today, some of the stuff, some of some of Lindsey stuff is I would feel too embarrassed to do lyrics like this because they're really like, like, you can love me, baby, but you can't walk out.

00:40:19:04 - 00:40:41:03
Bryce
Someone oughta tell you what it's really all about. Like that is the most like dick swinging, like standing and like, trying to make, you know, trying to be the alpha that you can be sure. And then you, you tie this into, well, you know, famously Stevie and Lindsey were a couple for a very long time. They broke up during the making of rumors.

00:40:41:05 - 00:40:52:11
Bryce
And so now you have this new creative project where they're still in the band together, they're still writing songs in the band together. Still performing together. Sure. But you're now on the other side of that coin guide.

00:40:52:11 - 00:41:01:04
Jeff
I must be, I feel bad for Stevie Nicks, having to play back up on, your ex's breakup, process.

00:41:01:06 - 00:41:12:14
Bryce
Yeah. When? And I mean, a lot of that they got. She got hers in rumors, too. She got rumors. But, Yeah. Let's jump into the alternate version here of, of the ledge.

00:41:12:15 - 00:41:20:18
Jeff
Okay. Be very interested.

00:43:20:08 - 00:43:33:08
Bryce
So. The ledge. Another, more of a slighter take on the alternate version. But I feel like this is one that is a little less to the extremes.

00:43:33:09 - 00:44:11:22
Jeff
There's fuzz is definitely reduced on on the guitar, which is. Which is good. I do think I was thinking while I was listening to that, that, the, the again, I get the impression that the drums are so muted like it sounds. I think when I was listening to this the second or third time, the original take, I was asking myself whether they were even using a snare drum, whether they were using like a tom or something in place of a snare drum, because it was so low and was something like this that has this very high rhythm, I feel like having a staccato kind of snare drum in there would have, you know, really

00:44:12:00 - 00:44:16:13
Jeff
given the audience something to hang on to as you kind of move forward.

00:44:16:15 - 00:44:19:22
Bryce
So, so Tusk, one of the infamous things about Tusk.

00:44:19:22 - 00:44:20:14
Jeff
Yeah.

00:44:20:16 - 00:44:44:17
Bryce
Is that a lot of it has morphed found sounds than was, known at the time. Like, again, if you were recording audio in the late 70s, you needed to be in a building designed to do it. Sure. And so, a lot of Tusk, especially again, on the Lindsay side, spends a lot of time trying to deal with, sound sounds.

00:44:44:20 - 00:45:06:02
Bryce
And an empty Kleenex box is famously one of one of the multitude of fans and used in this album as a as a facsimile, things like a slapping a pork chop with a spatula, which I think is part of Tusk. There there were better.

00:45:06:02 - 00:45:07:14
Jeff
Clearance parts for a.

00:45:07:17 - 00:45:08:10
Bryce
For a snare.

00:45:08:10 - 00:45:09:07
Jeff
For a snare?

00:45:09:07 - 00:45:15:22
Bryce
Yeah. Okay. That's how you get that, that kind of thing. Papery like. It's not crazy.

00:45:15:22 - 00:45:21:10
Jeff
Too hollow, too low. No, no power whatsoever, I believe.

00:45:21:12 - 00:45:46:08
Bryce
The alternate version there. Also, I think, there's less I think in the original version you can hear more of Stevie in her backup vocals where this feels fairness. Just Lindsey with the multiple voices that he does. Yeah. But yeah, the ledge. I, I like that one. It is. I'm. I'm also not like, a big,

00:45:46:10 - 00:45:56:03
Bryce
What do they call it? Rockabilly. I'm not a super big rockabilly fan. This is like proto rockabilly or this is like, early in, in that vein. So.

00:45:56:07 - 00:45:57:06

00:45:57:06 - 00:46:15:04
Unknown
Hey, everybody, just a quick intermission and we'll get back to the music. If you're enjoying side A, side B will be released in two weeks. But why wait? Listen to all four sides now by subscribing on Patreon. Patreon.com slash LFG x. Get the podcast feed for full length previews and enhanced audio quality for the biggest, best two tusks.

00:46:15:04 - 00:46:28:13
Unknown
Experience one more time Patreon.com slash LFG x. My name is Bryce Castillo. Check out my marbles racing streams on the website marbles dot win or follow me on Twitch at Bricks to join in on the fun.

00:46:28:13 - 00:46:29:13
Unknown
Every Thursday night.

00:46:29:13 - 00:46:38:01
Unknown
My co-host is Jeff. Thank you to him for joining me here. Please show him some love over on Race Select on YouTube, where he's been covering new video game releases for over a decade now.

00:46:38:04 - 00:46:41:11
Unknown
That's right. Select on YouTube or rates Lego.com.

