Latest / Booked On Rock with Eric Senich / The Enduring Legacy of Fleetwood Mac's 'Rumours' [Episode 343]

Transcript

The Enduring Legacy of Fleetwood Mac's 'Rumours' [Episode 343] · Booked On Rock with Eric Senich

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Almost five decades later, it's the only classic rock album
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: that continues to gain new generations of fans, top streamings
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: and sales charts. Alan Light is the author of a
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: brand new book. He's gonna explain why millions of fans
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: still love Fleetwood Max Rumors. We're totally booked rock and roll.
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: I mean, I'll leave you. You're reading. Little Hands says
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: it's time to rock and roll, roll Out.
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: I totally booked. Welcome back to book don Rock, the
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: podcast for those about to read and rock. Americ Senach
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: very excited to talk to this episode's guest, Alan Light.
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: He's the author of Don't Stop Why We Still Love
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: Fleetwood Max Rumors. Alan, thanks so much for coming on
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: the show.
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: Of course, Eric, my pleasure, Thanks for having me.
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: This is interesting. The focus of the book is on
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: what makes Rumors stand out among other classic albums. In
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: twenty twenty three was the most streamed album of the
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: twentieth century on Spotify Dreams more than two billion plays.
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: And I was just saying before we started recording, there's
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: an article I just saw that I think it topped
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: another Spotify chart, beat out Taylor Swift.
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: I think in sales, yeah, and Billboard just put their
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: year chart up and it was the last year, twenty
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: twenty four. It was the biggest selling rock album on
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: the Billboard charts Old or New twenty twenty five. I
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: guess they combined rock and alternative to one chart, so
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: it was number three behind Billie Eilish and Noah Khan
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: New Records, you know, new Ish Records. Certainly for something
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: that is almost fifty years old, a really extraordinary thing
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: to see that it continues to retain this level of popularity,
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: this level of sales and streams. And that was really
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: what I wanted to look at in the book, was,
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: you know, sure, the story of the making of the
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: greatest soap opera of all time that we know rumors is,
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: but more than that, how does this thing continue to
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: live in the world. How does it continue to thrive
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: and to draw these new audiences, younger audiences and younger
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: listeners in a way that seems really different, really unique,
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: and really special, particularly compared to its peers in the
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: classic rock canon.
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: And beyond statistics, you have your son that you provided
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: some context, right, talk about that.
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah, well, starting from not just you know, my son
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: is a big music fan and that's one kind of thing.
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: But it was when he was in high school a
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: few years back that I just noticed when his you know,
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: if his friends were over or whatever, it was, that
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: they were all aware of rumors. They all knew something
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: about this record. They had some relationship to it as
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: an album as a body of work. Maybe didn't know
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: every song on it, whatever it was, but they were
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: not interested in California Born to Run. These were old
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: records to them, those were not relevant to their lives now.
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: But rumors continued to be something that they listened to.
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: It seemed like the way that they listened to pop records,
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: that it was something that spoke to them, something that
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: connected for them. Looking you know, then, as you mentioned
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: at the stats and seeing, yeah, okay, this is not
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: some isolated phenomenon that I happened to be observing, but
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: is backed up by these numbers and by what listening
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: habits really seemed to indicate. And then sort of peeling
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: back beyond that to think about all of the different
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: ways that it has continued to appear and to regenerate
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: in the culture, whether that was the guy on the
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: skateboard with the cranberry juice that was the big explosive
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: TikTok moment in twenty twenty, whether it was the All
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: Rumors episode of Glee, whether it was Daisy Jones and
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: the Six, the book, or the TV series that it
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: just felt like every few years there was something that
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: was contributing to reintroducing these songs and again connecting those
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: Some of these are happening, the TikTok things, God knows
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: why they happen. They happen because people discover and respond
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: to them. But the others, the placements and the you
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: know and the series that are designed out of these stories,
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: that's because people continue to love this music, love this story,
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: love everything around it, and people know that there's an
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: audience that still wants to be part of that. So
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: looking at the stories of each of those events and
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: incidents along the way, as well as sort of looking
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: under the hood at these numbers. Talking to a whole
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: bunch of post millennials. I think I talked to about
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: thirty under thirty about their relationship to the album, how
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: they discovered it, what it means to them. Two producers
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: who could talk better than I could about the sound
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: of this album and the creation and the assembly of
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: these songs, it looks there seemed to be a lot
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: of different ways in to you know, look at the
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: continued life around this project and what a special story
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  Speaker 2: it really is.
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: You break down each track and how it's perceived by
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: the younger audience today and why it stands up and
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: which songs it's interesting, there's there's one or two that
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: do okay with the younger generation. But it is true
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: about the way the album starts. It's not what you're
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: going to normally hear on a huge, commercially successful album
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: with secondhand news, right, And that's that is interesting in itself,
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: just the way they decided to start it off.
• 5:53
  Speaker 2: It's funny here. And you mentioned that the sort of
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: center of the book is going song by song, and
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: a lot of those were matching up the these stories.
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: I mean, for the Dreams chapter, I knew I was
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: going to talk about the guy on the skateboard and
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: the TikTok explosion around that song and then around this album.
