Bryce: And we're back hello everybody welcome back to side c of two tusks yeah i'm bryce hi jeff oh.
Jeff: Do we have a name now.
Bryce: Oh yes we have a name legitimate name oh yes i'm calling
Bryce: it two tusks two tusks welcome back we're here for side c we are halfway through
Bryce: fleetwood max 1979 album tusk and today we're gonna be talking about uh the
Bryce: third uh disc the third side everything from angel all the way down to i know
Bryce: i'm not wrong um welcome back jeff oh.
Jeff: Thank you thanks for having me.
Bryce: I i am excited to talk about this because there's a lot of really good stories
Bryce: in these five songs um and also i think there's a a nice little diversity of
Bryce: sounds i think this is a really nice side just to kind of get general impressions and it's.
Jeff: Really interesting i feel like it um i feel like it changed dramatically.
Bryce: I feel like the.
Jeff: Songs we have here are very different than the stuff from the first uh disc entirely.
Bryce: Yeah and all of them feel different and different to each other yeah you want
Bryce: to jump into uh track one yeah.
Jeff: Absolutely let's go.
Bryce: Okay this is the stevie nicks uh single angel this is a uh kind of kind of country
Bryce: dance hall sort of song you want to do a preview of it absolutely here we go.
Bryce: So that's Angel. Very poppy.
Bryce: For all of the Stevie Nicks songs,
Bryce: certainly all the ones that we've gone through, it's the most upbeat.
Bryce: I guess maybe Sisters of the Moon. Man, that's right. We're just coming off
Bryce: of Sisters of the Moon. Oh my gosh.
Jeff: Yeah. What a swerve. What a swerve. When you put on that second disc,
Jeff: you're like, oh, I was in a whole different mood just a minute ago.
Bryce: How do you feel about Angel?
Jeff: Um angel frustrates me uh because i really
Jeff: like 75 to 80
Jeff: percent of it uh and i have some some issues
Jeff: with it's so pedantic i don't know i what is what i don't know when you listen
Jeff: to one song over and over again and you get really into it you're just like
Jeff: oh i wish this one thing was like a little different yeah and for me it's the
Jeff: uh what it would it be like the bridge um or the,
Jeff: chorus the like the rhyme between good
Jeff: and understood and good and very good
Jeff: it's it's just it's very very good
Jeff: well and the thing is that when i was listening to it last night i pulled up
Jeff: the lyrics the rest of the lyrics are incredible yeah like this the ghosts and
Jeff: the fog and there's all this stuff in it it unlike a lot of the previous db
Jeff: nicks songs we've listened to it's got a good tempo uh a lot of the other musicians
Jeff: are getting to put in these little flourishes especially at the end um and john's bass.
Bryce: Is all over this.
Jeff: Yeah mix.
Bryce: Drumming is there's there's a there's like a little technique that he does.
Jeff: Kind of in.
Bryce: Between each phrase with the high hat where it's like.
Jeff: A little fill like a little flourish yeah and.
Bryce: And i love it because i feel like yeah,
Bryce: I feel like this band likes to have fun. I think they like, I think they do songs that are fun to do.
Bryce: I think there's a fun element to like, this is a fun song to sing.
Jeff: Yeah.
Bryce: You know, like I, I agree that especially those courts, the course lyrics are really simplistic.
Jeff: Right. Especially for a song called angel. The fact that it's like two thirds
Jeff: of the way through the song before we start talking about the angels,
Jeff: you know, that kind of comes in.
Jeff: Like I, at first I was like, shouldn't this be called good? like it shouldn't
Jeff: have called very very good or something.
Bryce: Like um.
Jeff: And then of course i don't know this is a standard jeff complaint it's also like six minutes long i.
Bryce: Think that it is a little bit of a longer one it could.
Jeff: Have it could have probably been trimmed down a little bit and one of the things
Jeff: that i noticed because it doesn't none of these songs have any or a lot of them
Jeff: don't have any really significant musical changes in them like a lot of songs when you.
Bryce: Listen to it.
Jeff: The chorus is like you know a whole other thing it's like you.
Bryce: Kind of have a this one a lot of cv songs
Bryce: are like this yeah right i mean sisters of the moon maybe it's
Bryce: kind of the opposite only because it's so like vocals then music
Bryce: it's very back and forth where you know we talked about
Bryce: with sarah has this progressive style where it just keeps layering
Bryce: and layering and laying on and building up yeah but not
Bryce: necessarily changing like an act
Bryce: you know um i definitely feel that um
Bryce: this is one of the songs that they recorded while um the
Bryce: film crew was in the studio okay so there was like a tusk making of this little
Bryce: mini film and so angel was one of the the songs that they're tracking during
Bryce: that and i believe it's this vocal tick that we're hearing that you they that
Bryce: they capture some of stevie performing along with like there's this very kind of,
Bryce: there's this interesting moment where she and lindsey are at a piano together
Bryce: and they're trying to work out the harmonies um and it's this very like hmm.
Bryce: Kind of contrived setup like like
Bryce: i would have thought that this was a skit almost because
Bryce: it's her and him and they're playing together and he's trying
Bryce: to play out the harmonies right so what you can do on a keyboard on
Bryce: a piano is say okay this this is the note and then play like okay this is the
Bryce: next note up we need this to be here right so when you play them together that
Bryce: they're just the right notes for the harmony you don't because sometimes people
Bryce: can do it in their by ear or in their head um but so anyway so they're doing
Bryce: this together just them at the piano,
Bryce: and they're just kind of having this back and forth of like well i need to know
Bryce: what you're gonna sing so if you're gonna give me a part and she's like well
Bryce: i just changed it it's this very like kind of upfront like oh how do you do well.
Jeff: It's funny because i didn't know if this was a good place to bring it up but
Jeff: that actually works well it's again i mentioned this last time where It's very
Jeff: strange to listen to this album where I'm only listening to like five songs at a time.
Jeff: And I feel like that blocks those songs together.
Jeff: And with this side, I felt like the last side, everybody was,
Jeff: you know, putting their laundry out on the table and really being up front with how they felt.
Bryce: Yeah.
Jeff: This side to me feels an awful lot like kind of the period of a relationship
Jeff: where you're starting to really actually get over the strong feelings and things are settling into.
Bryce: Past the honeymoon phase.
Jeff: Yeah. Well, well, more past the breakup phase where you're a little less hurt
Jeff: and a little bit more kind of coming back.
Bryce: I see. There's a funny story with Angel in the Get Tusked book.
Bryce: This was the memoir by Ken Calais and Hernan Rojas about Angel.
Bryce: And so they were tracking Angel in early April. April Fool's Day comes around.
Bryce: And they talk about the band playing little tricks on each other.
Bryce: And Hernan, the co-author of the book, he, the band, I guess,
Bryce: gets him to join in on the fun and play a prank on his girlfriend.
Bryce: And so his girlfriend, I want to say her name was, I don't remember it, sorry.
Bryce: Okay but she's gonna come into the studio and the
Bryce: idea was she would walk into the room and see oh
Bryce: ernan is like working with stevie on
Bryce: angel and uh so
Bryce: she walks in and uh and what stevie
Bryce: does is this kind of like oh ernan i'm i'm
Bryce: writing this song about you don't you get it you know like it's you
Bryce: and there's it's a
Bryce: big laugh and you know all of the band and even the girlfriend and get like
Bryce: oh ha ha that is how the brief relationship with ernan and stevie nix began
Bryce: oh yes okay it went from oh i'm joking about having a relationship with you i'm joking.
Jeff: Unless you unless you're.
Bryce: Unless you're into it i don't know that.
Jeff: I'm not joking but i'm totally.
Bryce: Okay for srs and um
Bryce: to kind of cut to the end of that by the time when
Bryce: tusk is done and the band is getting ready to perform stevie and
Bryce: ernan kind of go their own ways okay but um it's
Bryce: just a very funny a funny
Bryce: piece of the story that this song which is like stevie's kind of up song she
Bryce: even talks she talks about it in in that documentary like i wanted to have an
Bryce: up song i wanted to have something a little positive even though the lyrics
Bryce: are still pretty not necessarily positive they're kind of,
Bryce: witchy you know yeah like it goes
Bryce: through a fog right yeah like a haunted hour um so angel you know i think um
Bryce: kind of feels a little we we when we talked about uh think about me you know
Bryce: it's like it's like it's a rocking fleetwood back you kind of don't need to
Bryce: do too much with that this.
Jeff: Is what this is what i would have imagined a fleetwood max song would sound
Jeff: like before we started this this kind of uh strange experimental album.
Bryce: And also another we haven't talked about this too much but a very big brushstroke
Bryce: on this album of the country influence like this is definitely a western country
Bryce: dance hall style song yeah.
Jeff: What was the was it in the first side where there was a kind of the jug band ish.
Bryce: Kind of song was that uh the ledge was that the ledge The ledge is kind of like that.
Bryce: Oh, and, oh, no, never mind. Okay, I almost spoiled something.
Bryce: We'll just cut that. I almost spoiled something, and I'm glad I caught myself.
Jeff: Excellent, excellent.
