Is Fleetwood Mac's "Sara" the greatest production job ever?

I thought the song was about (if anything) the child she had with Don Henley she ended up...um...aborting.

(As for the original question...well, I wanted to exploit ILM's penchant for rhetorical questions :) )

The following quote is taken from Don Henley's 1991 interview with GQ:

[Henley's prodigious romantic escapades would include an affair with Stevie Nicks, who] "I believe to the best of my knowledge became pregnant by me. And she named the [unborn] kid Sara, and she had an abortion and then wrote the song of the same name to the spirit of the aborted baby. I was building my house at the time, and there's a line in the song that says 'And when you build your house, call me.''

...

Stevie was also asked about the GQ comment in an interview with Mary Turner in 1994. She responded by saying Don had to make many an apologetic phone call.

LOL! La Dolce Daddino!

My rhetorical flourish aside, T.S. Eliot would say something about "objective correlatives," Tim.

I think neither of them are strangers to fabrication, with Henley probably more of a dick about it than even most (former) coke fiends, and Nicks more apt to tell stories about wee fairies and rainbow unicorns.

Um ... the 80's poll results are available?

But yeah, "Hold Me" >> "Sara"

1) (tack?) piano sounds like harpsichord-mandolin-dulcimer? typical buckingham production, bright, shiny, slightly clunky block chords.
2) backing vocals = that 10CC wafting-in-and-out thing; they don't sound like real voices, they sound like droning infrastructure noises

See, I think she knows exactly what she's doing. Now it's true that "Sara" and at least two of her other songs on Tusk ("Storms" and "Beautiful Child") follow this decentralized-vague vibe you describe, so different from her tight pop songs on Rumours and the s/t; but it's also the template she'll follow for most of her solo work.

http://s65.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=014YQSAA7TA7J0BHTY0X6I0YTJ

Funny how the extended version lacks everything that makes the songs so great.

i disagree with this, in many ways i like the outtake just as much, but part of that may be novelty (haw and the cleaning lady line. wasn't she already filthy rich by then???)

Take two equally amazing production jobs and strip 'em each down to the barest skeleton of words & rudimentary instrumentation. Notice that one of the two is still a good song at its lowest level, whereas the other is much weaker and can't really stand on its own. Which song of the two had the *greater* production? (Don't ask me.)

The best part of "Sara" is that Hill Street Blues piano.

"that's sarah/you are the poet in my heart/never change/never stop"

Christgau liked the production but for some reason hates Nicks:

Tusk [Reprise, 1979]
A million bucks is what I call obsessive production, but for once it means something. This is like reggae, or Eno--not only don't Lindsey Buckingham's swelling edges and dynamic separations get in the way of the music, they're inextricable from the music, or maybe they are the music. The passionate dissociation of the mix is entirely appropriate to an ensemble in which the three principals have all but disappeared (vocally) from each other's work. But only Buckingham is attuned enough to get exciting music out of a sound so spare and subtle it reveals the limits of Christine McVie's simplicity and shows Stevie Nicks up for the mooncalf she's always been. Also, it doesn't make for very good background noise. B+

http://www.robertchristgau.com/get_artist.php?name=fleetwood

I am probably the biggest defender of Tusk on ILM and this is my least favorite production job of the Nicks' songs. "Beautiful Child" is far better.

listened to tusk 3 times in the last two days. today in reverse... side 4 -> 3 - > 2 -> 1

(this ends the album with sarah. it's a good closer.)

This thread confused me until I remembered Fleetwood Mac and Starship were not the same band.

Was going to ask about the 33 1/3 book. Anyone else finish it?

i have always wanted to hear red house painters or sun kil moon cover this

I would have liked to've heard early Pretenders covering it (mainly because I've always thought Farndon/Chambers was the closest comparable rhythm section to McVie/Fleetwood, both with that rich sexy throb).

is it possible to get sick of this song?!

― max, Thursday, April 1, 2010 7:44 AM

my preliminary findings are that no it is not possible to ever get sick of this song

the outtake is always a good alternative

I made myself a playlist long ago of just Lindsey's songs from Tusk, and it's one hell of a record!

hell a McVie Tusk playlist would be one hell of a record!

Sara probably isn't the greatest production ever; it does have the best bassline in the history of recorded music.

I wouldn't call "Sara" the greatest production ever, but damn do I like the unobtrusive artifice of Buckingham-era Mac. Listening to "Tusk" through "Tango in the Night," especially, the drum parts alone are so ornate and perfectly composed ... and of course unplayable by a single drummer. "Tango" is this fascinating mix of Mick, overdubs and likely programming, at least to some extent. As on Buckingham solo albums, the drums are so fussy it's hard to tell if they're even real drums, or even played by humans.

hell a McVie Tusk playlist would be one hell of a record!

― a regina spektor is haunting europe (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, July 12, 2012 10:27 AM (5 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

True dat. Think I'll give it a try... Josh OTM too about the drums on Tango!