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: So about half of them were very easy to figure out, Okay,
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: this story goes with this song. And then some of
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: them were themes that I knew or stories that I
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: knew I wanted to address and which songs those might
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: line up with you mentioned and we can come back
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: to it. Oh Daddy is kind of the least loved
• 6:27
  Speaker 2: song on this album. But because Christine McVey wrote that
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: song for Mickfleetwood and about his role as the sort
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: of father figure in the band and the one of
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: them who was a parent at the time, I knew
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: somewhere I wanted to write about Mick and about the
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: rhythm section, and okay, I could do that within that
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: song that works. The hardest one to figure out was
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: Secondhand News, which is the opening track on the album,
• 6:52
  Speaker 2: because there isn't any other placement or other usage or
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: some other place in the in the world world where
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: that song has reappeared. But what I realized thinking about
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: it is how, you know, completely different it is from
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: the opening song on any other album. That's the kind
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: of mega blockbuster album that rumors is. You know. Appetite
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: for Destruction opens with Welcome to the Jungle. Thriller opens
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: with want to be Starting something you know? Zeppelin four
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: opens with rock can' roll like big statement, mission statement
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  Speaker 2: kind of songs for those albums. Here's the ride we're
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: going on. Let me tell you how we're kicking this
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: thing off and secondhand news is this kind of little
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: you know, it starts on a fade in and it's
• 7:45
  Speaker 2: kind of a not fully finished song. I mean clearly
• 7:48
  Speaker 2: when he's singing the about bout like there should be
• 7:52
  Speaker 2: a guitar solo the there that they just will just
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: do this, we'll just sort of scat sing through it.
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: So it was the chance to sort of come in
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: backwards and write about Obviously it worked. The album is
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: one of them. It's the seventh biggest selling album of
• 8:08
  Speaker 2: all time. It continues to be embraced in the ways
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: that it does. It's not like it doesn't connect with people,
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: but in a very very different way than anything else
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: sort of in its peer group and how they everything
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: else kind of explodes out of the gate and this
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: kind of sneaks up on you a little bit.
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah, a head fake, a trojan horse as you call it. Yeah,
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: And it's interesting that one person says it's a good,
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: perfect song to bite two. It's interesting what people get
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: out of these songs.
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I mean lots of I think that, you know,
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: in some ways the most interesting thing for me talking
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: to these younger listeners in particular, I think if it's
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: you know, for those of us who grew up in
• 8:50
  Speaker 2: real time with Rumors, I think that we cannot help
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: but look at it through the lens of the anger,
• 8:58
  Speaker 2: the tension, the craziness of the sessions, everything that is happening,
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: you know, backstage, off stage as they are writing and
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: recording these songs. Anytime there's a list of the greatest
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: breakup albums of all time, Rumors pins the number one
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  Speaker 2: spot on those lists. But when you talk to the
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: people who are born twenty years after the album came out,
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  Speaker 2: I think they hear a lot of really different things.
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: I think if they didn't have that experience, you know,
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  Speaker 2: virtually all of them said, I don't think about this
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: as a breakup record. I would never think of it.
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: I mean, sure there's angry stuff on there, but I
• 9:38
  Speaker 2: think they hear you make love and fun and the
• 9:42
  Speaker 2: beginning of a relationship as much as they hear go
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: your own way and the sort of breakup, as much
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: as they hear the chain and the sense that are
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: you know, you're never really done with a person. They're
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: a part of your life that you carry forward sort
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: of whether you want to or not. They're still you know,
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  Speaker 2: a part of your experience, and I think particularly for
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  Speaker 2: young people who are going through their first relationships, their
• 10:06
  Speaker 2: first heartbreaks, that spectrum of emotions is really what connects
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  Speaker 2: with them rather than just the chaos and the anger
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  Speaker 2: around it, which I just didn't hear them keying into
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: the same way. So you get a lot of I
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: listened to it when I wake up in the morning,
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: when I'm getting ready for school, or before I go
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: out with my friends, or when I'm running or when
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: I'm biking. It's a much more you know, engaged in
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: sort of warm connection to these songs than I think
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: what we bring to it. Remembering the time and all
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: the baggage that it had with as it was happening.
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: Isn't that amazing? Because I was born in seventy two,
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: so I'm part of the VH one behind the music
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: right crowd, you know, and I listened I'd watched that special.
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: I knew about the songs, but that got me listening
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: to the album because of you know, because of the
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: drama that was happening within the band along with the songs.
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: But yeah, it's interesting how it's coming to this new
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: generation and how it's presented to them.
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: You know, and listen. There were kids I talked to
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: who are like, we're theater kids. We love the drama.
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: We're super into all the lore and the story and
• 11:14
  Speaker 2: the soap opera, and we follow all that. There were
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: others some almost resented it and said, I don't like
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: that that gets in the way of listening to the record,
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: that I have to think about that stuff. I just
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: want to be able to listen to the songs. And
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: there were some who really didn't. There was one girl
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: I spoke to and said, when did you find out
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: about all of the so the craziness and the soap
• 11:38
  Speaker 2: opera and all that stuff, And she said, right now
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: when you just asked me, I don't know anything about
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: any of that. And that has nothing to do with
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: why I listen to this record or you know what
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: I think about these songs. I don't know about any
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: of that stuff. So there's a really wide range of
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: what their you know what the relationship to the narrative is.
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: The drama is either connected to or not to the music.
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: I think this book is important for those in the
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: marketing business and the record business to really understand how
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: do you how do you market these albums? To a
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: younger audience, because this is all like unintentional marketing. These
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: are things that are just happening by accident. Because I
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: actually I worked with somebody in his twenties and he
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: was telling me about he knew about Aerosmith, and then
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: I was shocked. And as you can see behind me,
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: I'm a huge Van Hailin fan. He goes, uh, he says, yeah,
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: it wasn't Van hill in the band with a brown
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: M and M story. I'm like, how how did that
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: even come to you? How do you even know about it?
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: Did you find it out on YouTube? Like where?
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: You know?
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: I don't even know where they're receiving this.