00:46:41:11 - 00:46:46:05
Unknown
You're listening to Two Tusks, hosted by Bryce, and Jeff's produced by Bryce Castillo.

00:46:46:05 - 00:46:56:15
Unknown
Fleetwood Mac's music, including Tusk, deluxe, live, Deluxe and Mirage Tour 82 live, are available everywhere from Warner Records. Now back to the tasks.

00:46:56:15 - 00:46:57:16

00:46:57:16 - 00:47:02:02
Unknown
that that.

00:47:02:02 - 00:47:03:11

00:47:03:11 - 00:47:17:20
Bryce
So we had the very frantic The Ledge. But next one is pretty straightforward, a pretty straightforward rock song. Is, the duet between Christina and Lindsey. It's think About me.

00:47:17:20 - 00:47:20:07
Bryce
So let's do a little bit of the, the original here.

00:47:20:07 - 00:47:35:07
Jeff
Okay.

00:48:19:09 - 00:48:21:04
Bryce
A classic rock jam,

00:48:21:06 - 00:48:26:09
Jeff
Is my favorite. My favorite song on the sauce side. By a by a country mile.

00:48:26:11 - 00:48:46:12
Bryce
It's you, got you. It really is a classic, Fleetwood Mac song, even to the point of, like, the processing on Christine's voice, vocals, the doubling of her voice and then blending it into Lindsay's voice. It is, sonically very similar to, Don't Stop from rumors.

00:48:46:14 - 00:48:46:17
Jeff
Okay.

00:48:46:20 - 00:49:08:16
Bryce
Where, that song is a duet between Lindsey and Christine. But their voices are so similar, and the way that they're doubled, they sound like the same voice. If you're not paying super close attention to me like they the same voice. Sure. To the point here where, like, you might miss the fact that like, it's it's pretty much all Lindsey singing by the end.

00:49:08:16 - 00:49:10:22
Bryce
Right when it's Christine at the at the front.

00:49:11:02 - 00:49:27:13
Jeff
I didn't even realize that I was listening to it. I'm not familiar enough with either one of the voices to know, but. Yeah, but yeah, I mean, it's, it's snappy, it moves. It's got attritional structure. I like the there's one lyric that I have a little bit of difficulty with.

00:49:27:14 - 00:49:29:10
Bryce
Oh, yeah? What is it?

00:49:29:12 - 00:49:39:19
Jeff
It's the, I actually had to look this up because I wasn't. I couldn't really get what I was hearing, but the if I'm the one you love is all kind of jam.

00:49:39:21 - 00:49:42:23
Bryce
The one you love. It's a little. It's a little.

00:49:43:01 - 00:49:46:05
Jeff
Awkward, having that much kind of in that one.

00:49:46:07 - 00:49:50:16
Bryce
It's kind of a little bit of a country twang. You find that American country in the.

00:49:50:16 - 00:50:10:03
Jeff
Mac, but it's important, too, and I. I'm interested to know if you have a lot of, like, kind of background for this song because I really like the content of the song. Like, I really like the lyrical content of the song of this, like there's a spark between us, but I'm not going to push you. I'm not going to try to control you.

00:50:10:05 - 00:50:14:15
Jeff
But, you know, if you if you think that we're a thing, you should think about me. And then, like, you know.

00:50:14:16 - 00:50:15:01
Bryce
If this.

00:50:15:01 - 00:50:19:13
Jeff
Is. It's kind of a passive ballad, almost a passive love song.

00:50:19:15 - 00:50:46:07
Bryce
Yeah. So this is, Christine did write this one. Okay. So it is another kind of sweet, lovey. Yeah. Song. The, at least in Get Tusked. They don't they don't spend too much time talking about think about me, because this one was recorded pretty traditionally. Like there was not an element of like, how do we quote unquote mess this up, you know, not saying that that's it.

00:50:46:07 - 00:50:53:13
Bryce
But, you know, this is really what is kind of straightforward. And this was a little later in the recording sessions. So I think there was a sense of like.

00:50:53:19 - 00:50:58:21
Jeff
Oh, it's got to bang out of Radiohead. Yeah. Or you know, we got something here. Let's just put it together the way that we normally do.

00:50:58:21 - 00:51:18:13
Bryce
Yeah. The one thing they do mention is that it came together pretty quick. The recording of it. In general, to oversimplify the recording process at the time, you and your band would record the full song, and you would do that as many takes as you need into your one take that you loved. Right? And then you could go in and record overdubs.

00:51:18:13 - 00:51:37:07
Bryce
You could add another guitar, right? You know, playing to the track. But the kind of the, the process that we have today, you would see more of the full band needing to do the performance for the master track versus today, where you would maybe just need the rhythm section.