Bryce: Yeah, the ledge kind of had some of that jug sound,
Bryce: and even like Save Me a Place, which is kind of that guitar ballad,
Bryce: has kind of that country twang to it.
Jeff: Yep.
Bryce: And so I think that's a really strong influence here in Angel,
Bryce: that after Tusk kind of goes away, there's not as much country in the rock and roll.
Jeff: Is it a thing where all musicians have one country phase in them and they just
Jeff: have to get it? Some of them stay there.
Bryce: I mean, this is an album from 1979. So their previous albums definitely have
Bryce: some country influence.
Bryce: But this one probably is stronger here, even.
Jeff: Is that kind of what the balance of folk rock is sitting in the middle of country
Jeff: and rock, and sometimes it swings one way and sometimes it swings the other kind of thing.
Bryce: Yeah, I think that's a good nail on it. You want to listen to the alternate version of Angel?
Jeff: Absolutely.
Bryce: From the alternate Tusk?
Jeff: Yes.
Bryce: All right, here we go.
Bryce: Well, there we go. The alternate angel.
Bryce: Most notably, a new vocal take from Stevie.
Jeff: Yeah.
Bryce: That is, I would say, in a lower register, it's definitely breathier.
Bryce: In a lot of cases, it sounds more sensual.
Bryce: Sometimes it's sensual. Sometimes it's very sentimental or sweet.
Jeff: Okay.
Bryce: Kind of, I don't know. the the thing i felt the other day listening to this
Bryce: take is that if this wasn't on.
Bryce: A release called the alternate tusk i think
Bryce: that this take would be completely inappropriate to release i i
Bryce: feel like it's there are
Bryce: parts of it that are really good of the vocal take and some
Bryce: of it that make me feel like this is embarrassed and this
Bryce: this is embarrassing to put out in this state like
Bryce: you there you probably could have done some dubs done some of
Bryce: these a little better and so with
Bryce: these we don't always know exactly the story it could be that this
Bryce: was one specific take um for
Bryce: some reason that wasn't spliced together with other takes or or what have you
Bryce: um and then there are some other little things that we've seen kind of across
Bryce: the board already the backup vocals are not finalized in a lot of cases they're
Bryce: wrong or out of time um the guitar on this is...
Bryce: Almost a little more like default there just is guitar on this
Bryce: song yeah where in the original it's again
Bryce: kind of addition by subtraction with the guitar like
Bryce: in the uh this kind of comes up in that tusk documentary
Bryce: as uh on the line uh i still
Bryce: look up when you come into the room you have the same white eyes the guitar
Bryce: is completely stopped at the start of that phrase and at the end in the studio
Bryce: version it just starts it comes in a little bit and they even saying like that's
Bryce: me seeing your eyes that's me online that's a scene um you.
Jeff: Always have to ask yourself like how much of this stuff is intentional and how
Jeff: much am i just ascribing uh.
Bryce: A great deal of.
Jeff: Intention to something that may have just been how it went.
Bryce: I posit that there's a good amount of intentionality okay on this level i mean
Bryce: i'm not here to say that like the guitar strings are her dad but but they did
Bryce: say that that that was something right um what else about angel i.
Jeff: Uh i think it would have been incredibly striking for this project if i had
Jeff: listened to that version.
Bryce: And then listen to the album version as the other one.
Jeff: Because i'm like oh my god what a revelation it feels like there's just you
Jeff: know the stevie knob was turned down to like.
Bryce: Five here.
Jeff: Where on the A lot of times it didn't... I think it's just because I've heard the other version.
Jeff: It didn't sound like she was singing as much.
Jeff: Like, it just sounded like, let's sing. Yeah.
Bryce: The angel. Yeah.
Jeff: And then on the musical side, when I was listening to it, it sounded very...
Jeff: It sounded very separated like everything kind
Jeff: of felt the image that came to my mind
Jeff: is it's like you know you get a burrito bowl and everything has been just put
Jeff: one off to the other you know it's like very discrete layers you need to mix
Jeff: it up and then like on the other one it was all mixed up it kind of had a a
Jeff: noisy chaos where it all kind of in the studio or the in the studio version
Jeff: where it uh it all comes together and blends together like it kind of overlaps a little
Jeff: bit more and especially where you've got you know
Jeff: the little guitar stuff the little drum stuff happening over
Jeff: here and the bass stuff and things changing i think that that kind of that kind
Jeff: of mix really keeps everything moving forward whereas here it just felt like
Jeff: everybody had to be on their best behavior because you could hear every single
Jeff: track like individually yeah um it.
Bryce: Definitely does feel the mix feels a little less unpolished feels more.
Jeff: Unpolished yeah in.
Bryce: In this alternate version for sure.
Jeff: Even though i did think that there were a few more guitar flourishes that
Jeff: i like in the alternate alternate version um i heard the
Jeff: guitar more yeah for sure i do i do kind of wish even going back to the studio
Jeff: version towards the end they really everybody really like kind of goes off the
Jeff: hook and just kind of really is going for it and i kind of wish that more of
Jeff: that energy had been present earlier earlier oh yeah.
Bryce: There is a lot of these songs on this album follow that same trajectory where
Bryce: it almost starts with a song we mentioned this a little bit where it almost
Bryce: seems like the band did realize they were starting to play.
Jeff: And they all.
Bryce: Kind of start at a different at different times um i and i definitely see that in.
Jeff: Like they all start cold and then as they play the song they kind of warm up
Jeff: and by the end sometimes you're getting some of the best parts,
Jeff: but it's like, why is this at the end? Put this in the middle.
Bryce: Because I feel like the studio version of Angel, for some reason,
Bryce: and maybe it's because of the age that I came up in, but,
Bryce: But Stevie's vocals, maybe, I think it's just the, I think it's that very first note.
Bryce: It's just that, is something about that done sound right. And it makes it feel jokey.
Bryce: It makes it feel like, oh, I'm doing country as a joke.
Bryce: But I was born in 1990 and that was when you were doing country as a joke and
Bryce: not just like as the thing you were doing.
Jeff: You could probably, I mean, for this entire album, as I think back to the songs
Jeff: that we've talked about, you could probably make a case with this album that
Jeff: Fleetwood Mac knows neither how to start or end a song very well.
Jeff: A lot of them kind of just drifted and a lot of them kind of just fade out at
Jeff: the end. And, you know, you think about stuff that has, I don't know,
Jeff: the first example that came to me was like Bohemian Rhapsody.
Jeff: It's just like, the song is starting, like, you know, where a lot of these are
Jeff: just this very kind of traditional, I'm going to start playing a guitar with little drums behind it.
Jeff: And then a few, everybody kind of joins in at their, at their leisure.
Bryce: Yeah.
Jeff: But.
Bryce: I, if I can have just a little bit of a side, Jack, here briefly.
Jeff: It's your podcast.
Bryce: Um in in like the art world
Bryce: um if you look at things
Bryce: like the dadaist movement or the fluxist movement
Bryce: you don't need to know what they are specifically but basically
Bryce: they were kind of counterculture movements against
Bryce: the way art was being platformed right
Bryce: it was why i did go to art college
Bryce: for like five years may not have a bfa okay
Bryce: we might not have a bfa and uh
Bryce: the idea of like okay well screw
Bryce: you art does not just have to be the things in a museum it's not
Bryce: just the things in a gallery it can be a pisser that
Bryce: i take off the wall it can be the painting that
Bryce: we made at a party and we all splash stuff on it um and that is a lot of what
Bryce: i feel in tusk the idea of we're going to upend capital N norms to push this
Bryce: music into another dimension.
Bryce: We're going to make this so weird because if we do it right,
Bryce: we'll find something a thousand times better than anything we could have planned.
Jeff: Interesting.
Bryce: Now I'm reading Tealy. Now I'm really reading into the guitar link.
Jeff: No, it's funny because...
Jeff: OK, this is going to sound just a little bit mean. OK, so I just want to preface this.
Jeff: I think that that very well could be the case. But I think if that is the case,
Jeff: that Fleetwood Mac is not talented enough because most of these songs,
Jeff: you know, we're not looking at a tonal chord progressions.
Jeff: We're not looking at like, you know, rhythm changes from four,
Jeff: four to three, five or like even three, three and kind of jazz.
Bryce: You kind of just get the sense of like a pop band gone mediocre.
Jeff: Right. Or it's like what it feels like to me.
Jeff: And I feel like I can say this because I personally have done this when I went
Jeff: to art school is sometimes you push yourself to be a creative genius and you
Jeff: learn that you're a journeyman workman.
Jeff: Like that you can do the thing very well, but that you're never going to be.
Bryce: You're not going to come up with E equals MC squared.
Jeff: Putting a dot on a white canvas and then having talking about the,
Jeff: you know, the importance of it in the universe.
Bryce: I mean, for what was technically the biggest pop band in the world.
Jeff: Yeah.
Bryce: Like, yeah, of course, you're not going to be able to do that.
Bryce: You motherfuckers did dreams. Like, what do you think is going to happen?
Jeff: Right. Again, I think I mentioned this in the first episode,
Jeff: but like when I think of that sort of thing, I think of a band like Captain Beefheart.