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: Some some things just become whatever, you know, and a
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: lot of the rumors, I mean, look, some of the
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: you know, the placement stuff that using the chain and
• 12:53
  Speaker 2: Guardians of the Galaxy and things like that, they're at
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: least intent may be intentional on the part of the
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: film film. Yeah he's there, you know, but they're but
• 13:01
  Speaker 2: they're intentional. Some of them. The TikTok stuff, nobody knows
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: how that happens. I mean, how the that you know,
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: that confrontational moment in Silver Springs where you're talking about
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: where there was the you know that happened at the
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: reunion show in nineteen ninety seven, the dance that became
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: such a huge moment in the in the reintroduction of
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: Fleetwood Mac. But why within the last couple of years,
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: that moment of Steve Enix picking up the mic going
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: over at the end of Silver Springs, singing those lines
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: right into Lindsay Buckingham's face, that has become TikTok gold
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: and has almost become a moment that has intro you know,
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: been the introduction for a lot of kids to this album,
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: to this project, for a song that wasn't even on
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: the initial release of Rumors in the first place, and
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: yet has become inextricably part of that story.
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you can't.
• 13:58
  Speaker 2: You can't make that up.
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: Being old school, I resist. I hate the idea that
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: with this podcast I do have to break down things
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: at a little minute long shorts and those get the
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: most views, then the ones that the long form and
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: even even maybe a ten minute video that is the
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: reality and if it works, it works, and film is
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: a huge vehicle for like you hear these songs all
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: the time in these movies, Marvel movies, But also television
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: like Glee played a role.
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: Well, I used that in the chapter about never about
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: Never Going Back Again, because that was of that Glee
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: episode and there were a lot of you know again,
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: if it's the sweet spot for age, there were a
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: bunch of folks who, you know if they're sort of
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: in their mid to late twenties, where their introduction to
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: room they were watching Glee and their introduction to Rumors was,
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: you know, the first time that Glee did a full
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: episode or on one album was an all Rumors episode
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: that they did, and that was where a bunch of
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: those you know whatever, they were ten to twelve year
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: olds at the time, keyed into this album and a
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: lot of talked about that. The production of the Never
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: Going Back Again performance on the show is sort of
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: the most memorable. There was a sort of a production
• 15:09
  Speaker 2: number around the kid who was in the wheelchair where
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: he breaks up with the girlfriend and goes through the
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: hall singing that song and a bunch of guitarists sort
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: of gather behind him and they end up on the
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: stage with twenty guys playing acoustic guitars, and that was
• 15:23
  Speaker 2: a moment that really stuck for a bunch of these listeners,
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: but you know, whatever it was, they're all of these
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: different entry points in and that was a thing that
• 15:33
  Speaker 2: I'm paraphrasing a little, but I talked to a guy
• 15:35
  Speaker 2: named Michael Ozzuaro, who's a producer, works with Beyonce and
• 15:38
  Speaker 2: Frank Ocean and a bunch of sort of leading R
• 15:40
  Speaker 2: and B artists, and he kind of said, you know,
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: when you're the way that you have to compete for
• 15:46
  Speaker 2: attention now with the constant bombardment of input, that really
• 15:53
  Speaker 2: having multiple entry points is an important thing that you
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: might notice something over here, hear the song over here,
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: see a thing on tik tark, it's on TV, or
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: was in a movie trailer, and you sort of put together, oh,
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: I guess this is all that thing, and maybe I'll
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: give a listen to that thing. That it takes a
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: couple different spins of the wheel sometimes for things to connect.
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: And because rumors has all of these different ways in
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: for these kids. Maybe it's Taylor Swift talking about Stevie Nix.
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: Maybe it's Harry Styles, you know, inducting Stevie into the
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, or covers that they've done,
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: or you see it in a film, or it's on
• 16:31
  Speaker 2: TikTok or you know, whatever it is that at a
• 16:33
  Speaker 2: certain point it becomes I guess this is a thing.
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: I should see what that's about, since it kind of
• 16:39
  Speaker 2: keeps coming up. He was pointing out what it means
• 16:42
  Speaker 2: that it can connect with you from all these different.
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: Directions, many small pieces of the pie to make up
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: the pie now right where it used to be get
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: your song on the radio, Yeah, and tour tour, tour, tour,
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: and then it became MTV radio tour. But now it's
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: just splinter it off into all these different areas.
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: But this is a thing that has, you know, woven
• 17:04
  Speaker 2: its way into all of this, you know, all of
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: these different media, all of these different ways in that
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: one way or another has continued to attract and continued
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: to you know, to find new listeners over and over again.
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: Don't Stop is interesting that holds the unique position, you
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: say on rumors, it's the only song whose identity was
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: redefined by historical events. To talk about that, and how
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: much does the the younger generation did they even know
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: about the whole Bill Clinton?
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that you know, the Bill obviously, Don't
• 17:37
  Speaker 2: Stop was sort of redefined recontextualized when it was Bill
• 17:42
  Speaker 2: Clinton's campaign theme in the in the nineteen ninety two election.
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: Certainly an interesting story how that came to pass. But
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: for purposes of these stories, I mean, a lot of
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: kids I was talking to were born well after that
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: or you know, at that time or whatever, have no
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: direct relation to direct memory or connection to that moment.
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: But first of all, it did show that the song
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: could take on this these new lives years after their release.
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: That was fifteen years after the album was out, and
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: that that did kind of set in motion the you
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: know what led to the reunion of the band, which
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: led to that performance that became The Dance, which was
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: then a big, huge success as a live album, ran
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: constantly on MTVVH one, and hey, put Fleetwood Mac just
• 18:39
  Speaker 2: back into the world, back into circulation, you know, brought
• 18:42
  Speaker 2: some of these songs back up, and also then in
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: interesting ways. You know, Taylor Jenkins Reid, who wrote Daisy
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: Jones and the Six, said that it was watching the
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: Dance performances when she was a kid and trying to
• 18:57
  Speaker 2: figure out this dynamic what was going on between Lindsay
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: and Stevee singing that Silver Springs performance singing Landslide and
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: trying to understand what chemistry is happening that gets you
• 19:13
  Speaker 2: to that moment. That was what inspired her to want
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: to write a story about a band like that. So
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: these things become these dominoes that fall are sort of
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: these dots that connect where you get the Bill Clinton
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: thing happening, gets the band back together, leads to this reunion.
