It had been a long time since Fleetwood Mac had released Tusk (1979), at least for those days, and to hear Christine’s piano prominently featured in the opening bars thrilled me. I remember hearing it for the first time. It’s overproduced and slick, nearly to the point of coldness, but “Hold Me”, its lead single, and another stellar Christine McVie/Lindsey Buckingham duet has a special place in my heart. Mirage hasn’t aged as well as its earlier ’70’s counterparts. #9 – Hold Me (McVie, C., Patton) Mirage (1982) Glad to see this long-time favorite from Tusk made it to my Top 10. And the three-part harmonies sound great. Stevie and the whole band actually look like they’re having a lot of fun performing the song, and it’s so funny how the audience just goes nuts whenever Lindsey and Stevie interact. “Angel” has one of my favorites, just before the fade out, “Oh they tried hard, but you’ll never catch me, yeah, yeah.” For videos Ive included the 2015 remastered track from Tusk, and also a live version from the Tusk tour. Stevie is also known for her long, ad-libbed fades where she often introduces new heretofore unheard lyrics. It adds a layer of interest for the listener. Most notably it’s Lindsey, then there’s a section with Christine, then there are a couple of parts where Stevie overdubs herself.
I also enjoy the way the harmony parts throughout jump from person to person. John McVie’s got a great, rolling bass part throughout. The distortion on Christine’s electric piano at the start adds to that feel. During the long coda, there are some layered, “ooohs,” to fill out the sound, but otherwise, it’s spare sound fits well on Tusk. Lindsey adds his guitar licks throughout, but they are not flashy, and are there really to add texture. Simple bass, drums, electric piano kick things off, and pretty much carry the entire song. Musically, it’s actually quite stripped down and bare. Stevie does a great job capturing that reflection of a past relationship well. I do love the line, “I still look up when you walk in the room.” There are those people who have been in your life, whether long-term or short, that just capture your attention whenever they’re in the same room as you. Another source cited “Angel” as the second song Nicks wrote about the Welsh Rhiannon legend. I read somewhere that it “Angel” references Nicks’ affair with Mick Fleetwood. There are a couple of theories as to the themes of the song. If I were to describe “Angel” using shorthand, I would say it was Stevie Nicks’ version of a Christine McVie song! Stevie wanted to right a light-hearted rock & roll song when she started writing “Angel.” And while it starts out like that, lyrically and stylistically it gradually morphs into a more traditional Nicks number. I’ve always loved this upbeat, jaunty Tusk cut by Stevie Nicks. Now let’s see how things play out, with Stevie Nicks kicking us off. Much more spread out than I would have expected. And most surprising? Neither of those albums show up in the Top 3! I was also surprised that 6 different Mac albums have songs in the Top 10. Biggest surprise was that Rumours is only represented once.
The winning album is 1975’s Fleetwood Mac which scores three of the Top 10 songs. A couple of surprises for me, many are not surprising. And here I find myself exploring my Top 10 Fleetwood Mac tracks.
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