Jeff: Right. where it's just like going crazy and doing very, very strange things.
Jeff: And even some of the times that we've talked about like found sounds and instruments and stuff,
Jeff: you can kind of hear that, but it's never so much different than a traditional
Jeff: pop instrument or it's used in such a way that it, you know that something is
Jeff: different, but it's still just the backing of a track.
Jeff: Like last time we were talking about Not That Funny And you were telling me
Jeff: about how it was recorded in a prone position in this very, you know,
Jeff: and you can kind of hear that, but it's not so much different.
Jeff: Like, I don't think that when you first hear that song that you go,
Jeff: what is wrong with this man?
Jeff: Like you can imagine him standing at a microphone, singing that song in that.
Bryce: Tone so okay so my response to that is because
Bryce: i agree yeah absolutely it doesn't really sound like you don't listen to it
Bryce: completely unprompted and go why is he singing it like this he just sounds like
Bryce: he's singing it angry but i am and maybe this is my own vocal limitation but
Bryce: i feel like it's actually kind of tough to sing that song the way he sung it
Bryce: to sing it in that kind of angry,
Bryce: tone where you're not just shouting like i
Bryce: i i i'm i'm on i'm on board i'm just on the ship saying like there was land
Bryce: on the other side though sure there there might have been something over there
Bryce: sure um any other thoughts here as we round out angel just because i know like
Bryce: a lot i have a lot to talk about this week yeah.
Jeff: Absolutely let's move on i i like this song quite a bit it's just It's that
Jeff: one little chorus thing that keeps it from being like my favorite thing on the album or on this side.
Bryce: So, all right, well, let's move on to track number two. This is That's Enough for Me from Tusk.
Bryce: How about that for an ending?
Jeff: Yeah, there you go.
Bryce: Dun, dun, dun, dun.
Jeff: Even though as we started it, I was like, oh, here we go again.
Jeff: Wandered in.
Bryce: Very fuzzy. Very fuzzy guitar back. Also, it's a pretty full track,
Bryce: but arrangement-wise, it's pretty simple.
Bryce: It seems to be just guitar and bass and drum.
Jeff: Is there a banjo? Is that a banjo or is that a guitar in there? Sounds like a banjo.
Bryce: That's a great question. I want to say with the techniques that they were using
Bryce: then, it would have been a guitar played and then sped up to get that higher sound.
Bryce: It could have been a banjo.
Bryce: I know that Lindsey did have skills playing a banjo. He plays banjo in the 90s.
Bryce: But I think at the time it was kind of more just recorded and then shrink it
Bryce: up because it's a really nice sound.
Bryce: It does sound like a banjo but it almost sounds like a
Bryce: like a lute or something like a yeah like almost
Bryce: like an orchestral signed a sort of like high stringed guitar
Bryce: um and i love i i
Bryce: really love that that high guitar
Bryce: on it like it because there's
Bryce: no hi-hat there's no ride or cymbal really to
Bryce: keep you going that's like to me
Bryce: that's a little like eighth beat you know um
Bryce: kind of yeah i don't know and even the chorus of this where it's like just shout
Bryce: yeah yeah yeah like you know it's not easy to shout like that but to do it you
Bryce: have to put your whole fucking ass into it yep and they.
Jeff: Had to hang upside down.
Bryce: Uh on.
Jeff: A trapeze in order to do it.
Bryce: I am the buck,
Bryce: Um, how do you feel about that? That's enough for me.
Jeff: Um, now, traditionally, I'm not the biggest fan of when the,
Jeff: the folk needle swings too far towards country.
Bryce: Yeah.
Jeff: And the first few times I listened to the song, I was like, oh,
Jeff: this is another one of those kind of jug band, hoot nanny, uh, songs.
Jeff: But what's strange about this song is that, and it's, it's probably the length
Jeff: and it probably has something to do with the way that that guitar is.
Jeff: This song refused to to be disliked by me the more i listened to it the more
Jeff: it was like it's short it's snappy i like the kind of the the lyrical content is very kind of like,
Jeff: dark uh you know uh but in a way that i i can kind of identify with it's something
Jeff: i wish i saw more of on this album of these kind of like um like a vignette
Jeff: lyrics that are more abstract about feelings where maybe these two sentences
Jeff: don't actually make sense if you were to read them out loud in a TED talk.
Jeff: But as a like a signal of how you're like, oh, no, I know. I know that feeling.
Jeff: I've had that feeling before.
Jeff: So I ended up really liking it, even though I think the first few times I was
Jeff: like, oh, another one of these.
Jeff: And part of that too is probably the length because it's very snappy.
Bryce: It is. It's I mean, it's under two minutes. We just listen to the whole thing again.
Bryce: I think there's something in my head where I really want to connect this for
Bryce: some reason to a song that they did on Rumors,
Bryce: Never Going Back Again, which is just Lindsay singing and playing a guitar.
Bryce: And he does the finger picking, so it sounds like there are fucking three guitars
Bryce: playing at the same time.
Jeff: Sure.
Bryce: And for some reason, I feel that this song is like an inverse...
Bryce: Kin to to to that's enough for me like never going back again lyrically is like.
Bryce: I mean it's kind of what's said what's said on the tin
Bryce: like i had a bad time i'm not going to go do that again
Bryce: and this one is either from the other
Bryce: side of like yep you're coming back or this
Bryce: is what it feels like to give into the pressure
Bryce: of going back to the thing that hurt you
Bryce: yeah and yeah and i i
Bryce: you know it's not a lot of lyrics it's pretty it's
Bryce: pretty sparse but i think this is one of the times where
Bryce: lindsey's writing can shine on
Bryce: that on that critical level you know i think
Bryce: they say and get tusked that
Bryce: lindsey's like the weakest songwriter of the band and
Bryce: i wouldn't disagree if you
Bryce: they they couch it in certainly in terms of
Bryce: lyrics in terms of how his lyrics are
Bryce: put together i think they definitely can be
Bryce: kind of one note um he's a
Bryce: he's great at production i i love his
Bryce: his second uh solo album go insane but
Bryce: guess what go insane is about a lonely man who's really
Bryce: lonely and have you heard that he's lonely he's lonely
Bryce: oh oh and so that's that's we're like okay just play the guitar give me some
Bryce: fuzz yeah um and let us think about it you know um do you want to hear the alternate.
Bryce: For that's enough for me sure it is about as short as this one okay um here we go,
Bryce: That's enough for me with more jug band.
Bryce: An interesting one on the alternate tusk where the vocal track seems to pretty
Bryce: much be identical to the studio track.
Jeff: Yeah.
Bryce: There are not a lot of those or the times that there have been.
Bryce: It's not been particularly noticeable, but this one, it kind of sticks out given
Bryce: how different the backing arrangement becomes.
Bryce: You have gotten rid of all of the fuzz on the on the guitar. The bass. Yeah.
Bryce: Either it's like the unprocessed bass or it's like, but it sounds almost like a standup bass.
Jeff: Okay.
Bryce: We definitely hear the keyboards.
Bryce: You can hear kind of that, that kind of high guitar sounds like it's in there,
Bryce: but now it's not so high. Now it's just kind of like at normal speed.
Jeff: Yeah.
Bryce: And we even have the, a little extra little flavor in it, the intro of Christine going,
Bryce: i thought it for a long time i thought it was stevie saying shoot that's fast
Bryce: and in get tusked they say it's christine saying shit that's fast yeah but i
Bryce: hear shoot that's fast and i definitely hear it in stevie's voice okay so i heard shit.
Jeff: That's fast when.
Bryce: We're listening to it okay it may just.
Jeff: Be that my mind uh.
Bryce: They put it they put it hear profanity they put it in the lyrics and maybe that's
Bryce: what i was maybe that's why i'm thinking it's shoot but how do you feel about
Bryce: the defuzzed, that's enough for me.
Jeff: I think it loses something. It sounds... It's interesting out of all the songs
Jeff: that we've listened to alternate versions for.
Jeff: This one to me probably sounds the most like what I would consider a demo.
Jeff: Like when you hear unreleased... You used to get albums of unreleased stuff
Jeff: and you would hear like, oh, here's the demo version of this popular song.
Jeff: And what always strikes me is it feels like...
Jeff: I don't know how to say this because I don't do as much audio production but
Jeff: um uh maybe this
Jeff: works when it sounds like
Jeff: there's more like room tone in there like you
Jeff: would maybe compress the the waveform so that you didn't have anything but the
Jeff: music so there was you were just focusing on the music so what fills your ears
Jeff: is just music and lyrics yeah whereas in here it sounded like emptier it sounded
Jeff: like it was in a big room um and it was distracting i.
Bryce: Think that's pretty likely i mean the studio version is so is so compressed.
Jeff: Yeah and.
Bryce: Is so you know all of the dynamic ranges so squeezed out um,
Bryce: but i think across the board i mean i've tried not
Bryce: to look at like the waveforms or match things up
Bryce: you know or anything but the one thing i have noticed in editing
Bryce: this podcast is that the alternate tracks are definitely they're
Bryce: definitely less compressed there's way more dynamic range you could just fucking
Bryce: see it right you know and so i think that's part of it and some of it just has
Bryce: to come from the the changed arrangements with with the instruments on that Well.