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: That reunion leads to somebody wanting to write a book
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: understanding that moment, that gets a whole bunch of other
• 19:40
  Speaker 2: new listeners in. Plus out of that reunion comes this,
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: you know, years later, this TikTok thing that becomes its own,
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: you know, phenomenon. So the ways that these things continue
• 19:52
  Speaker 2: to feed off of each other and continue to sort
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: of echo through the years is such an interesting thing.
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: I mean, right before fast all this I was looking at,
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: you know, right before the re you the dance thing
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: happened in you know that's ninety seven ninety eight. Nineteen
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: ninety seven was sort of peak women in rock moment there.
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: It's the first Little Affair is ninety seven, and Rolling Stone,
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: where I used to work, put out a book that
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: year that was a sort of history of women in
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: rock book called Troubled Girls. And one day I was
• 20:24
  Speaker 2: looking at the shelf and I was like, well, let
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: me see what what was what would a book like
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: that have said about Fleetwood mac or said about Stevie
• 20:31
  Speaker 2: and Christine at that time? And I look in the
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: book and there's basically one paragraph about Stevie Nicks, sort
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: of in a chapter about like boho women, like she's
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: between Kate Bush and I don't know. PJ. Harvey, You're like,
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: here's sort of weird girls in rock, and that's it.
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: The words Christine McVie do not appear in that book.
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: So at that moment, sort of in between the Bill
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: Clinton thing and them actually getting back together, Fleetwood Mack
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: are kind of nowhere, you know, culturally, if you did
• 21:08
  Speaker 2: a history of women in rock book today, Stevie Nix
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: is on your cover right, like without hesitation, right, there
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: is no bigger female icon in rock history at this
• 21:20
  Speaker 2: moment than Stevie is. And again, talking to these younger listeners,
• 21:27
  Speaker 2: I think the gender mix and gender balance of the
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: band is something that's really important to them. I think
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: that they look at, you know, rock bands and see
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: five white guys with long hair and guitars and just
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: think that's my parents' band. They look at the Eagles
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: and just think that's got nothing to do with me.
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: But at a moment where the culture that certainly music
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: culture is so driven by Taylor and Beyonce and Sabrina
• 21:54
  Speaker 2: and Billy and really all of the most important figures
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: are these women, you know, making this amazing music right
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: now and really setting the direction and the tone for
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: listeners today. To look at this band that had not
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: just one girl singer up front sort of that configuration,
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: but these two women who are both lead singers songwriters,
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: a point that a lot of particularly young women made
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: to me, not put in competition with each other, but
• 22:31
  Speaker 2: clearly doing different things, writing different kinds of songs, and
• 22:35
  Speaker 2: respecting what that is and presented as equals and collaborators.
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: That's something that clearly rings out and is a much
• 22:44
  Speaker 2: easier way into a band for you know, for young
• 22:50
  Speaker 2: people today than looking at the sort of classic rock
• 22:54
  Speaker 2: composition of like what we think of as seventies rock bands.
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: That's something that that people brought up over and over again.
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and even Christine said, I understand that Stevie's the
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: She's the star. These seas of people that, you know,
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: I understand that I'll do my thing over here. I
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: have my role to play. But she's very underrated because
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: she carried that band during the lean years.
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: I mean, and not just during the lean years, I mean.
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: Christine has the most writing credits on Rumors. But we
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: think of Rumors, Oh, it's the Stevie and Lindsay album.
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: Christine has more songs and more credits than any out
• 23:27
  Speaker 2: of the three of them. And if you look at
• 23:29
  Speaker 2: the Fleetwood Mac Greatest Hits record, it's half Christine McVie songs,
• 23:35
  Speaker 2: half Stevie or Lindsay songs. She's got as much as
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: the other two combined on the Greatest Hits record. So
• 23:42
  Speaker 2: a little more quietly, not that she isn't going through
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: crazy drama as her marriage is falling apart during the
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: Rumor sessions too, but maybe not historically, you know, considered
• 23:55
  Speaker 2: as central to what the record is, but absolutely is
• 23:59
  Speaker 2: essential to not just what the Rumor's album is, but
• 24:03
  Speaker 2: as you're saying, to the full story of what Fleetwood
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: Mac is.
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: Alan Light is the author of Don't Stop, Why We
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: Still Love Fleetwood Mac's Rumors Go Your Own Way addresses
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: the breakup of Lindsay and Stevie, and you say, it's
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: difficult to figure out where it stands with listeners today.
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: Some varied views on the song from the people you
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: spoke to possibly misread.
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: I don't know, miss read. I think that to relate
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: to the point that I was just talking about. If
• 24:30
  Speaker 2: you are looking at Fleetwood Mac and something that's really
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: important to you, is this centering of female voices, Is
• 24:38
  Speaker 2: this empowerment of these two women who are two of
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: the three you know front persons of the band. This
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: kind of hostile song from Lindsey can Land, you know,
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: a little bit sour. I think for some of these listeners,
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: I think they're not necessarily looking to cut Lindsey Buckingham
• 24:55
  Speaker 2: the same kind of break as the angry songs that
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: you get from the other guy, the shortage of anger
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: in the other songs as well. But I think there's
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: a little more pushback when you're hearing it from you know,
• 25:07
  Speaker 2: from the guy in the band. You know clearly it's
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: not a you know and and Stevie has said she
• 25:14
  Speaker 2: has mixed emotions about that song. She always hated singing
• 25:17
  Speaker 2: some of those lines, she hated singing the you know,
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: packing up shacking ups all you want to do line,
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: she said, was very unfair to her and to their story. So,
• 25:27
  Speaker 2: you know, I think there is some resentment about, you know,
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: some of the some of the Lindsay expression within the band.
