50 great things about Fleetwood Mac's "Tusk"

That's Rumours, dog.

oh fuck sorry

The GH version was for a long time the only full version extant

how long are the GH version and the "original Tusk version"? is what you're calling "original" the 4:39 tusk first cd release?

I don't think I've ever listened to this album without hearing something I haven't heard before.

But I'd like to mention an ol' favorite, the way "Save Me a Place" alludes to Brian Eno's "I'll Come Running."

via wiki
The version of the song featured on the original vinyl release of Tusk was the unedited 6:22 version, but when Tusk was originally released as a single compact disc in 1987 it featured the edited 4:37 version of "Sara" which leaves out the middle verse and musical bridge. It was not until the 1988 Fleetwood Mac Greatest Hits compilation was released that the 6:23 version of the song became available on compact disc. Nicks is famous for hating shortened versions of her songs.

There is also a version known as "the cleaning lady" edit, so-called as Nicks is clearly heard to say at the beginning of the demo recording, "I don't want to be a cleaning lady!" This version lasts almost nine minutes and was actually released on the 2-disc remastered version Tusk in March 2004. It contains an extended vamp, which includes excised lines previously only heard in live performances, such as, "and the wind became crazy," "no sorrow for sorrow, you can have no more," and "swallow all your pride, don't you ever change—never change."

Confession: I'm a much bigger fan of "Storms" than I am of "Sara."

another great thing about tusk -- that this of all songs was a single
http://images.45cat.com/fleetwood-mac-its-not-that-funny-1979.jpg

Ha, listening to that right now!

There is also a version known as "the cleaning lady" edit

ysi?

that's the one on the tusk bonus disc

weird that it's listed as "IT'S Not That Funny" there

Confession: I'm a much bigger fan of "Storms" than I am of "Sara."

― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, May 21, 2013 10:30 AM (3 hours ago)

Me too, by a huge margin.

I like both 'Storms' and 'Beautiful Child', but I'll always love 'Sara' more than the two of them put together.

sara is a masterpiece, the original LP version 4 life

One kinda subtle trainspottery thing I noticed about "Never Forget" is that on the outro the band sings "It Will Be All Right" 5 times with 5 different melodies (or shifts of emphasis at least).

the best timing for this thread - so many things to say

-the hypnotically simple major chord grooves on songs like honey hi and angel
-the close harmonies on angel and just the whole vocal line
-the thwomp! of The LEDGE intro
-Think About Me as the song from Rumours that wandered off got lost and showed up on the wrong record!
-everything about that's all for everyone - a brilliant song
-the easing in of the over and over intro...the pacing in general....

So much to love - the crisp airless drums on Beautiful Child - the fade-in on Honey Hi - newspaper snares on The Ledge - the chaos breakdown and building chants in Tusk - rubber band guitars on That's Enough For Me - ultra minimal drum breaks at the end of Brown Eyes - the endless falling chords and shimmering haze of That's All For Everyone - impeccable fuzz guitar thickening Think About Me - literally every track has a little treat tucked into it somewhere.
God, I have been living with this album since I was 9. If side 4 was the only music I could listen to for all time, I'd be OK with that.

excellent BBC doc from last year

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01hxpxp

man Ken Caillat is still clueless about the album.

omg seeing Fleetwood Mac in antwerp in a month OMFG.

The best, I suppose, way that I could answer that is to tell you of an experience that I had about a week ago in Ann Arbor, Michigan. We found this incredible health food store that had a restaurant, and I went in to pick out some things that I needed. And this girl came up to me. She was real tiny, real kind of dark hair, real straight, real plain, but real pretty, and she said, ‘You’re Stevie Nicks, aren’t you?’ And I said, ‘Yeah.’ She said, ‘Well, do you have a minute?’ I said, ‘Yes, I do.’ She said, ‘It’s very strange that you could have come here tonight because for a long time I have wanted to be able to walk up to you and tell you something. I am a graphic artist. I have no way with words. I draw and you sing, and you write and I create. To me, you are the best songwriter that I know. And I don’t know you.’ And I said, ‘But yes you do know me, because you were brave enough to come and tell me this.’ And she said, ‘I want you to know when you leave here that what you write makes me happy. It makes me sing, and I can’t sing. And it makes me laugh, and sometimes I don’t feel like laughing. But you have given me something, and I think that your writing is indeed something very special. And I know you hear it all the time—’ And I said, ‘Wait a minute. I don’t hear that all the time. And if you don’t tell me, who will tell me that?’
The only thing that I ever wanted my whole life was to be a good writer and to write something that might take away somebody’s pain for a moment. And the fact is, I was right, because people do at some point sit down and listen to I Have Always Been a Storm and say, ‘And so have I always been a storm.’
— Stevie Nicks (Jim Ladd 1979)

otm

Had a flash a few months ago that "I Don't Want to Know" off "Rumours" would also fit on "Tusk," if they scuffed it up a bit.

http://www.superseventies.com/oaaa/oaaa_fleetwoodmac4.jpg

That is so awesome.

why the extra packaging...

its cool though...