Jeff: And for the song like this, I don't think it does it any favors.
Jeff: I think that having everything compressed into this like ultra flavorful, like form,
Jeff: like it's enough to just, I feel like this particular song, you just get swept away by it.
Jeff: Like you don't have any, you don't have any choice in it. You're going along
Jeff: for the ride for two minutes.
Jeff: And with the other one, it's like, it just felt sort of watered down and,
Jeff: you know, it was kind of hard to, to, I don't think I would have liked it nearly
Jeff: as much. like the when talking about how i didn't want to like it then i ended
Jeff: up like i don't think i would have liked.
Bryce: That alternate.
Jeff: Take as much.
Bryce: Yeah um also i think um the drums
Bryce: on this are pretty different i knew
Bryce: that elsewhere on this album they've done things where
Bryce: they've taken drums and processed them a lot to make
Bryce: them sound different or fuller or bigger and this
Bryce: is one where i i have to
Bryce: assume that this it's so weird because the voice track is the same and you they
Bryce: don't always do that if they have a new voice track to use but this one does
Bryce: have like harmonies and has double vocals so then maybe it's good enough to
Bryce: solve it i'm just trying to figure out,
Bryce: where it sits with the drums because that alternate version the drums are super
Bryce: light it sounds like it's on a little kit with brushes or something and then
Bryce: the studio version is bam
Bryce: bam bam bam bam bam a hundred percent and i think that's just a little bit of
Bryce: a question mark i guess i've got on that because,
Bryce: it's it's really it is so different but i
Bryce: can see a world where where they could say yeah like
Bryce: this alternate version is just the clean version of the studio or there's just
Bryce: less process we turn the processing on we threw the keyboards back in yeah maybe
Bryce: this was an early you know some of these it's like uh maybe this is what it
Bryce: looked the song looked like an early phase of an early an earlier stage but
Bryce: maybe not a different demo or.
Jeff: It's just an alternate take that didn't have any of the work that went into
Jeff: making the the final version sound like it actually did.
Bryce: Like maybe this.
Jeff: Is what that version sounded like when it first was recorded and then you go
Jeff: in and you work with it you work with it you work with it what you get out is that kind of processed.
Bryce: Yeah version so that's certainly um the
Bryce: story of a lot of the other songs here including some of the
Bryce: other songs on this album yep including uh
Bryce: number three you want to move on to broad eyes let's do it all right
Bryce: this is another christine mcvee joint and
Bryce: um right before we get in i we're going to listen to the preview here um my
Bryce: recommendation for listening is listen for the guitar listen for the electric
Bryce: guitar and where it is exactly where along the arrangement of the song is it
Bryce: in the intro or is it there in the bridge is it in the verse chorus etc okay.
Bryce: All right brown eyes from fleetwood mac,
Bryce: Alright, that's Brown Eyes. I like that song a lot. How do you feel about Brown Eyes?
Jeff: This song frustrates me to do that.
Bryce: Oh, really?
Jeff: This is going to be one of those ones I think we're doing our opposite of the spectrum.
Jeff: No, it's funny. I listen to this song a number of times, and every time I listen
Jeff: to it, I think the same thing.
Jeff: This feels like the 90 second
Jeff: intro before the song before the
Jeff: drums and in the air tonight come in and it turns into a different song like
Jeff: it feels like uh it feels like it's building to something and then it and then
Jeff: it's sha la la la and then it ends i'm not a big fan of the sha la la's um as
Jeff: a as a lyric i think that um that's.
Bryce: Two songs in a row where the chorus is just shalala shalala yeah.
Jeff: Yeah i mean at least that like in
Jeff: this that's enough for me it's like that's a
Jeff: very spartan song right so yeah it's
Jeff: shorter it's two minutes or is this one just kind of meanders along and then
Jeff: we've got a lot of shalala's uh to meander through and it's one of the reasons
Jeff: that that's frustrating to me is because i have seen evidence that this band
Jeff: could turn out great lyrical content.
Jeff: I have seen that Christine McVie can turn out great lyrical content.
Bryce: I was just talking to her up a minute ago.
Jeff: Put some lyrics, Christine.
Bryce: Yeah. Yeah.
Jeff: And it's not like the background music. It's a very, I don't know,
Jeff: it's a very soothing song if that's what you're into.
Jeff: I'm usually looking for a little bit more. I kind of want the songs to punch me in the face.
Bryce: Sure. This is definitely not a driving rock song.
Jeff: Yeah. It's kind of a warm bath song.
Bryce: Oh, yeah. It is kind of a seductive song with the lyrics. You know,
Bryce: with those brown eyes. What are you doing?
Jeff: Yeah.
Bryce: The guitar, we talked about the guitar just before we listened to it.
Bryce: It is pretty much not there until the chorus.
Jeff: Yep.
Bryce: And even when it's in the chorus, if you go back and listen,
Bryce: it's got a very heavy, like a wah-wah filter type of filter.
Bryce: It would have been a wah-wah back then.
Bryce: Now it's like an auto, we'd call it like an auto filter.
Jeff: Okay.
Bryce: But the, and the speeds are like very high. You can, you can kind of hear not
Bryce: like a guitar solo, but some sort of melody during that bridge.
Bryce: But the wah-wahs are also kind of happening in time.
Bryce: Okay. So you get this very like, I'm moving my hand because I don't have like,
Bryce: there's just a, it's, I don't know how to describe this.
Jeff: Yeah.
Bryce: It's, it's.
Bryce: So like with a wah-wah okay what a wah very quickly
Bryce: what a wah-wah is it's like a low-pass filter it's
Bryce: a filter basically yeah and it uh moves how
Bryce: much of the eq is filtered from very little
Bryce: to where you hear the whole thing all the way down to very uh almost
Bryce: all of it where you hear warm you're just
Bryce: just the lowest frequency you don't hear anything and
Bryce: if you go back and forth like that you do that in time
Bryce: then you get a very interesting like it's
Bryce: similar to like a it's similar to a
Bryce: tremolo it's similar to a vibrato but where
Bryce: those are pitch and volume this
Bryce: is the eq anyway that's your
Bryce: music lesson for the song um but another song where uh the guitars are addition
Bryce: by subtraction this is not really a tar song it's another funky bass song And
Bryce: it gives plenty of space for John to hit every single note.
Bryce: I mean, he doesn't really like get crazy with the bass, but that's not what he's doing in the song.
Bryce: He is here to be as much as like the metronome of the drums are to be on time.
Bryce: And because it's it's so big how how the bass guitar and the keys play off of each other.
Jeff: Um yeah i mean i guess that with with with so
Jeff: much with so few lyrics to get
Jeff: in the way i wish that there was a little bit more a
Jeff: little bit more complexity a little bit more letting people off the hook a little
Jeff: bit to do a little bit more fun stuff oh i see that yeah um like if the sha
Jeff: la la laws were like a on every other line and then you had a kind of a conversation
Jeff: between a guitar solo that goes back to sha la la or whatever like you can i
Jeff: can think of a few ways that you could maybe,
Jeff: jazz it up a little bit um.
Bryce: Some other things uh about brown eyes before we go to the alternate and they
Bryce: double tracked the rim click so that you the click that you hear through the
Bryce: whole track basically um so they double tracked it basically they recorded a
Bryce: take and then they had mick go and do just another take of just the click just that rim click oh.
Jeff: The uh where you're hitting the stick on the side.
Bryce: Yes yeah yeah okay and um mick didn't love doing that he was pretty much just
Bryce: click click click click for an hour yeah and uh that was really not a fun part of the recording it's.
Jeff: Not very fun unless you get to go back to you get to do some a few rim rim shots
Jeff: and then you get to go back to doing the actual drums.
Bryce: Yeah um another thing this is from get tusked but uh we talked previously christine
Bryce: was uh seeing dennis wilson at the time uh of the of the beach boys and um an
Bryce: interesting thing that they don't go into more detail in the book is that Dennis
Bryce: Wilson has green eyes, not brown eyes.
Jeff: Oh. Well, who are you talking about.
Bryce: Christine? Who are we talking about?
Jeff: Maybe she's just trying to throw everybody off the set. It's like,
Jeff: oh, I'd love those men with those brown eyes.
Bryce: Yeah. Well, I mean, the album is called Tusk.
Bryce: We can also take brown eyes to mean other things as well.
Jeff: Sure. I can actually see, I mean, now that you mention it, I forgot about the
Jeff: Beach Boys connection, but the Sha La La's do have a lot of Beach Boys.
Bryce: Kind of DNA.
Jeff: But it usually works better when you have like a five-part harmony.
Bryce: We're going to listen to, at the closing of this, we're going to listen to the
Bryce: live, a live version of Brown Eyes.
Bryce: And when you hear the shalalas, guess what? They're shalalas.
Bryce: It's Christine and Stevie and Lindsay.
Jeff: Oh, okay.
Bryce: And it sounds different. It's different, but it works really, really well on stage.
Jeff: There is something appealing to hearing multiple people singing together.