00:51:37:10 - 00:51:39:05
Jeff
Assembly type of stuff.

00:51:39:05 - 00:51:43:05
Bryce
Yeah, exactly. You would, you would kind of paint it by layers, right.

00:51:43:07 - 00:51:56:13
Jeff
But yeah. No, I mean, just the I think it's such a very stark difference between the first two because they're so stripped down. And then in here, I mean, even if you were just to listen to, just to base track like it's, it's.

00:51:56:13 - 00:52:00:18
Bryce
It's very like the like. Yeah. It's like the bass.

00:52:00:19 - 00:52:03:23
Jeff
Having like more fun. It's like there's.

00:52:04:01 - 00:52:05:04
Bryce
They're having fun.

00:52:05:06 - 00:52:18:22
Jeff
And, and then when it, when it comes together like just sonically and lyrically and everything, it's got some, some depth to it. It's got some meat to it. It's got, you know it. You could kind of, you, can you hear it once and you can sing along to it and think about me.

00:52:18:22 - 00:52:21:15
Bryce
And have a radio jingle. Yeah, absolutely.

00:52:21:15 - 00:52:30:08
Jeff
So yeah, this was one I really liked. Whenever this one came on, I actually was like kind of bouncing my head as opposed to tried to like, dig into it. So, well.

00:52:30:08 - 00:52:45:06
Bryce
Let's listen to the alternate version. I kind of think about me.

00:55:14:11 - 00:55:33:04
Bryce
The alternate. Think about me. So you don't get any of the vocal with Lindsey, like, no Lindsey at all? And actually, you can hear quite a lot of Stevie's backup vocals. Yeah. And they don't sound right. They don't sound like she's singing at the right time.

00:55:33:09 - 00:55:59:19
Jeff
Yeah. There also appears because that doubling is so singular in the original version. The I feel like the music, like, takes a backseat to more of, like, the vocal stylings of this. I think that having that doubling, I don't know, it's like somehow that, kind of glues the whole sound together. Whereas here I was mostly just hearing the lyrics.

00:55:59:19 - 00:56:04:18
Jeff
Like the lyrics were very much on Front Street. The singing was very much on Front Street.

00:56:04:20 - 00:56:28:17
Bryce
The other, the other I think, pretty prominent thing is the, addition of I, I would say it's like a, a marimba or some sort of chime. Especially I think it's, you could really hear it in the left ear. But almost like a, like a subway door chime.

00:56:28:19 - 00:56:30:20
Jeff
Oh okay.

00:56:30:22 - 00:56:54:06
Bryce
And I don't, I don't even know where that comes from because you wouldn't have done that in the, you know, in your master recording. Yeah. But so I don't know where that comes from. That's, that's an interesting like, addition to the song and, and I, I think to not doing the doubling and not doing the vocal merging makes it feel a little strange.

00:56:54:08 - 00:57:01:12
Bryce
I think, but I think it almost I think to me it kind of justifies the original, allure.

00:57:01:14 - 00:57:22:16
Jeff
There are parts of it that I like a little bit more like, I like that I can, I really can hear Christine it, you know, the doubling does kind of make it a kind of a nebulous. Yeah, vocal sound. Of course, at the end there, there was also there was some like organ, keyboard kind of there was kind of like this one sustained note.

00:57:22:17 - 00:57:23:22
Bryce
In like the bridge.

00:57:23:22 - 00:57:26:21
Jeff
Yeah. And I did not care for that.

00:57:26:23 - 00:57:27:20
Bryce
I just felt.

00:57:27:20 - 00:57:28:17
Jeff
Like a fire alarm was.

00:57:28:17 - 00:57:31:13
Bryce
Going off or something. Yeah. Like that.

00:57:31:15 - 00:57:36:09
Jeff
Yeah. All at all, I would say, I think that I, I like the original much more, but it's more traditional.

00:57:36:09 - 00:57:39:10
Bryce
So it's a little a little more slight on that.

00:57:39:12 - 00:58:02:22
Jeff
Now, in the context of the entire album, I can actually see where that could fit better. After the studio versions of our version over in the ledge, just because that is a more experimental version of that. Like, it was kind of jarring when I was listening to this to have this kind of, you know, the first two songs that had this kind of loose, experimental style and then like just, you know, boom, top 40s.

00:58:02:22 - 00:58:07:05
Jeff
Now this is what I call Fleetwood back. This comes in on track three. So yeah.

00:58:07:07 - 00:58:25:00
Bryce
That's yeah, that is a good point because, like in another world, you could have made this the first track and it would have been a banger start to this album. Absolutely. You know, so maybe not too much to say on this. You want to move on to the next one? Sure. All right. So this one is Save Me a Place.