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: But what you really cannot separate is even at the worst,
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: you know, the lowest points of the breakup of the
• 25:45
  Speaker 2: the whatever's going on between Lindsay and Stevie that Stevie
• 25:49
  Speaker 2: is very upfront about. He was the guy who knew
• 25:53
  Speaker 2: what to do with my songs. I would go off
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: and write these weird dreams. Is this two chords song?
• 26:01
  Speaker 2: I wrote it. It was seven minutes long. And in
• 26:03
  Speaker 2: all these verses, you know, Christine Movie says, Stevie brought
• 26:07
  Speaker 2: this song in and I was like, this song is
• 26:09
  Speaker 2: really boring. Why would we ever record that? There's this
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: is a mess. And Lindsey takes it and figures out
• 26:17
  Speaker 2: how to edit it, how to arrange it, where to
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: you know, bring the guitar in, where to bring the
• 26:22
  Speaker 2: different sounds in, how Stevie should present it. Comes back
• 26:26
  Speaker 2: Christine's like, well, this is a great song. Of course
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: we should record that song, and it becomes their only
• 26:31
  Speaker 2: number one hit in their entire career, and Stevie said,
• 26:36
  Speaker 2: you know, whatever was going on with between you know,
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: me and Lindsay. He understood the stuff that I was
• 26:43
  Speaker 2: writing and how to take these songs and turn them
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: into records. So any you know, understandable, you know sort
• 26:53
  Speaker 2: of side eye that you might take at Lindsey and
• 26:55
  Speaker 2: you know him taking over the band too much or
• 26:58
  Speaker 2: or you know, force some of these emotions that maybe
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: weren't totally fair into these songs. Also, what he was
• 27:06
  Speaker 2: able to do to create the sort of sonic vision
• 27:10
  Speaker 2: and architect these songs, including in some ways especially the
• 27:14
  Speaker 2: Stevie songs, is absolutely imperative to understanding this album.
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: Sure absolutely, And I don't think there's ever been a
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: song prior to this song go your Own Way with
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: that much aggression, you know, the Bob welcheers very mellow,
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: prior to that, Peter Green very bluesy. There was some
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: I was trying. I was listening back through all of
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: the albums and trying to find something where you'd I mean,
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: loving you isn't the right thing to do. I mean
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: that's just like right, that's.
• 27:40
  Speaker 2: Where we're coming in. That's what star line one, that's
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: where we're coming in right, yeah, and look that balance
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: there's I talked to a guy named Julian Bonnetta who's
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: a songwriter who wrote the big Sabrina Carpenter songs and
• 27:54
  Speaker 2: a bunch of one direction songs and like a big
• 27:57
  Speaker 2: pop songwriter, and he said some great things throughout, but
• 28:00
  Speaker 2: he also said, one thing about Rumors that's so extraordinary
• 28:03
  Speaker 2: is it's never too much of one thing. Right. It's
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: a rock record, but it's not too it doesn't have
• 28:10
  Speaker 2: five minute guitar solos. It's a pop record, it's a
• 28:16
  Speaker 2: yacht rock record. It's smooth, but it's not too smooth.
• 28:20
  Speaker 2: It's you know, British and it's America, like whatever, whatever
• 28:25
  Speaker 2: you want to take. There's this incredible sort of tight
• 28:28
  Speaker 2: rope balance that this record presents. So you get the
• 28:31
  Speaker 2: rock of go your own way or of the chain,
• 28:35
  Speaker 2: but then you get the ballads, you get the you know,
• 28:38
  Speaker 2: the the more you get the acoustic stuff, you get
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: the more sort of soulful stuff on the Stevie songs,
• 28:44
  Speaker 2: and it never tips too far. You know, there's it's,
• 28:48
  Speaker 2: there's there's great there's a there's the Lindsay playing like
• 28:52
  Speaker 2: there's great sort of rock jam stuff. On it, but
• 28:56
  Speaker 2: it doesn't. That doesn't take over anything. And so you know, anybody,
• 29:03
  Speaker 2: whatever is that you want, whatever it is that you
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: react to, it's in there and it's not getting overwhelmed
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: by any other particular element.
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: And they didn't have I don't think Lindsay had that foresight,
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: but it just it just turned out that these songs age.
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: That Songbird is a great example of why the longevity
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: of this album. Here's a song that people came around to,
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: but it not right away. Years later they go back
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: and listen like I did that Songbirds. This is an
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: absolutely beautiful.
• 29:33
  Speaker 2: Song and it's interesting. A lot of the younger people said,
• 29:37
  Speaker 2: you know, I didn't get that at first when I
• 29:40
  Speaker 2: first started listening to this album and I was fifteen, like,
• 29:43
  Speaker 2: I didn't want to hear like a quiet, spare ballad let.
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: I didn't have the patience for it. I didn't really
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: respond to the emotion of that. But as I sort
• 29:53
  Speaker 2: of matured a little bit, got a little bit more
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: life on me, that became a favorite. That became a
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: song that I turned to as I felt like I
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: could understand it. And I tell the story in the
• 30:04
  Speaker 2: book of because a lot of some people came to
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: that song through that woman, Evicacidy, who was this soul
• 30:14
  Speaker 2: pop jazz singer in out of Washington, d C. Who
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: also sort of didn't get discovered until after her death,
• 30:21
  Speaker 2: got embraced initially in England on the BBC and became
• 30:24
  Speaker 2: a huge her sort of posthumous album became a massive
• 30:28
  Speaker 2: hit in England and then came back. It was used
• 30:30
  Speaker 2: also in a bunch of soundtracks. That's the version that
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: you hear in Love actually, since we are in the
• 30:35
  Speaker 2: holiday season and people would be watching Love actually, you know,
• 30:40
  Speaker 2: that was the version that was there. That's many years
• 30:43
  Speaker 2: down the road. I mean that's years till she records it.