Jeff: Like, I don't know what it is, but it just, it makes it, I don't think I've
Jeff: ever heard a chorus where I've been like, ooh, no, get rid of the other two
Jeff: and let's just have the one.
Bryce: Yeah. It definitely makes the song feel a little different as well.
Bryce: It's maybe not as seductive, but still kind of cool.
Bryce: I think it's a cool song. It's a cool song. Maybe not seductive.
Jeff: Popping its collar.
Bryce: On the live one. Before we listen to the alternate version of Brown Eyes,
Bryce: I do want to play just a little bit. I want to play the end of the regular Brown Eyes for you.
Jeff: Okay.
Bryce: Because like other Fleetwood Mac songs, this one has a fade out.
Bryce: And like other Fleetwood Mac songs, there's stuff in the fade out.
Bryce: There's stuff in the fade out. All right. Here's that fade out.
Jeff: Like a ghost in fog.
Bryce: You want a little bit of guitar?
Jeff: I'm sorry. I'm sorry. That's so funny because when you said that,
Jeff: it just made me think that all of these songs, a lot of these songs have been
Jeff: very just like, okay, just play the drums. You just play the beat.
Jeff: And then it's like, okay, we're getting ready to fade out. It's like,
Jeff: all right, I can just do whatever I want to. I can have a little solo right here.
Jeff: I can finally get out some of the creativity that I wanted to do.
Bryce: Put it in that.
Jeff: Okay.
Bryce: All right.
Jeff: All right.
Bryce: Now, it's time for the alternate, Brown Eyes.
Jeff: Okay.
Bryce: That's the alternate brown eyes.
Jeff: Well, where was this energy the whole time? That was amazing.
Bryce: Okay, let's play a quick game.
Jeff: Okay.
Bryce: There are three broad, general differences that I found that I think you could
Bryce: spot between that and the studio brown eyes.
Jeff: Okay.
Bryce: Could you, can you take a crack at what those three things probably are?
Bryce: They will be pretty obvious.
Jeff: Okay well obviously there's like four times as many lyrics as there are in the
Jeff: the the studio version brand new lyrics yeah a.
Bryce: Couple of lines in the chorus now yep some vamps at the end.
Jeff: Okay yes feels a lot fuller absolutely um
Jeff: uh i would definitely say that
Jeff: i mean because you pointed it out the guitar is much more
Jeff: present here uh a lot of guitar in it
Jeff: with a lot more kind of like improvisation and stuff
Jeff: that feels like it's it's really kind of filling in some of
Jeff: the gaps or some of the i don't
Jeff: want to say monotony but some of the more simplistic parts of
Jeff: the original yeah where there's like a lot more kind of guitar brought
Jeff: up to the front it's kind of what i've been wanting james lindsey
Jeff: to do this entire time is like come up in here with some of them high notes
Jeff: give me some little solos and stuff like show me your chops um also i noticed
Jeff: a lot more i don't know just had a lot more everything i don't remember because
Jeff: i'll be honest with you this was the song that i listened to least to on the
Jeff: album sure i'm not as familiar with it but,
Jeff: um there was a lot more drums and i don't know in the original version i think
Jeff: that there were parts where we went from the the kind of the rim hits to full-on
Jeff: snare drums but yeah i don't know just everything in here was just a lot there's
Jeff: a lot more there's a lot more of it yeah yeah um Yeah.
Bryce: I mean, you basically got it. In fact, the only thing, the only kind of difference
Bryce: would be that for some reason, Brown Eyes, the studio version of Brown Eyes,
Bryce: ends, I think it ends the same way as this alternate version does in that it
Bryce: has some shalala's and then there's a small phrase of just clicks to kind of wrap things up.
Bryce: But I think the fade out is so heavy on Brown Eyes, the studio version, you don't hear it.
Bryce: Whereas here you basically don't have that fade and i think you hear it all the way to the end so,
Bryce: good good catch on on all of those things um i've
Bryce: got a lot of story behind brown eyes that you would never have known okay so
Bryce: i'm not going to hang that over your head so back when fleetwood mac was first
Bryce: formed uh the original members uh included mick fleetwood and john mcphee But
Bryce: the guitarist at the time was Peter Green.
Bryce: He leaves the band in the early 70s. He has a bad LSD trip.
Jeff: This is during the jazz, the kind of the jazzy, funky times.
Bryce: Yeah. Yeah.
Bryce: And he has a bad LSD trip in somewhere in like Munich or Germany.
Bryce: And he's kind of overboard at that point. And so that leads to Fleetwood Mac
Bryce: looking for new guitarists, ultimately getting us to Lindsay and Stevie, joining the band.
Bryce: At some point when they're recording to us, they're recording it in L.A.
Bryce: At the Village Recorder, Studio D.
Bryce: And I guess word has kind of got out that Fleetwood Mac is in town and is recording.
Bryce: And hey, they're a bunch of hooligans. And so at one point, one Peter Green
Bryce: shows up and says, like, hey, what are you guys working on?
Bryce: And on the alternate tusk, most of the tracks are, they don't say,
Bryce: like, alternate version. They have a date on them.
Bryce: Brown Eyes doesn't have a date. Instead, it says, with Lindsay and Peter Green.
Jeff: Oh.
Bryce: This take is Lindsay and Peter Green playing together.
Jeff: Oh.
Bryce: So there is more guitar.
Jeff: Okay.
Bryce: There's fucking twice in it.
Jeff: And that would explain why it feels so different it feels so fucking different
Jeff: it's more like a blues song, more like a jazz song.
Bryce: There's a little technique that I presume Peter Green does a lot in this version
Bryce: where it's like going back and forth between two notes,
Bryce: and it's all over this alternate version and
Bryce: it's only in the fade out
Bryce: of the studio version oh see peter
Bryce: green came in and they recorded stuff with peter green yeah oh my god the original
Bryce: fleetwood mac guitarist but addition by subtraction and what the band has said
Bryce: is the only part that peter green is playing in the studio album is that lick
Bryce: in the fade out wow everything else oh yes what.
Jeff: A what a nice what a nice little homage a little easter egg for people Oh.
Bryce: I don't think I, I, I genuinely, I don't listen to, I mean, this,
Bryce: there's cool stuff in this alternate version, but I think it makes me like the
Bryce: studio version better. I like it.
Bryce: Than the negative space in the track i like kind of how cleared it is of guitars
Bryce: i mean don't get me wrong it's great and i think um what the guitar does in this alternate version,
Bryce: throw it in the live version do it in something else but i i don't know i i
Bryce: really sold more on the studio version with less guitar interesting you know
Bryce: but i i i'm gonna guess you disagree Well.
Jeff: Oh, yeah, yeah. I like the alternate version better, but I'm a more.
Jeff: Give me more. I'm a maximalist. I'm a hedonist. I'm a maximalist. Just give it to me.
Jeff: But, you know, it's funny when you tell that story, because,
Jeff: again, with all this stuff, you can never be sure whether you're a scribe meeting
Jeff: where there is none, right?
Jeff: But it feels like that alternate version, knowing that is like these three people
Jeff: that know each other slipping back into their old ways of just like,
Jeff: you know, we're noodling around and we're having fun and we know how to play
Jeff: with each other, especially.
Jeff: And again, you've read the book and I haven't, but like, there's a lot of Lindsay
Jeff: control stories that we've heard before.
Jeff: So the idea of just having the guitarist that, you know, come in and especially
Jeff: with a song like this, where, you know, the structure of the song is mostly bass and drums.
Jeff: I mean, like the, the lyrics can, can come in, but there's not so many of them.
Jeff: It's not like a Stevie Nicks song where you, you're really booing up the lyrics, right?
Bryce: Right.
Jeff: You just need to leave space for that.
Bryce: Even this alternate version where the lyrics are totally different.
Jeff: Right.
Bryce: There's still only so many lines.
Jeff: Right. There's a lot of shalala's. You can get away with doing stuff with the,
Jeff: you know, with and around the shalala's.
Jeff: So, I mean, again, I may be just putting my own thing out there,
Jeff: but it does sound that version sounded like everybody was having a little bit
Jeff: better time, which I maybe, maybe.
Bryce: Which.
Jeff: Again you know if you if you like the the more subdued version right that's
Jeff: a more kind of controlled edit of like we're being very intentional with what's
Jeff: going on whereas that one did give off more like jam vibes to.
Bryce: Me um and the studio version
Bryce: kind of reminds me a little bit of um from
Bryce: the rumors album uh gold dust
Bryce: woman a little bit the one where it's uh
Bryce: uh the the cowbell and instead
Bryce: of the snare and it's a it's a stevie nicks song just because
Bryce: it's another kind of darker kind of undersold song
Bryce: it's just being cool it's just doing its thing it's just being a mood yeah just
Bryce: the mood of a song sure um i think what happens is they record this version
Bryce: of brown eyes with some early version of lyrics and as it gets pared down and down,
Bryce: I presume there's a change, you know, rewrite the lyrics, rewrite them a different,
Bryce: because also the vocal treatment for Christine on this alternate version is completely different.
Jeff: Yeah.
Bryce: In the studio version, it's like doubled. So it almost sounds like a chorus.