Sara probably isn't the greatest production ever; it does have the best bassline in the history of recorded music.

That assumes a universe in which Rhiannon doesn't exist.

Both lines sound simple and are actually pretty hard to play at all, and nearly impossible to play well; but where the bass part in Rhiannon is a really gorgeous countermelody, the Sarah line sounds like a kick drum has somehow developed the ability to sing beautifully, which is something of a miracle.

What we're both trying to say is that John McVie is a goddamn genius and people need to recognize.

he seemed like such a broken man on that classic albums movie. ;_;

aw yeah, he seemed pretty sensitive -- and still bummed that christine divorced him! he pours all that pain into the bass.

btw word is that the mac is BACK next year. w/o christine still tho.

my fave bit on the classic albums is when fleetwood is listening to a soloed bassline and goes "you're a monster john".. beautiful moment

^ Seconded.

Rhythm section solidarity.

BTW, am I the only one who feels that Nicks' persona has undergone a quasi-ethnic shift as she's gone from youth to old age? Watching her in interviews, it strikes me how Jewish she comes across these days. It feels odd to write that. It's been a subtle but striking shift: back in the seventies, she was the uber-shiksa, emerging from the eucalyptus-scented California hills; more recently, it's more like she stepped out of a deli in Forest Hills.

It can often be a challenge to locate the unchanging core of a person over the course of decades, but even more so when they appear to change ethnicities on you.

Do like the stereo shift of the piano chords from left to right. I can picture whoever engineered that track moving their hands up and down like little squirrel paws for that.

Just listened to this in earnest last night for the first time -- and I dunno about the production but the "Don Henley's aborted kid" read on the lyrics is pretty powerful.

there are like five million guitars that float in and out of this thing

that's not a nice way to discuss Stevie Nicks.

anyone else think "Over My Head" and Buckingham's solo single "Trouble" are especially noteworthy as productions?

Yes.

The last forty seconds of "Trouble"! Fleetwood's drumming!

Wasn't his drumming just looped for the whole song?

regardless, it IS awesome.

That reminds me of a story Don Henley told years ago, about your [Fleetwood Mac] song "Sara." He said you got pregnant while the two of you were dating, and Sara was the name you gave the unborn baby.

Had I married Don and had that baby, and had she been a girl, I would have named her Sara. But there was another woman in my life named Sara, who shortly after that became Mick's wife, Sara Fleetwood.

So what Henley says about the song is accurate, but it's not the entirety of the song?

Right. It's accurate, but not the entirety of it.

from: http://www.billboard.com/articles/news/6266329/stevie-nicks-interview-on-don-henley-fleetwood-mac-24-karat-gold-album

why would you have let yourself be impregnated by don henley and admit to it?

It was a status symbol back then.

DON: Fleetwood Mac were contemporaries, colleagues. It was in a sense a comfort to know they were three guys and their old ladies going through the same meteoric rise as we, and we shared a lot of stories on the road.

GLENN: First of all, though, Henley had to share Stevie with Mick Fleetwood and Lindsey!

DON: Well, yeah.

oh man

Q: Why haven't you written a memoir?

A: Because I wouldn't be able to tell the whole truth. The world is not ready for my memoir, I guarantee you. All of the men I hung out with are on their third wives by now, and the wives are all under 30. If I were to write what really happened between 1972 and now, a lot of people would be very angry with me. It'll happen some day, just not for a very long time. I won't write a book until everybody is so old that they no longer care. Like, "I'm 90, I don't care what you write about me."
I am loyal to a fault. And I have a certain loyalty to these people that I love because I do love them, and I will always love them. I cannot throw any of them under the bus until I absolutely know that they will not care.

Q: The world is ready, but the third wives are not ready.

A: The third wives are not ready. The husbands are not ready either.

Memoirs you had second thought about and decided not to publish

I hope there's a chapter devoted to Prince anecdotes.

Actually, I believe she's dished on Prince already. This was in Mojo last year:

Prince played synth on your 1983 single Stand Back, which you had written by singing new words and a new melody to his Little Red Corvette. What do you remember about the session with him at Sunset Sound?

I remember him playing basketball outside like one of the Harlem Globetrotters. He was spinning the ball on his finger and throwing it backwards into the net. In terms of the actual recording he was super-quick, Unfortunately, we couldn’t keep him locked-down there forever (laughs).

But he later sent you the backing track for Purple Rain, asking you if you wanted to write something to it.

lt was a cassette – and I’ve still got it – with the whole instrumental track and a little bit of Prince singing “Can’t get over that feeling.” or something. But it was 10 minutes long with the big guitar solo and I was overwhelmed. I told him, “Prince, I’ve listened to this a hundred times but I wouldn’t know where to start. It’s a movie,

So you turned down what became Prince’s defining song?

Right, Bit I always feel like there’s a little bit of me in it. The olive branch of him giving me that cassette was huge, but I think he would have liked a romance with me, too.

Wow. Were you flattered?