• 30:47
  Speaker 2: It was a title, it was the Songbird was the
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: title song for Eva's big album. And then after she dies,
• 30:55
  Speaker 2: then people turn to that and that becomes a mean
• 30:57
  Speaker 2: that's you know, an extenxtends over deck aids that story.
• 31:01
  Speaker 2: And yet that's how a lot of people came into
• 31:04
  Speaker 2: that song and then found their way back into this record.
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: The Chain the second most stream song on Spotify from
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: that album, behind Dreams, and that wasn't released as.
• 31:15
  Speaker 2: A single and not even a single.
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: Right, Why do you think people take to that song
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: so much.
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: You know, I think that besides.
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: That it's a great song, I mean, besides a baseline
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: that you can't avoid that baseline.
• 31:26
  Speaker 2: Friends who are bass players are like that baseline is
• 31:29
  Speaker 2: kind of for bass players what smoke on the Water
• 31:31
  Speaker 2: is for the guitar. Then you pick up a bass
• 31:33
  Speaker 2: that's the first thing you try to pick out. I mean,
• 31:38
  Speaker 2: the chain is fascinating. It's It's certainly had other uses.
• 31:41
  Speaker 2: It was in England. It was the theme to the
• 31:44
  Speaker 2: Formula one broadcasts for about a dozen years, which is
• 31:49
  Speaker 2: a big deal in the UK, increasingly a big deal
• 31:52
  Speaker 2: here as well. But you know that lots of usages
• 31:57
  Speaker 2: in films, in soundtracks again, Guardians of the Galaxy a
• 32:01
  Speaker 2: big placement, but that one. I think that rock radio
• 32:04
  Speaker 2: also came to embrace over time, as you know, it
• 32:09
  Speaker 2: never wasn't. I think I talked to a guy named
• 32:11
  Speaker 2: Sean Ross, who's a big radio analyst, guy who was like,
• 32:15
  Speaker 2: that song got played like it was a single, you know,
• 32:19
  Speaker 2: maybe not in the moment of the record, but afterwards
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: as much as the singles did. And I think if
• 32:25
  Speaker 2: you were going to distill that album down to one song,
• 32:28
  Speaker 2: which is a difficult thing, to do. I mean, the
• 32:31
  Speaker 2: chain is the one song that has a writing credit
• 32:34
  Speaker 2: for all five members because of the instrumental section and
• 32:38
  Speaker 2: the assembly of it is fascinating. It's three different songs
• 32:42
  Speaker 2: that get put together. Again to that vision of Lindsay Buckingham,
• 32:49
  Speaker 2: Christine's working on a song and like the chord changes
• 32:53
  Speaker 2: are good, but the lyrics aren't right, can't find the melody. Meantime,
• 32:57
  Speaker 2: Stevie's working on a completely different song and he's like, well,
• 33:02
  Speaker 2: we could try that melody and words over this shell
• 33:07
  Speaker 2: of a song that Christine's working on. I think those
• 33:09
  Speaker 2: could kind of sync up. Stevie to this day with
• 33:13
  Speaker 2: slightly mixed feelings, saying I could have just been a
• 33:16
  Speaker 2: song that I recorded, you know, it would have been
• 33:18
  Speaker 2: my song, but is talked into handing it over. They
• 33:22
  Speaker 2: put those songs together. There's this instrumental jam thing that
• 33:27
  Speaker 2: they did early on in the process when they were
• 33:30
  Speaker 2: working on the Christine song. He's like, well, if we
• 33:32
  Speaker 2: put if I can come up with this connecting section,
• 33:36
  Speaker 2: you know, so now we've got a melody of this
• 33:39
  Speaker 2: thing that fits with the harmony and the structure of
• 33:41
  Speaker 2: this thing, and then we can go into this other
• 33:45
  Speaker 2: thing that we played, and then he puts on as
• 33:47
  Speaker 2: a guitar figure that he pulled from one of the
• 33:51
  Speaker 2: a previous a song on the Buckingham Nicks album. That's
• 33:54
  Speaker 2: that little sort of acoustic fell at the top that
• 33:57
  Speaker 2: comes between the verses, and he puts all of that
• 34:00
  Speaker 2: together and comes up with the chain, which is just
• 34:03
  Speaker 2: you know, how do you do how do you hear
• 34:05
  Speaker 2: in your head all of that stuff? Yeah, you're a
• 34:09
  Speaker 2: crazy mad scientist at that point, Like there's no way
• 34:12
  Speaker 2: around it. So I love the story of the chain,
• 34:17
  Speaker 2: you know, just in general, plus how all of that
• 34:19
  Speaker 2: goes with this theme with what the song is about,
• 34:22
  Speaker 2: that you know, relationships are never over, that you carry
• 34:26
  Speaker 2: them forward, that these people are a part of your life,
• 34:28
  Speaker 2: you know, as you as you move on. All of
• 34:32
  Speaker 2: that is sort of how this song comes together, and
• 34:37
  Speaker 2: it just continues to grow, uh, you know, the momentum
• 34:40
  Speaker 2: around it continues to grow over the years, and obviously
• 34:43
  Speaker 2: it's one of the first things we think of when
• 34:46
  Speaker 2: we think of rumors.
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: Find the Bookdown Rock website at bookdown Rock dot com.
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: There you can find all the back episodes of the show.