Bryce: Like it doesn't sound like there's a distinct first person voice.
Jeff: Sure.
Bryce: It sounds like two or three voices where here it's definitely Christine singing
Bryce: without really any doubling.
Jeff: Yeah.
Bryce: Like backups. Hey everyone, just a quick intermission and we'll get back to
Bryce: the music. If you're enjoying Side C, Side D will be released in two weeks, but why wait?
Bryce: Listen to all four sides right now by subscribing on Patreon,
Bryce: patreon.com slash lfgx.
Bryce: Get the podcast feed for full-length previews and enhanced audio quality for
Bryce: the biggest, best Two Tusks experience.
Bryce: My name is Bryce Castillo. Check out the Marbles racing streams I do at the
Bryce: website marbles.win or follow me on Twitch at Brycas, B-R-Y-C-A-S to join in
Bryce: on the fun every Thursday night.
Bryce: My co-host is Jeff S. Thank you to him for joining me and please show him some
Bryce: love over on Rage Select, where he's been covering new video game releases for over a decade.
Bryce: That's Rage Select on YouTube or RageSelect.com. You're listening to Two Tusks,
Bryce: hosted by Bryce C. and Jeff S., produced by Bryce Castillo.
Bryce: Fleetwood Mac's music, including Tusk Deluxe and Live Deluxe,
Bryce: are available everywhere from Warner Records. Now, back to the Tusks.
Bryce: Got our own baby, won't you check it and see?
Bryce: You got a favor, it's 103.
Bryce: All right, three down, two more to go. Why don't we jump into Never Make Me
Bryce: Cry? This is another Christine song.
Bryce: Oh, a beautiful Christine McVie ballad. How do you feel about Never Make Me Cry?
Jeff: It's not my favorite, but it's a good song. It's just it's not necessarily my speed.
Jeff: While I was listening to it, I thought, I think Christine McVie might have written
Jeff: the world's greatest eighth grade dance, slow dance, let's slow it down song.
Jeff: Because it's not too long.
Bryce: It's not too long.
Jeff: I don't want people slow dancing for too long. It doesn't have any really objectionable lyrical content.
Bryce: She's even kind of crooning. Another sort of example of like kind of country,
Bryce: almost a little with her, just a little bit of her vocal lilt.
Bryce: This was, it's another short track. It's only like two verses.
Bryce: The ending is pretty quick.
Bryce: It does have like a interlude in the middle of it. Not exactly like a bridge or solo.
Bryce: No. um uh from
Bryce: get tusked the backing of this is about is like nine different guitars and each
Bryce: of them have been processed and handled in different ways okay um to give them
Bryce: a lot of character um this was
Bryce: a song that was written by christine apparently she wrote it on a yacht,
Bryce: for Dennis with Dennis,
Bryce: and this is like her love song to Dennis.
Jeff: Okay.
Bryce: Dennis is a bit of a party boy. He passed away a few years after Tusk came out,
Bryce: doing a lot of drinking and drugging.
Jeff: Yeah. And that makes a lot of sense because there is a I mean this is kind of
Jeff: a melancholy song as well with this this kind of strange like I'm going to love
Jeff: you no matter what do what you want.
Bryce: Yeah.
Jeff: You know.
Bryce: We talked about Was it Think About Me? You mentioned kind of the passivity of love in there.
Bryce: And I think that's very similar here. I think in the book, they describe it
Bryce: as it's her saying she's not going to clip his wings, basically.
Bryce: And another thing of them described, they described like the soundscape of this
Bryce: as Christine singing this from the bottom of the ocean.
Jeff: Okay, I can kind of see that.
Bryce: Right?
Jeff: It's kind of got some, you can kind of see the light coming through from way up above.
Bryce: Buoys and the seagulls. Yeah, absolutely. And...
Bryce: I think that just, I don't want to say that that makes this song better,
Bryce: but I really like that image that doesn't necessarily come across just in the music.
Bryce: But I think if you give someone enough to be like, oh, the bottom of the sea,
Bryce: and you're like, oh, you can kind of imagine the water ripples,
Bryce: and you can imagine, oh, okay.
Jeff: They did a 90s music video with some cheap CGI.
Jeff: Yeah the strong spotlight yeah
Jeff: just on christine yeah it also kind of reminds me just a
Jeff: little bit of um the emotional content
Jeff: of that's enough for me of this kind of there's like
Jeff: a pain but the pain is okay kind of
Jeff: vibe yeah i don't know i felt some kinship kind of between those was what contributed
Jeff: to me to this side being this kind of like post the bombastic breakup the more
Jeff: kind of just kind of sucks but you're getting better a little bit at a time type of thing.
Bryce: The perspective of this the lyrics on this song are I mean it starts with go and do what you want.
Jeff: Right.
Bryce: Which is is very passive it's very it's a little subservient like go ahead fuck
Bryce: around drink and drug whatever,
Bryce: but that is its own form of love I guess.
Jeff: I mean it's the it's experience experience of of of having accepted that you
Jeff: are emotionally connected to a mess right yeah is that like i i'm not going
Jeff: to be able to fix them i don't know how long this is going to last but i'm just
Jeff: going to never make me cry yeah yeah.
Bryce: It's almost a little easy come easy go with that like thinking about like the
Bryce: statement like you'll never make me cry.
Jeff: Someone.
Bryce: Who's cried before i,
Bryce: i i wouldn't throw that around willing willy nilly.
Jeff: Sure you.
Bryce: Could make people could make me fucking cry.
Jeff: Um well we have an internet now bryce it's easier it's happening way faster
Jeff: than ever before no i mean but i guess you know that does bring up that it is
Jeff: a sweet song but there is a sense of separation there right it's it's it's less
Jeff: i can't give you everything intimate And then,
Jeff: you know, when people are really into each other, that's when you get the throwing
Jeff: things and singing from the prone position in the bathroom.
Jeff: Yeah. You know, that kind of intense emotion, whereas this is it's kind of a
Jeff: reminds me a little bit of the band Morphine.
Jeff: I don't know. Just the overall sentiment.
Bryce: All right. Let's jump into the I'm excited to play the alternate for you.
Jeff: OK.
Bryce: So here we go. This is from the alternate task. Never make me cry.
Bryce: The alternate never make me cry.
Jeff: Interesting. That's really interesting.
Bryce: Yes!
Jeff: Yes!
Bryce: I think that's... That's the reaction.
Jeff: I've got a lot of thoughts about that. In the beginning...
Jeff: Okay, so I'm not entirely sure, because I listened to it this first time.
Jeff: At the end, it felt like, what, about halfway through, we started getting what
Jeff: sounded like a cello or something.
Jeff: That was kind of... In the beginning, it just seemed like it was vocals and piano.
Bryce: Yeah.
Jeff: And then we got that. And at the very end, there was like kind of a little bit of string.
Bryce: A little bit of string at the end.
Jeff: Before any of that came in, my first thought was like, this is what was written
Jeff: on the yacht in front of the piano, right?
Jeff: It didn't have all this other stuff. It was just this person singing.
Jeff: I think that I appreciate the piano here more than I've appreciated anything
Jeff: that Christine has done on the piano.
Jeff: And I think it's because this is so much less of a sedate version of this song.
Jeff: This song, this version has a lot more feeling in it and it's subtle,
Jeff: but it's definitely there.
Jeff: It feels like the other one was kind of, again, compressed into a smooth song,
Jeff: whereas this feels a little bit more raw.
Jeff: And I think that part of that is because you can really feel the a lot of the
Jeff: emotion comes through in the piano, not in a keyboard, but an actual like where the when.
Bryce: That low note starts.
Jeff: To come in.
Bryce: Like it's sweeping. Yes, it's very sweeping.
Bryce: The story is pretty similar to how you called it.
Bryce: Like she had written that and had gotten the piano part down pretty, pretty well.
Bryce: I mean, it sounds so, that was maybe a strange thing I had with it, too,
Bryce: is that the piano part is so fleshed out and so done that I'm surprised we still
Bryce: went to the studio album level.
Bryce: Like because there's a world in rumors
Bryce: there's a piano ballad that christine does it's songbird and i could totally
Bryce: see someone saying like songbird 2 this is your big ballad for the album yeah
Bryce: it's your big christine ballad but i i really do appreciate and,
Bryce: taking the vocals out of that piano accompaniment and
Bryce: just highlighting them because now now when i go back and listen to the original
Bryce: sorry when i go back and look at the original i start to hear the piano kind
Bryce: of call and response sometimes i'll be like i i kind of hear it and i don't know,
Bryce: i don't know that you would have gotten to that point if you wrote just a vocal
Bryce: line for a guitar-y soundscape song.
Jeff: Yeah.
Bryce: What were you going to say?
Jeff: What I was going to say is, I don't know, again, this was really striking because
Jeff: I don't know that I've had such a reaction to one of,
Jeff: Christian McVie's songs just kind of whole cloth, is that there was like a kind
Jeff: of aggression in the piano in some of the ways that some of the hits were a
Jeff: little bit harder and you could hear them.
Jeff: That to me, in some ways, recontextualized the song of like as the impression
Jeff: that i got was that this is a lie like.