Very flattered. I remember Fleetwood Mac were in Minneapolis on tour one time and Prince came and got me right after the show. I’ m still in my chiffon stage outfit and he’s in his purple stage outfit. We get in his purple Camaro and bomb out onto the freeway at 100mph. I’m terrified, but kind of excited, too: “Shit, we’re gonna get pulled over!” So we get to his purple house and he has a studio downstairs and we try to write a song together. But I’ve just done a show and I’m tired, so I go upstairs and sleep on the floor of his purple kitchen. In the morning he wakes me up and I have some coffee and I sing a little part on the song. But I’ve got to be at the airport by 2pm to take-off with Fleetwood Mac, and you do not miss that plane. We get into the purple Camaro again. Prince bombs it down the freeway and right out on to the tarmac alongside our private jet. He comes around to open my door and we hug goodbye, but we both look like crazy people. I get on the plane and the rest of the band are like (drums fingers, rolls eyes). I’m like, “What? Nothing happened.

that's awesome!

We relived a few anecdotes on last year's Eagles thread:

Details: Really? What about you and Prince?

Stevie Nicks: Let me state this here and now: We did not have a sexual relationship--I did not let that happen.

Details: How did you meet?

Stevie Nicks: When we were recording "Stand Back" I decided to be really blatant and call Prince up and tell him that I had been inspired to write the song while listening to "Little Red Corvette." I told him that I figured my song was half his. He came over to the studio where I was recording and listened to it--as I turned extremely white and started to shake. Then he walked over to the piano and put on a really incredible keyboard track. And not only did Prince make it up right on the spot, he played it with only two fingers. Then he left.

Details: Did you see him again?

Stevie Nicks: Yes, when I was on the road a year or so later. I was sick, and Prince brought some cough syrup up to my hotel room. He was sweet--he walked around the room folding things, fluffing pillows, tidying up in general. Then he gave me a spoon of it himself. But when I asked for another spoonful he changed--he said, "I didn't come all the way up here just to get you hooked on another substance!" Then he left.

Details: Do you still see him?

Stevie Nicks: No. I was at the premiere of Purple Rain, and in the scene where he slaps Apollonia I freaked and had to go sit in the bathroom. Afterward I went back to see him, and when he asked why I'd left, I had to tell him, "When you popped Apollonia, it kinda popped my brain." He looked at me like it just killed him. We've never spoken since. (sighs) It’s a shame, really...we were alike in so many ways.

Details: Such as?

Stevie Nicks: Well, for one thing, we both liked wearing black chiffon around the house.

But I’ve just done a show and I’m tired, so I go upstairs and sleep on the floor of his purple kitchen. In the morning he wakes me up and I have some coffee

not purple coffee? disappointing.

Prince stevie shippers should be a thing

I'll bite. It's definitely in the conversation of greatest production jobs ever. Absolutely Stevie at her best, a song to herself, her unborn child, to Mick Fleetwood/Don Henley, who knows, but it just devastatingly captures the universal with 'Drowning in the sea of love/Where everyone would love to drown'. The much-lauded FM rhythm section somehow locks in and swings without ever seeming obtrusive, and while it probably would have been tempting for most bands to carry that swing-side even further, the band recognizes that unless there's that terra firma underneath at say 1:25, the whole thing will be swept out in it's cocaine psychosis longings. But enough of the bedrock, the doubled piano/guitar trick isn't the most unusual choice but provides this baroque quality to what on the demo is essentially a Carole King/I-II-V chord progression; then the hard panning of the acoustic guitars at :39 and we're off. In less capable hands the 'and he was just like/a great dark wing' would have you focus in on the weakest lyrical part of the song, but the backing vocals just keep layering in to create a sum much greater than it's parts-and notice how they smartly get out of the way when Nicks launches into her brilliant pleading to 'Sara' (?), which alternates so beautifully between a frightened pleading and a refusal to surrender. At this point I don't who the song is addressing, and yet I know it perfectly. Another trip off, 'The night is coming' and there's a dread to that line that I adore, and then back to the McVie/Fleetwood-anchored Sea.

Tusk certainly has it's flaws, take your pick; it's too long obviously (though that is part of the charm), the sequencing really makes no thematic sense, I find Buckingham's songs to be a bit repetitive, the arrangement/production on McVie's songs is either sublime ('Think About Me') or boring ('Never Forget'), but 'Sara' to me captures something that say 'Gold Dust Woman', while a great song, never fully delivers.

I think Silver Spring is peak Nicks, production and vocal and lyrics. I can't believe they didn't bend over backwards to squeaze it into Rumours.

Terrific post, campreverb.

Goose pimple moment: when Nicks suddenly roars, 'ALL I EVER WANTED' before the fade.

Hey thanks-odd that this thread popped up today, I was listening to 'Sara' just last night in all its glory on the car stereo.

prince story is great!

in almost every prince story i've heard, he's quite a gentleman

every time i listen to sara i think about this thread title

Requested this for wedding this week! No eagles, though!