00:58:25:00 - 00:58:33:18
Bryce
This is another Lindsey song. We're going to listen to, just a minute of it here.

00:59:32:03 - 00:59:36:00
Bryce
Okay, so that's, a little bit of. Save me a place here.

00:59:36:02 - 00:59:37:21
Jeff
Yeah.

00:59:37:23 - 01:00:04:18
Bryce
A very, I think from, either these four songs that we've listened to so far, I think Save Me the Place, Save Me a Place sets, gives me an environment. I feel like I almost, I almost there's something about the environment of the song that I feel like I understand from the very beginning, where it almost like smash cuts into, like the song, like right into the first, first beat, first song.

01:00:04:18 - 01:00:19:06
Bryce
And it's almost like off beat, like they hit that first beat and they kind of don't get that first measure. Yep. Really. Right. And so you almost get I've in my head, it's like a campfire song.

01:00:19:10 - 01:00:19:17
Jeff
Okay.

01:00:19:18 - 01:00:47:02
Bryce
And you're, you know, you got the guy and he's strumming along and he's singing and then when you get to the chorus, you have all of the different voices harmonize at once with all of the all of them doing the vibrato. You know, you get that one. He, he, you know. Yeah. And and it's, there's just like, it's it's just like a magical, I think, progression between those two.

01:00:47:02 - 01:01:12:05
Bryce
I see it really. All right. I hear it really clearly of like, okay, this like, starts off intentionally amateurish. But also has this like masterwork level of vocal tracking to do, to I mean it could have been one thing to have the other the two girls as backups, they've done harmonies. They've done very good harmonies in their songwriting before.

01:01:12:05 - 01:01:38:13
Bryce
Sure. But to almost do this, like Barbershop Quartet with yourself. Is I think that's really impressive. It certainly feels impressive. Or at least like it's supposed to say something is just say something. Maybe. But that's, How do you feel about save me place?

01:01:38:15 - 01:02:05:22
Jeff
I, I think I like it more than, the ledge, but it has a lot of strangeness to it that puts me off. Like there's something wrong with the drums. They're not. It sounds like somebody. It sounds like the like. The impression that I would get is, of somebody who. This is the first take. When somebody is like, I wrote this new guitar thing.

01:02:05:22 - 01:02:09:05
Jeff
Okay, let's let's give it a shot. Just a simple just try to.

01:02:09:06 - 01:02:10:02
Bryce
And they didn't warm up.

01:02:10:04 - 01:02:32:20
Jeff
And it keeps kind of getting off a little bit. And I don't know if that's intentional. If it is I'm not entirely sure what the intention is to. Yeah. Jar the sound. It also sounds to me, I think that both with this and with Sarah, I don't know if this is the case, but it sounds like these are being played with brushes on the drums.

01:02:32:22 - 01:02:39:17
Bryce
Sarah definitely is. I hear let me play a little clip this.

01:02:39:19 - 01:02:45:21
Bryce
This this one, I think is a might be more of, another found sounds sort of thing.

01:02:45:21 - 01:02:48:17
Jeff
Okay.

01:02:48:19 - 01:02:59:07
Bryce
I do think what kind of. Listen to this original verse before right before we listen to the alternative. Okay. The alternate version. But I think the drum, the drums are handled very differently between these two.

01:02:59:07 - 01:02:59:23
Jeff
Okay.

01:03:00:01 - 01:03:05:13
Bryce
I couldn't tell you how so, but I do think they feel like they've been handled very differently.

01:03:05:13 - 01:03:27:21
Jeff
I also think that I, it would I not sure from this point like but I, I think it would be interesting to hear because the music in this song is very basic. I think it would be interesting to hear, like the Stevie Nicks version, like somebody doing a little bit more flare vocally when you have something so basic, like some of these.

01:03:27:22 - 01:03:38:04
Bryce
I mean, it's yes, it's so basic. But he also does that, you know, this like five piece. Yeah. Chorus. Like, not about but I hear, I hear what.

01:03:38:04 - 01:03:46:15
Jeff
You, I mean I don't know, it could just be that I'm what I'm finding out is that, I'm not the biggest fan of Lindsey's vocals. Yeah, possibly.

01:03:46:17 - 01:03:53:06
Bryce
Very possibly. He was of the three songwriters that people associate with Fleetwood Mac, he wrote the least number of big hits.

01:03:53:06 - 01:04:02:09
Jeff
Yeah. I don't know. It's it's a difficult. There's something about it that's offputting to me, but I have a hard time kind of expressing it because it's, it's it is so very basic.

01:04:02:09 - 01:04:18:12
Bryce
So, so I'm going to play just a little bit more here of semi a place. And then I'm going to go into the alternate okay. Okay.

01:04:18:14 - 01:04:22:21
Bryce
All right. Now I'm going to switch.