Bryce: That i.
Jeff: Do care but i know what i have to say to keep this going and you hear the feelings
Jeff: in the piano even if the words are everything's going to be all right that there's
Jeff: a kind of a there's more roiling in the musical background of the piano.
Bryce: But you know what's so funny is you say that but i agree in the opposite direction
Bryce: okay i think highlighting just a single vocal take,
Bryce: like really shows well granted
Bryce: you hear more of these like not vocal errors but just vocal strains where whatever
Bryce: for this scratch track that they recorded of her singing was not it correctly
Bryce: in time this bit was not correctly on pitch x y or z and,
Bryce: Even though the studio version's vocals are probably a little more perfect,
Bryce: all of just the very tiny ways it's imperfect are, like, magnified.
Jeff: I don't know that I have as much of a sense for that as you do.
Jeff: So, it's very possible that I'm just not hearing it, you know?
Bryce: Yeah. Like, hearing this alternate version made me completely come around to
Bryce: liking the studio version.
Jeff: Okay.
Bryce: Only because i think i was initially turned off
Bryce: a little by how slow and how
Bryce: kind of droning it is i mean i i want to know what it would have been like to
Bryce: hear this at the time because hearing the studio version now feels the aesthetic
Bryce: of the studio version today i would,
Bryce: i would my first impression would
Bryce: be oh okay this is kind of an easier production to do kind of just easier to
Bryce: drone some guitars and layer them and make them seem like a soundscape right
Bryce: but i wonder what it would have felt like back in in 79 only because that idea
Bryce: would not have been as prevalent mm-hmm.
Jeff: Interesting. I think it'd be really interesting to take this version because it is so sparse.
Jeff: And then if you could get like a karaoke track of the original version to put
Jeff: this with just the, you know, the vocals and the piano over the actual musical
Jeff: backing and see what you ended up with.
Jeff: If like the droning that you talked about got a little bit more broken up with
Jeff: the more imperfect emotional piano parts to give it a little bit more,
Jeff: a little bit oomphier of a hit.
Bryce: Yeah so i i really well i
Bryce: don't have an answer for this this isn't really talked
Bryce: about much in the get tusked book but i i would love to have been a fly on the
Bryce: wall for the conversation of going from the alternate version to the studio
Bryce: version yeah of hey let me i know we've been working on this song and you have
Bryce: a piano accompaniment and we were doing strings,
Bryce: um at one point they were recording timpanis with
Bryce: mick fleetwood that's not in that alternate track sure
Bryce: um and then to say
Bryce: hey let's try it a different way and and they make it sound like you know it
Bryce: it's not like lindsey shows up one day with this backing track like they do
Bryce: work on it for a good bit so i i i want to know how you get there yeah um i.
Jeff: Mean the other thing that's striking about it is i don't know maybe maybe you
Jeff: put this on the album and you've got this alternate track where you're like
Jeff: when we play this live this that's when you can do.
Bryce: That you do this one where.
Jeff: You know everybody gets to take a break and the spotlight is on christine and.
Bryce: Yeah the.
Jeff: Piano and just like kind of rocks it out.
Bryce: Uh for three minutes i believe this is one that did not get played live.
Jeff: Oh, okay.
Bryce: So it's... And I...
Bryce: Um i talked about go go insane
Bryce: a little bit earlier from lindsey buckingham but um
Bryce: i feel like a very similar thing happened with this and with that album which
Bryce: is he never he didn't really tour that album live much of it um partly because
Bryce: like the synths and the production stuff he was doing you couldn't you couldn't
Bryce: do live without a bunch of extra people right manning a bunch of big synths and shit three.
Jeff: Drum kits and.
Bryce: Yeah four.
Jeff: Four keyboard players.
Bryce: And so i could see that happening here where they're like well you know we could
Bryce: do a piano version but when people come to see fleetwood mac they want to they
Bryce: want to see songbird anyway they don't want never make me cry on the piano so maybe maybe i don't.
Jeff: Know the thing is i think that it sometimes when
Jeff: we talk about these it's like i do feel that you could maybe get more about
Jeff: you could you could dig into the song more if there were live versions because
Jeff: you could kind of see when you're not in this controlled studio environment
Jeff: like what does it look like what's your finished product kind of look like and
Jeff: i would i would love to hear this live.
Bryce: Yeah it's.
Jeff: The sort of thing that would be great because it's just you know she's got a
Jeff: great voice she's got a great piano.
Bryce: You can take.
Jeff: Out the the cello stuff or leave it in but um yeah kind of a shame.
Bryce: Yeah it's.
Jeff: Not a live version.
Bryce: All right it's in for track number five our final one here from sightsee i know
Bryce: i'm not wrong uh you ready to dive in let's go,
Bryce: There we go. The last song on the side. I'm not wrong.
Jeff: Yeah.
Bryce: Pop a poppy song from Lindsay kind of, uh, is that full length?
Bryce: It's about three minutes.
Jeff: Yep.
Bryce: Um, how do you feel about? I know I'm not wrong.
Jeff: Finally, my favorite thing on this entire album. So far, really so far.
Bryce: Wow. Yeah.
Jeff: And it, it took me a little while to figure out why, like I was listening to
Jeff: it and I was like, I really like this. And I was like, is the lyrics.
Jeff: And I was like, the lyrics are, are okay. I mean, you know, he's having himself a time again.
Bryce: Yeah. Hey, guess what? He's lonely.
Jeff: That's right. Well, I guess he's not wrong. At first when I listened to this,
Jeff: I was like, oh, it's not funny too.
Jeff: That's interesting. We've got a second it's not funny song.
Jeff: Yeah. But the thing is that when I went and listened to it over and over again,
Jeff: and I started listening to the way that the whole musical kind of soundscape
Jeff: was set up and the structure of the song, this is like a 90s college rock song.
Jeff: It reminds me of The music that I love from my teenage years,
Jeff: sometimes I was thinking this could be a They Might Be Giants song.
Jeff: Sometimes I was thinking this could be an alt-rock college 120 minutes on MTV song.
Jeff: This could have been from a lot of different bands. And it's so different because
Jeff: it's got like all the problems that I have with a lot of the other songs aren't here.
Jeff: Where musically it's really interesting. You've got that, it sounds like almost
Jeff: like a harmonica, that keyboard part that comes in.
Jeff: The drums are like dynamic, but they're not jazz drums where they're doing like
Jeff: fills or anything. They're just solid.
Jeff: The lyrical content is kind of abstract, but catchy.
Bryce: You have a lot of guitar on this?
Jeff: A lot of guitar, yeah.
Bryce: Yeah.
Jeff: I really like it. I really, really, really dig it.
Bryce: So, so I know I'm not wrong was one of the earliest songs written for Tusk and
Bryce: it was one of the last songs finished and finalized.
Jeff: Okay.
Bryce: Um, I guess it was kind of a frustrating process for Lindsay to figure out what
Bryce: the song would sound like.
Bryce: Um, when they re-released Tusk with a demos disc, that demo disc has,
Bryce: you know, it's got, you know, different versions of a lot of the songs.
Jeff: Sure.
Bryce: And then about six different versions of, I know I'm not wrong. but
Bryce: it if you have 30 minutes it's a fun little
Bryce: it's a fun little journey because it starts you from the
Bryce: demo which is all instrumental yeah and it's got um you know kind of a little
Bryce: like a almost like a chintzy little guitar and that harmonica bit is played
Bryce: on like a toy piano okay um and you you go through a few different versions
Bryce: you hear some pretty different takes some of the lyrics change a bit,
Bryce: but it's a really fascinating process and,
Bryce: I think it's it's really interesting that you have that reaction to the song,
Bryce: not because you've done anything wrong.
Jeff: Well, I know I'm not wrong.
Bryce: And it's not that funny.
Jeff: It's not that funny.
Bryce: But I got the sense that, like, this was kind of sent over the finish line, like just wrap it.
Bryce: I don't know. I've spent a year and a half on this one. It's not fart,
Bryce: not say farted out, but let's please wrap this up.
Jeff: Yeah. And if that's the case, then I think that you'd stumble into something
Jeff: good because I mean, I would think I'm interested to know what you think.
Jeff: I think this sounds radically different than even the more pop centric stuff
Jeff: on this album. Yeah, that strange keyboard and just like the way that the whole band is mixed.
Jeff: It feels to me a lot more modern than some of the other stuff that's on here.
Jeff: Like more experimental, more of something that you got from a later era of music
Jeff: than some of the other stuff.
Bryce: We talked about that harmonica a little bit, and it is a harmonica.
Jeff: It is a harmonica, okay.
Bryce: But it sounds fucking weird, right?
Jeff: Like a distorted harmonica.
Bryce: So in Get Tusk, they talk a little bit about it is a harmonica.
Bryce: It was recorded right onto a ribbon microphone. It's a style of microphone.
Bryce: And then they played that out through headphones and an amp. They like recorded it.