Angel studio outtakes:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lPn0U7qnXaY

Great live version, check the LB/SN moments around 2:30 - 3:15:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nN8MvFQKtz8

I've heard it a million times and I still can't unravel the randomness of the drums on "What Makes You Think You're the One."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qwmrzSIXA5Q

I love putting songs from "Tusk" on mixtapes for friends don't really listen to much music, who, if they know Fleetwood Mac at all, only know it from the radio. Because the Stevie/Lindsey stuff in particular is so familiar, or half-familiar, that they sort of just go with it and don't even realize how weird it is. And so they end up thinking that "Tusk"-era Mac is perfectly normal and go around listening to all the spazzy stuff like it's some hit that everyone else knows and not some cult fave.

It makes 74 minutes go by like nothing.

all i want to do is listen to 'tusk' and the stuff posted on the balearic disco thread for the rest of july

why not, you deserve to be happy

the best double album of the 70s

listening recently i noticed for the first time that the harmonies in save me a place are all multitracked lindsey, thats a great thing

This MST3K credits sequence:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MLDQOVrtgJ4

^ YES

that is one insanely expensive credit sequence if they're actually licensing everything. also, it's awesome.

The completely insane yet pleasingly non-obvious sequencing: "Over and Over" is the first song? "Never Forget" is the last song? "That's All for Everyone" is in the middle of the second side??
― Douglas (Douglas), Monday, February 23, 2004 12:09 AM (10 years ago)

I contend that "Over and Over", over time, repeated listens, stretched across the decades, slowly but surely exerts itself as the greatest album opener ever.
― collardio gelatinous, Friday, December 7, 2012 5:58 PM (1 year ago)

this issue has been on my mind lately. has anyone in the band ever talked about why they made "over and over" the album opener? it's a great song, but it's such a bizarre choice, even for a weird, sprawling double album. it's like taking the first lap of the indy 500 in first gear.

You could definitely rearrange this record, swap a few bits round, take some songs out in order to make a more personal and palatable iteration of the original. Hmm... I wonder if anyone's ever tried doing this?

all i want to do is listen to 'tusk' and the stuff posted on the balearic disco thread for the rest of july

― dude (Lamp), Friday, July 11, 2014 5:38 PM (3 weeks ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Just saw this - Lamp, have you heard this groovy edit/remix by Gigamesh?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fss3Xn5dZzU

i first heard over and over on their 1980 live album, which was the first mac album i ever bought, as a kid. and that version remains one of my all time favourite mac tracks (lindsey's guitar solo, swoon) that the Tusk version, which i heard later, can't help but disappoint.

You could definitely rearrange this record, swap a few bits round, take some songs out in order to make a more personal and palatable iteration of the original. Hmm... I wonder if anyone's ever tried doing this?

― 3kDk (dog latin), Tuesday, August 5, 2014 6:51 PM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Seriously don't get the people who shake their heads at Over and Over as track one.

Yeah me neither, really. I mean, I get that it doesn't exactly herald what's to come, but what opener would, in an album that gets as close to being three solo albums as one can get without dissolving the "band" concept entirely?

I find this to be an exquisitely gentle intro to the album. Lindsey and Stevie (and Christine for that matter) will make more urgent emotional and aesthetic demands soon enough, but why not warm up the ears and heart a little before that?

It wasn't a wrong choice as an opener, just an intriguingly unconventional one.

Just finished listening to this from over the last three months. Really amazing.

"That's All for Everyone" is maybe the most amazing song I've heard in the last year, hypnotic.

From the bonus disc I was impressed by demos/alternates of the Lindsey songs. As great as the album versions are I think it's a shame he didn't incorporate the level of jangling/twinkling that you get in the demos. I hope he did more with that sound later on.

Cover of Beach Boys' "Farmer's Daughter" is lovely, but several of the demos don't seem all that necessary but I suppose loads of people would want them anyway.