01:07:17:16 - 01:07:18:11
Bryce
Save me a place.

01:07:18:11 - 01:07:21:20
Jeff
Interesting. Interesting.

01:07:21:22 - 01:07:55:19
Bryce
Did you. There's one thing I wanted, and I wanted to see if you noticed. Okay. Let me, I'm going to just play a I'm going to play some more audio here again. Okay.

01:07:55:21 - 01:07:57:01
Bryce
The key is different.

01:07:57:03 - 01:07:59:07
Jeff
Okay, I it's so.

01:07:59:07 - 01:08:03:06
Bryce
It's really. It's really subtle. I just wanted to see if you, if you could pick it up.

01:08:03:06 - 01:08:08:11
Jeff
Yeah, I know, I hear it. Now that you said it, I kind of felt like I was at the, auditory optometrist there for.

01:08:08:15 - 01:08:09:04
Bryce
A.

01:08:09:04 - 01:08:09:19
Jeff
Bit.

01:08:09:21 - 01:08:40:23
Bryce
Maybe. But, yeah, the the alternate version is a slightly higher key. And I don't actually know if that's, because they record, they recorded the master at a lower key or if it was a speed thing, there was a good amount of like playing with playback speed. Yeah. Especially in some of these other tracks here. As, as an effect, in, in the songwriting.

01:08:40:23 - 01:09:01:05
Bryce
So, I don't know if it's just they stretched it longer or what, but, just being at that other key sounds really gentle. I think the processing on it again is, is a little softer. There's a little more dynamic range. You even have a bit of an intro.

01:09:01:11 - 01:09:02:11
Jeff
Yeah. You know.

01:09:02:12 - 01:09:04:19
Bryce
Yeah. Accounting and an intro.

01:09:04:23 - 01:09:32:13
Jeff
It's a lot more traditional. It's a lot more. It's a lot less experimental. And I think that, I mean, when you talked about the whole campfire song thing, I think that having it be very straightforward means that it, the feeling of it was like I could sing along to this, whereas the other version sounded like somebody doing a first take of something interesting where it didn't it.

01:09:32:15 - 01:09:54:12
Jeff
The original version was more interesting, but less because it was rougher. I think that, it was harder to kind of go along with it. It was like you're more being dragged along by it. Whereas this one, it was very just, you know, it was kind of repeats the same melody over and over again. You can kind of go with it.

01:09:54:14 - 01:10:18:05
Jeff
I also think that there was more I don't know if I'm just imagining things, but if there was more guitar like, I really felt like this was, Lindsay standing in the front, you know, playing these guitar parts that that accentuate the vocal parts. That's right. And then everything else was a little bit in the background, but that because it's such a simple song, I feel like it then lends itself well to being a structure.

01:10:18:05 - 01:10:19:02
Jeff
Yeah, yeah.

01:10:19:02 - 01:10:38:03
Bryce
I mean, one of the, songs from From Rumors, was never going back again, which is all guitar playing. You know, they had they had recorded it with drums and bass, but they said, no, the guitar part on this is so intricate and great. Just do it on its own. Yeah.

01:10:38:05 - 01:10:44:17
Jeff
Maybe some bongos. There's some bongos at that side. Okay. You'll get a little bongo solo at some point.

01:10:44:17 - 01:11:05:17
Bryce
Yeah, I it's it's a really kind of sweet, bittersweet song. It's kind of sad. Yeah. But yeah, I think it's, I think it's a very sweet one. Okay. All right. The last song here from side A, Sarah. Your favorite. Favorite? Sarah, I.

01:11:05:17 - 01:11:08:18
Jeff
Have very complicated feelings about Sarah.

01:11:08:20 - 01:11:27:14
Bryce
I'm going to play just a brief bit of Sarah here. Okay. And I'll just kind of tell you a little bit what to listen in for sure. In the, in the alternate. But the things I would kind of point you to for this right now is, listen to the keyboard. The it's like a road style keyboard.

01:11:27:16 - 01:11:29:21
Bryce
You're going to hear it in both of your ears.

01:11:29:21 - 01:11:31:21
Jeff
Okay.

01:11:31:23 - 01:11:52:16
Bryce
And then, you know, lyrically and sound wise, you'll you'll get it. But, here's some of Sarah from Tusk.

01:13:05:12 - 01:13:30:10
Bryce
One of the, one of the longer songs on the original run for Tusk. Sure. Yeah, it does have. The brushes are kind of a a jazz kit of a of a drum. Sarah, the first Stevie Nicks song on the album. Fits in a bit of a pattern with some of Stevie's songs of being a little looser.