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: I hit this episode in video and audio links to
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: all of the platforms where you can listen to the podcast,
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: plus all the social media platforms were on Blue Sky, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok,
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: and x. Also check out the Booked on Rock blog,
• 35:08
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• 35:11
  Speaker 1: hot rock book releases, and before you go, check out
• 35:14
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• 35:17
  Speaker 1: on Rock merch. It's all at booked on Rock dot com.
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: You Make Loving Fun as one of those songs that
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: manages to win over even those who aren't Fleetwood Mac fans.
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: Michaelangelo Mattos, Yes, right, he has a great story about that.
• 35:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I love that story. Michael Achlow, who's a writer
• 35:34
  Speaker 2: in Minneapolis, talks about going to a party and somebody saying,
• 35:39
  Speaker 2: you know, I don't really get Fleetwood Mac, and he's like, no,
• 35:44
  Speaker 2: you need to. You gotta, you gotta understand Fleetwood Mac.
• 35:46
  Speaker 2: And you gotta understand Fleetwood Mac, among other things. And
• 35:49
  Speaker 2: he's written a lot about dance music can be a
• 35:53
  Speaker 2: dance band, you know that these can be there's you know,
• 35:57
  Speaker 2: sort of a funky thing in some of these songs
• 36:00
  Speaker 2: and puts on You Make Love and Fun and the
• 36:02
  Speaker 2: guy hears that groove, and here's that that bassline and
• 36:05
  Speaker 2: is like, oh, well, okay, you know, yeah, I get that.
• 36:08
  Speaker 2: I can hear that, which is particularly fascinating because Christine
• 36:17
  Speaker 2: McVey writes that song about her new boyfriend who is
• 36:20
  Speaker 2: the band's lighting director, just to add to the chaos
• 36:25
  Speaker 2: of all of this, and yet here's her ex husband
• 36:30
  Speaker 2: playing the bassline that in some ways, you know, locks
• 36:34
  Speaker 2: that song down, playing this fantastic bass part that gives
• 36:37
  Speaker 2: it that propulsion, you know, that gives it that groove
• 36:41
  Speaker 2: that he's got to sit there and play as she's
• 36:43
  Speaker 2: singing about this new dude that she's seeing.
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: Now unreal.
• 36:47
  Speaker 2: I think it's just it's just none of it, you know,
• 36:49
  Speaker 2: makes any sense at all. And yet this is you know,
• 36:52
  Speaker 2: this is what you're left with. It is it's all
• 36:54
  Speaker 2: of these ingredients. And I think somebody makes the point
• 36:58
  Speaker 2: that if you know the story and you know the
• 37:01
  Speaker 2: story and you know the details, that's one thing. But
• 37:03
  Speaker 2: even if you don't, you can hear these layers, this depth,
• 37:10
  Speaker 2: this richness to whatever is going on in the studio.
• 37:14
  Speaker 2: You feel that in these songs that there is a
• 37:19
  Speaker 2: you know, they're just dimensions to these performances that are
• 37:24
  Speaker 2: coming from someplace, are coming from emotions that are banging
• 37:28
  Speaker 2: around in that room, and that are inescapable as you
• 37:31
  Speaker 2: as you hear these songs.
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: Maybe beyond the actual skills, the musical talents, is the
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: fact that they were all able to step aside for
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: the greater cause, to be able to say, I'll just
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: I will record a song with my ex wife talking
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: about a guy as she's with, you know, and you know,
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: just saying look I need Lindsey. He's driving me mad.
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: I can't stand in mind, I don't want to be
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: in the same room with him, but I get what
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: he's what he's doing is importance and vice versa.
• 38:01
  Speaker 2: Lindsay when they say that, look, you know, whatever was
• 38:04
  Speaker 2: going on, we knew that these songs were something really special,
• 38:09
  Speaker 2: that something was happening. And I think there's a quote
• 38:12
  Speaker 2: from Stevie in the book where she's like, what are
• 38:13
  Speaker 2: we gonna do? Like we were gonna quit and go
• 38:16
  Speaker 2: start new bands? Like that would be stupid and talking
• 38:19
  Speaker 2: to I talked to Cameron Crowe for the book, who
• 38:23
  Speaker 2: wrote the famous Rolling Stone cover story that came out
• 38:25
  Speaker 2: at the time, very famous cover photo of the five
• 38:28
  Speaker 2: of them in bed together and he said, look, they
• 38:32
  Speaker 2: you know, obviously the tension was what it was, and
• 38:35
  Speaker 2: the relationships, you know, what was happening was happening. But
• 38:38
  Speaker 2: they also knew what they had and they were ready
• 38:43
  Speaker 2: to put that out in the world. And knowing that
• 38:45
  Speaker 2: they were going to mean from the album title on down,
• 38:49
  Speaker 2: knowing that leaning into this narrative and to all of
• 38:53
  Speaker 2: the gossip column stuff and to everything that was happening,
• 38:57
  Speaker 2: inescapably was going to be part of the story. And
• 39:01
  Speaker 2: they were not resistant to that. They were not afraid
• 39:04
  Speaker 2: of that. They knew that they had made something great.
• 39:07
  Speaker 2: They were committed to these songs, and they were, you know,
• 39:10
  Speaker 2: whatever it took, they were going.
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: To see that through defines what an artist is, putting
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: it all into your art, into.
• 39:17
  Speaker 2: The work, you know, into these songs, singing because it's inconceivable, right,
• 39:22
  Speaker 2: Stevie and lindsay break up, John and Christine get divorced,
• 39:27
  Speaker 2: Mick and his wife get divorced, Mick and Stevie have
• 39:31
  Speaker 2: an affair, right, Christine starts dating one of the crew.
• 39:36
  Speaker 2: You know, all of this is happening, and yet they're
• 39:38
  Speaker 2: showing up in the studio every day singing these songs,
• 39:42
  Speaker 2: writing these songs, recording these songs about each other and
• 39:45
  Speaker 2: about what they're going through and sitting there together working
• 39:49
  Speaker 2: this stuff out. It is unimaginable what that was. And look,
• 39:54
  Speaker 2: that's a story, you said. There was the behind the music.