Bryce: They wanted it to sound bad. they had a musical like kind of flag that like
Bryce: no make it kind of sound bad but it sounds kind of great like if you maybe you
Bryce: can get a sense that it's a harmonica from a vet in a vacuum,
Bryce: um but i think it sounds for a long time i wasn't sure if it was a harmonica
Bryce: i thought like is it a synth is it a guitar that they're playing somehow weird i.
Jeff: Thought it was at the beginning but then i thought well surely not it's got
Jeff: to just be like a synthesizer or a keyboard of some sort.
Bryce: Yeah, but it's not. The other interesting thing about, I know I'm not wrong,
Bryce: so that melody that the harmonica plays in the studio version,
Bryce: in all of those versions on the demo disc side, they have that melody.
Bryce: It's somewhere in there.
Bryce: It's usually an instrument, but some of them it's like Lindsay's singing.
Bryce: It's in all of them.
Bryce: Except for The Alternate Tusk.
Jeff: Oh, interesting.
Bryce: It's fascinating. But I don't, I'm saying that now because I don't think,
Bryce: I don't think that's planned.
Bryce: I don't think that's a dig to like, ah, we're going to get rid of this thing that was in your song.
Bryce: Because to hear it described in Get Tusked, they speculate that it was probably
Bryce: Lindsay's favorite song for having worked on it for so long.
Bryce: But at the same time it was rehearsed even for the tusk live tour but was not
Bryce: played live interesting um and i don't think they played it live until the aughts was.
Jeff: That i mean lindsey was playing that harmonica i assume.
Bryce: I don't know i i would have to go back and
Bryce: check that rehearse footage i think in the when he
Bryce: doesn't play the harmonica in the more recent concert footage
Bryce: of it so either i think
Bryce: it was a he was saying it i think it
Bryce: was that maybe at the time there would have been a
Bryce: a piano thing um and then i know at one point sorry that this is like not as
Bryce: much detailed but i know that didn't get test they talk about one song where
Bryce: they were actually going to have one of their uh road crew play a synth so that
Bryce: there was like just an extra accompaniment interesting but they couldn't make
Bryce: it work because he had other things he had to do during the show.
Jeff: When is, when can Gary get here? We've been waiting for three hours.
Bryce: Okay, so it's time for, I know I'm not wrong, the alternate version.
Jeff: Okay.
Bryce: Let's just enjoy this one.
Jeff: All right.
Bryce: Here we go.
Bryce: The alternate i know i'm not wrong very interesting right yeah and part so,
Bryce: so when talking about the no harm harmonica in
Bryce: this i think it's because they weren't
Bryce: know they weren't sure what to do with the song and they
Bryce: talked briefly and get tusk that there was a take where they tried having stevie
Bryce: on it to see if she could if she is she is she the missing ingredient right
Bryce: um it seems like maybe not but i do like her her vocals on this her little vamps yeah it does make me.
Jeff: Curious because the big thing that stood out to me was that i think that the
Jeff: lyrical content changes a little bit without the don't blame me.
Bryce: Before i know i'm not wrong yeah and.
Jeff: I wonder what it would sound like if you had stevie singing the don't blame me.
Bryce: Parts um.
Jeff: I don't know. Generally speaking, I think that this is a little bit looser.
Jeff: This tends a little bit more towards some of the production stuff that where I just I want more.
Bryce: Yeah. And and I chalk that up to being not finished.
Jeff: Yeah.
Bryce: Right. Like even the don't blame me part, like maybe they just knew that that
Bryce: would be something they dubbed in.
Jeff: Right.
Bryce: Right. Because there is that other there is an extra lot or the different line of I could be strong.
Bryce: You know and like,
Bryce: Cut that.
Jeff: Mm-hmm.
Bryce: Get it out of here.
Jeff: Yeah, if I've got a... For this song, I'll trade Stevie for that harmonica.
Jeff: I love the harmonica. It's such a specific sound that you don't hear in any
Jeff: of the other songs that really just kind of pegs this one as different, so.
Bryce: I Know I'm Not Wrong is also a bit of a fraternal twin song.
Jeff: Mm-hmm.
Bryce: Fraternal? Fraternal? The not identical ones with Not That Funny.
Bryce: From side b uh both of them originally started
Bryce: as a demo called pins and needles and then
Bryce: they sort of split into their own songs but they both
Bryce: have a uh a here comes the night time sort of line um as well as somebody at
Bryce: the oh no don't blame me the don't blame me part is also not that funny um the
Bryce: somebody outside the door have we
Bryce: talked about this the the line somebody outside the door I think we did.
Jeff: I think we did last time.
Bryce: Yeah. Lindsay and Carol, his girlfriend at the time, their home got invaded.
Jeff: Right.
Bryce: And he had some agoraphobia about that.
Bryce: So that's interesting that that bled into both of these two very different songs.
Jeff: Um i don't know that i i have a lot of um i may not want to but i have a lot of,
Jeff: uh i sympathize a lot with lindsey about getting focused
Jeff: on specific concepts or specific ideas and then just kind of running them running
Jeff: around them just constantly you know in different iterations um for better or
Jeff: worse sometimes you get a hold of something and it's a it's a great topic that
Jeff: fulfills you and sometimes you
Jeff: kind of get manically attached to something and you can't let it go, so.
Bryce: Yeah. And I almost wonder if, like, that,
Bryce: uh is directly on top of the theme of this of the song right like,
Bryce: the the one thing i i will say about lindsey's writing
Bryce: despite being pretty simple is it's really
Bryce: straightforward and it will cut to the meaning
Bryce: even if cutting to the meaning is i
Bryce: think embarrassing or maybe a little bit of conflict right to say i know i'm
Bryce: not wrong is again kind of a bold statement like hear me out trust me i'm doing
Bryce: this we're we're flying let's go louise yep and um especially.
Jeff: When it comes right after don't blame me i know i'm not wrong this is a it's
Jeff: a strong statement right there.
Bryce: And then it it begs a further question of well what is it that you're not wrong
Bryce: about right because is it the album because the album is obviously temperamental
Bryce: it's obviously a wild card at best is.
Jeff: This is i know i'm not wrong the song a defense of tusk as an album of lindsey
Jeff: being like i did all this and it was my vision and i am not wrong you're wrong shut up.
Bryce: Or or potentially it could be i know i'm not wrong with the decisions that i
Bryce: made i know i'm not wrong to break up with stevie or to You work through XYZ issue with Carol.
Bryce: And then in that case, like, okay, actually, maybe there's it's a little more abstract.
Bryce: I'm emotionally not wrong. You know, I, you know, hey, we're not together anymore,
Bryce: but that's the right call.
Jeff: Right.
Bryce: That I'm not wrong. I know I'm not wrong. I'm not right, but I know I'm not wrong.
Jeff: Yeah.
Bryce: You know.
Bryce: Any other thoughts here on I know I'm not wrong? I think, uh,
Bryce: and another end of the, another disc side end.
Jeff: Yeah. Um, it's, it's, I think this is the first time that my favorite song from
Jeff: one of these sides has been the last one. So I think it's fun.
Jeff: I was just waiting, chomping at the bit to, to talk about this one. Cause I really like it.
Jeff: Like I, I, I'm interested once
Jeff: we get done to make a six, a six song EP of like my favorites from Tusk.
Bryce: Yeah.
Jeff: See how I feel about that as opposed to just the whole odyssey hour and 30 minutes of all four sides.
Bryce: Yeah. All right. Well, we're going to close out with a special cut.
Bryce: We're going to go with a live version of Brown Eyes.
Bryce: This was on Fleetwood Mac Live Deluxe. And then it was also included in their
Bryce: most recent Mirage Tour 82 live album.
Bryce: So it's on both of those. Here is brown eyes from live.
Bryce: A live fade out difficult to
Bryce: pull off but this is one where it kind of works yeah
Bryce: um kind of fun little flavor on the live version there
Bryce: absolutely um the shalala's feel
Bryce: different i think you can granted this is from uh when would this been 82 so
Bryce: it's a few years later lindsey's voice is a little more mature uh stevie's voice
Bryce: is settled in a little bit more but it's great i think if it's it's it's interesting
Bryce: as a live song it's not it's not a live classic or a staple of theirs,
Bryce: but it's just moody this is good mood i.
Jeff: Think a lot of the songs that i i've been less than enthusiastic about i would
Jeff: always be really interested in listening to them live because i.
Bryce: Think that.
Jeff: Sometimes too much production can get in the way of feeling it and when you're
Jeff: live that's kind of the ultimate you're feeling it like.
Bryce: They're standing there they're doing it and it really wasn't until it probably
Bryce: wasn't until the nineties or I guess the late later eighties when Lindsay left
Bryce: that up until that point, it was a pretty much a five piece band on stage.
Bryce: And so I think like, that's why a lot of Lindsay's songs from Tusk play really
Bryce: well on stage because they get equalized a bit.
Bryce: And yeah, I don't know. Some people don't like live versions of stuff,
Bryce: but maybe it's just Fleetwood Mac.
Bryce: Maybe just Fleetwood Mac is a great live band. We'll do a live band podcast next.
Jeff: Possibly.
Bryce: All right. We're going to take you out here with a live version of Brown Eyes.
Bryce: Thank you for listening. Thank you, Jeff.
Jeff: Thank you.