01:13:30:11 - 01:13:59:19
Bryce
Being this one, I think, started off as a poem in that have just as lyrics. So it does have it's have a really loose, almost like progressive style of, of a structure, especially musically. It just builds and builds and builds and builds until you get to about the halfway point in the song. And I kind of just it's the kind of just lets loose that and you just go back to the drums and the piano and it and it and it lets you go back to building up an up again.

01:13:59:21 - 01:14:04:14
Bryce
Obviously it does it a little long, but how do you feel about the songs here.

01:14:04:16 - 01:14:25:20
Jeff
Of the five songs on the first side, Sarah is my second favorite. I actually really like Sarah a lot and it's, I do think that it's very interesting that she goes through these other four songs that I mean, I, I don't know if I have the best cross section of Christine and Lindsey's like, vocal stylings, but Stevie Nicks, you recognize when you hear Stevie Nicks.

01:14:25:21 - 01:14:32:00
Jeff
Absolutely. And it's kind of interesting how you go this far into the album before you hear Stevie Nicks.

01:14:32:02 - 01:14:34:00
Bryce
Because she's a star at this point.

01:14:34:03 - 01:14:42:12
Jeff
At this point, it's it's striking, you know, the the difference between her and the vocals on the other songs. Yeah.

01:14:42:14 - 01:15:01:00
Bryce
Even the treatment of this song versus the others. Yeah. It's a it's a very lush song. Compared to like, Lindsey is very stark songs and even Christine songs just I think just because they're slower, they're a little more low key. Right. But this one is lush. I think lush can't begin to describe it.

01:15:01:00 - 01:15:21:19
Jeff
Absolutely. I mean, I like, I also really like the lyrics, like, I like it's it's evocative. Stevie Nicks is performance is wonderful. I think the background music is, crunchy enough to kind of like, get into, like there's something to listen to there, but it's not so overbearing that it then takes away my own kind.

01:15:21:19 - 01:15:23:01
Bryce
Of shimmy to it a little bit.

01:15:23:02 - 01:15:43:07
Jeff
Absolutely. It's got a little bit of a jam via. The only problem that I have with the song is I said, I feel like it needs to stop about halfway through. I'm not a big fan of when songs just keep going and going and going and going and I again, I love everything about this song, except for the fact that it just keeps going and going and going.

01:15:43:07 - 01:15:44:18
Jeff
So.

01:15:44:20 - 01:16:10:02
Bryce
So Sarah, I believe, Stevie was writing, by the time they started recording for the album and that in get Tusk, they call it an epic poem. So the first time they record it, they kind of get everybody together. The motherfucker comes in at 16 minutes.

01:16:10:04 - 01:16:11:14
Jeff
So this is the compromise for.

01:16:11:15 - 01:16:36:22
Bryce
This is this six is the cut down version. It's and I think Stevie's response afterwards was, that's a good 16. That's a good 16 minute stuff. It's a good 16 minutes though aren't we. Are we like I think there's I mean look, if what they're doing there is bucking bucking trends I think they're very seriously was a part of them of her and on the rest of the crew of like, can we give this a shake?

01:16:36:22 - 01:17:03:08
Bryce
Yeah. Like like let's let's try it. I mean, this 6.5 minute version that they put in the final album. Is like, I, I have very similar feelings, I think, to you on on Sarah, which is, I, I, I do love it on paper. I love a lot of it. I love the jazz drum. It's kind of a crooning sort of song.

01:17:03:08 - 01:17:23:03
Bryce
Yeah. It's just that progressive style is just big and big and big and big. And even the content of the song, the lyrical content of it, is is very sweet. It's also very sentimental. And yet I do feel like, Sarah has turned on her.

01:17:23:05 - 01:17:23:23
Jeff
Well.

01:17:24:01 - 01:17:26:07
Bryce
It's, it's too much of a good thing sometimes.

01:17:26:07 - 01:17:50:10
Jeff
Yeah. I mean, I think that the, the musical portion of it is very much holding up Stevie Nicks to, to sing the song. And again, you could have a six minute song, but I feel like we just need to we need to shift to the radio. There should be. Well, if you want to have a song that long again, it's, it's drinking the same drink over and over.

01:17:50:10 - 01:17:56:07
Bryce
Again for too long. Like Bohemian Rhapsody is three acts, right? You know? Right. I mean, it's three songs, but one of whatever.

01:17:56:08 - 01:18:18:12
Jeff
Or, I don't know, there's, if I remember correctly, there were some tool songs on like Anima that were like eight minutes long, but then they went crazy into instrumental strangeness that were getting over here. Like, there's kind of a world where you could have the first part of the song and then maybe some, some musical transitions, some changes, some solos.

01:18:18:16 - 01:18:29:00
Jeff
Yeah, a few things. It just kind of feels like it's a good thing. It's like a, a great 25 seconds that, that just you copied and pasted too many times.

01:18:29:00 - 01:18:56:00
Bryce
I think honestly, I think in general, our feelings over this first side, I think, do speak to some of the, some of the, some of the reception of the album. Yeah. After the fact of like, this kind of feels like three solo artists whose music have been put together. It doesn't. And even if they've all worked together, it doesn't.

01:18:56:04 - 01:18:59:22
Bryce
It doesn't necessarily feel like a cohesive band at times.

01:18:59:22 - 01:19:13:21
Jeff
Like with Sarah, I think that, I mean, I'm not a take away from the band members or anything, but I think that some of the musical parts in the song, in the, in the outside of the vocals, are so simple that you could just have session people doing it, like,

01:19:13:23 - 01:19:24:16
Bryce
So to talk a little bit about Sarah. So yeah, it was this very long 16 some minute recording. Sure.

01:19:24:18 - 01:19:27:21
Jeff
And then the studio made a cut at death and.

01:19:27:23 - 01:19:56:12
Bryce
They, they cut in, in get Tusk. They kind of just skip past this a little bit of just say. And then we cut the song so that Stevie would like how we cut it, you know, this one was one of the songs that, was performed during the Tusk live, concerts. It it was longer when they performed it, because it included more verses, more of the lyrics that got cut.

01:19:56:16 - 01:20:23:21
Bryce
This alternate version that we're going to listen to does include some more verses and some more changes that you would have heard live. For example, one of the lyrics, you know, in especially in the original song, it's it goes they say it doesn't matter anymore. And in the alternate version, later on in the second half of the song, you go, it always matters what for.

01:20:23:23 - 01:20:42:03
Bryce
You know, you get a bit of an inversion with the lyrics there. Sure. Which is something you can absolutely do on a poem because you have it's much easier to make to make inches on a page, but when you're dealing with final wax, you don't get a lot of chance to be super patient like this.

01:20:42:07 - 01:21:00:22
Jeff
You know what the other thing is? Talking about that, like, I have so many this is brought up so many feelings that I, you know, haven't thought about a long time. But the idea of watching Stevie Nicks do this live, it would be a whole different story. Radiant to write. You know, just be like, eight minutes.

01:21:00:22 - 01:21:11:20
Jeff
Go on forever. Yeah. I dropped my acid three hours ago, and, like, it's it. Boy, it's really just peaking right now. And I'm just watching Stevie Nicks like, yeah, tell me this story. And, yeah, I want to live here forever.

01:21:11:21 - 01:21:23:18
Bryce
It's it's great. The live the live recordings from Fleetwood Mac there are there there are some really transcendental ones. I mean, obviously the 90 set, we can have a whole other thing about the Mac live.

01:21:23:20 - 01:21:29:07
Jeff
The spin off podcast. Yeah, for the alternative budget, the alternate take of the spices.

01:21:29:09 - 01:21:58:16
Bryce
So before we get to the alternate, the other thing I wanted to mention, we we talked about the keyboards right before we played, hear You. And you could hear them in both ears, almost like you're two pianos playing. You basically do. So they, when they got their final take, I'm going to oversimplify and paraphrase here just to get this quicker, but, Stevie plays keyboard on on this.

01:21:58:16 - 01:22:33:16
Bryce
And I guess when they recorded her vocal take, they recorded her with the keyboard and the something with the timing was kind of imperfect, that the tempo was sort of imperfect. That's why there's jazz brushes on this instead of drum sticks to keep the timing a little looser. Okay. But, that doubling that you hear with one keyboard in one ear and one in the other, one of those is Stevie playing in that original, and then the other is, I think it's Christine filling in or kind of like accompanying it.

01:22:33:18 - 01:22:34:06
Bryce
And I think.

01:22:34:06 - 01:22:36:01
Jeff
They're smoothing it over a little bit.

01:22:36:06 - 01:22:57:17
Bryce
And I also think if you go back and listen, I think they only kind of do that, like in the first verse, right in the first bit of Sarah, that effect of Dan, Dan, the tongue going back and forth left and right, because the keys are kind of coordinated a little bit. You don't get as much of that in the second half of the original of Sarah.

01:22:57:19 - 01:23:21:03
Bryce
But but what you're going to hear in this one is just one voice of keys. Okay. And so I think that is what this is, which is the at least partly that is some of those original keys. So here we go. The alternate version of Sarah. Okay.

01:31:48:06 - 01:31:51:05
Bryce
So what if we made your Sarah a little longer?

01:31:51:07 - 01:31:52:21
Jeff
Was that longer?

01:31:52:23 - 01:31:54:06
Bryce
It was about two minutes longer.

01:31:54:07 - 01:31:55:00
Jeff
Oh my goodness.

01:31:55:00 - 01:31:58:22
Bryce
Okay, two and a half. 2.25 minutes longer.

01:31:59:00 - 01:32:03:09
Jeff
Yeah. Not a not a jam. Not a big fan of that one.

01:32:03:11 - 01:32:12:00
Bryce
It, it is very much like a, sign of, like, the Fleetwood Mac is a jam band. Band? Sure is. Doing that version of Sarah.

01:32:12:00 - 01:32:15:07
Jeff
Is that where all the guys are from? I.

01:32:15:09 - 01:32:46:19
Bryce
I like the I like the little doo wop was, I think there's those, a lot of those little touches like that make this album feel would have made this album feel retro in 79, doing a 40s, 50s kind of doo wop. Okay, motif would have been a little bit retro interesting. So we got some as some of the additional lyrics, but not all of the ones even that made it into the different live versions of Sarah.

01:32:46:21 - 01:33:07:09
Bryce
Sarah. Lyrically speaking, content wise, it's kind of album about a multiple things. Yeah. If you go back and watch like the Behind the Music or anything on like Stevie Nicks, everyone all very breathlessly, oh, she writes a lot, a lot of things. Her songs are about multiple things and the song about multiple things. Okay.

01:33:07:10 - 01:33:30:22
Bryce
The Sarah in it could be Sarah record, who was one of Stevie Nicks is very close friends. She ended up, getting in a relationship with Mick Fleetwood and then marrying him. Oh, okay. So there's there's one part there. Part of the male imagery in Sarah is Mick Fleetwood, because Stevie had been in a relationship with him previously.

01:33:30:23 - 01:33:41:11
Bryce
Okay. Very briefly. So the dark wing within a dark wing, he was the protection within the storm of Fleetwood Mac, supposedly.

01:33:41:13 - 01:33:42:13
Jeff
Interesting. Okay.

01:33:42:13 - 01:34:01:06
Bryce
Yeah. The last kind of element here in Sarah was that, Sarah, would have been the name of the child. Stevie Nicks, would have had, Semicolon. It seems like Stevie Nicks had an abortion around this time.

01:34:01:08 - 01:34:02:14
Jeff
Okay.

01:34:02:16 - 01:34:27:21
Bryce
To continue her career, any number, any number of reasons why, but. Sure. There's there's a lot there in in. Sarah, I think you see a lot of lushness and higher production in the songs that are not Lindsay's. And I think Sarah is a very is like a crown jewel of that of like very, very it seems very intricate.

01:34:27:23 - 01:34:34:04
Bryce
But I also think there's a chance that it's just really, really good. Yeah, they just did it really well.

01:34:34:05 - 01:34:58:07
Jeff
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I was struck by you putting out the keyboards and the fact that the doubling wasn't there to smooth it out. Yeah, meant that it was a lot harsher. Yeah. It felt like it was interrupting the song. In fact, I think that every part of this alternate track felt like like when I first listened to this, it seemed like, you know, this is, if you like Stevie Nicks, you really do like this song.

01:34:58:07 - 01:35:24:16
Jeff
And if you don't, that's what's here. That's what's on the menu today is Stevie Nicks. But between the the initial keyboards not being smoothed out and the accompanying vocals that they added in seemed superfluous and kind of interrupting, like just drawing focus away from faces. Right. Exactly. The first time, though, was came in. My eyebrows went up because I was like, what?

01:35:24:20 - 01:35:48:17
Jeff
What is this for? She's still talking about like she's giving her Ted talk and you're just over the line, right? Yeah. So I think that, like, while you can see, I think this is one of those things where having it stripped down and even adding to it with the other keyboards in order to smooth out the overall production.

01:35:48:19 - 01:35:52:19
Jeff
The original version, I think is far superior, or at least it was for me.

01:35:52:21 - 01:36:00:17
Bryce
This is one where, like solving the solving the problem of the track was the right thing to do was kind of like all you needed to do.

01:36:00:17 - 01:36:02:03
Jeff
Yes. Yeah.

01:36:02:05 - 01:36:09:07
Bryce
Well, that'll do it for tonight. A yeah. Thank you. Jeff. Yeah, I really appreciate it. I hope you get a little bit of a new perspective.

01:36:09:07 - 01:36:17:16
Jeff
I did the band, I did. There was some interesting stuff in here. I mean, you know, it wasn't all for me, but, I like listening to a lot of different types of music, even if they aren't for me. Yeah.

01:36:17:16 - 01:36:28:06
Bryce
So I would say in, in the spectrum of, like, weird stuff I could have given you. Yeah. This is not that far out on the weirdness scale. This is all in English. Sure. Well, thank you.

01:36:28:06 - 01:36:31:09
Jeff
Jeff. Yeah. Thank you.