• 39:57
  Speaker 2: There was the Classic Albums episode. You know Ken Calay
• 40:00
  Speaker 2: who co produced the record, He wrote a book about it.
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: There was even for his book on Tusk, I didn't
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: have month for Rumors.
• 40:08
  Speaker 2: There was this this play Stereophonic last year that won
• 40:11
  Speaker 2: the Tony for Best Play of the Year. That is
• 40:14
  Speaker 2: a very very mildly fictionalized version of the Rumors story
• 40:21
  Speaker 2: to a point that Ken Calay ended up suing them,
• 40:24
  Speaker 2: saying that too much of this was taken from his book,
• 40:27
  Speaker 2: which it was. And yet you know, people still love
• 40:32
  Speaker 2: this story, they still love what that is. I didn't
• 40:36
  Speaker 2: need to write that book, you know, I needed to
• 40:39
  Speaker 2: do enough of the context, do enough of you have
• 40:41
  Speaker 2: to know what I'm talking about. But again, what I
• 40:44
  Speaker 2: really wanted to look at was not just the making
• 40:47
  Speaker 2: of story, but the afterlife, the legacy and this endless
• 40:52
  Speaker 2: popularity and why people keep turning to it over and
• 40:55
  Speaker 2: over and over again. You know, you the story itself
• 41:00
  Speaker 2: is astounding and weaves its way in through all this stuff.
• 41:05
  Speaker 2: But there's but also there are places to turn to
• 41:08
  Speaker 2: to be able to get that.
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: That's what I love about the book. Yeah, the angle
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: that it takes in the way you look at the
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: album from that aspect. Saturday Night Live is another vehicle,
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: right for a bizarre choice. I don't want to know
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: which I love. This is maybe my favorite deep track
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: off the album. But this skit was Paul Rudd. Paul
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: Rudd and Claire mulaney was the staff writer who chose it.
• 41:31
  Speaker 2: So yeah, there was this sketch and it's funny. There
• 41:34
  Speaker 2: have been just weird Fleetwood Mac references on Saturday Night
• 41:37
  Speaker 2: Live over the years. Right, there was Lindsay Buckingham as
• 41:40
  Speaker 2: a recurring punchline on the What's up with that sketch
• 41:45
  Speaker 2: that that Keenan Thompson did. The end of every sketch
• 41:48
  Speaker 2: was we have Lindsay Buckett and then he was it
• 41:49
  Speaker 2: was Bill Hayter, I guess, and they would never let
• 41:51
  Speaker 2: him talk, but he would just sit there in the
• 41:53
  Speaker 2: funny haircut in the leather jacket. But there was this
• 41:56
  Speaker 2: sketch that's Paul Rudd and Vaness of Air one of
• 42:00
  Speaker 2: the cast members, and the joke is they're getting divorced.
• 42:04
  Speaker 2: They're meeting with their divorce lawyers. They're trying to sketch
• 42:06
  Speaker 2: out their you know, agreement or whatever it is. And
• 42:10
  Speaker 2: then and they're fighting, and it's increasingly absurd what they're
• 42:13
  Speaker 2: fighting about. And then every minute I don't want to
• 42:16
  Speaker 2: know starts playing, which turns out to be on Keenan
• 42:20
  Speaker 2: Thompson's it's his ring tone on his phone. But when
• 42:24
  Speaker 2: that song starts playing, they can't be mad at you
• 42:27
  Speaker 2: at each other, and they start doing, you know, ridiculous dance.
• 42:31
  Speaker 2: And I was like, what the hell you know? Twenty
• 42:35
  Speaker 2: five years after this album came out or whatever it was,
• 42:38
  Speaker 2: thirty years the whole premise of the punchline of a
• 42:42
  Speaker 2: Whole Sketch is this song that, as you said, is
• 42:46
  Speaker 2: a deep cut, like not one of the big songs
• 42:49
  Speaker 2: on the album, not something you ever hear on the radio.
• 42:52
  Speaker 2: So I wanted to figure out how, why, like, how
• 42:56
  Speaker 2: did you settle on that? And so, no knowing people
• 43:00
  Speaker 2: who know the writers, I chased down that it was
• 43:03
  Speaker 2: Clara mulaney, who was John Mulaney's sister. He was he
• 43:07
  Speaker 2: was all right head writer on SNL, but it was
• 43:10
  Speaker 2: it was her sketch that she had written and talked
• 43:12
  Speaker 2: to her about it. She said it was something that
• 43:14
  Speaker 2: she had developed doing, you know, at her improv group
• 43:18
  Speaker 2: in Chicago before she came and just said, like everybody
• 43:23
  Speaker 2: loves rumors. That was the perfect like the way that
• 43:27
  Speaker 2: song starts with the stop and the start guitar and
• 43:29
  Speaker 2: the drums coming in, like it was just the right mood.
• 43:32
  Speaker 2: And I never thought about using anything else. And I
• 43:35
  Speaker 2: was like, okay, but did everybody else get it? Like
• 43:38
  Speaker 2: the people were we were like what is this song?
• 43:40
  Speaker 2: Like what are you even talking about? This is like
• 43:42
  Speaker 2: I don't know. The crew loved it. We were getting
• 43:44
  Speaker 2: laughs and we just sort of went with it. So
• 43:47
  Speaker 2: it was so wild to me, like it's one thing
• 43:50
  Speaker 2: to do that if the punchline, not that it would
• 43:54
  Speaker 2: work for this punchline, but were go your own way
• 43:56
  Speaker 2: and everybody knows the song and okay, this was not that.
• 43:59
  Speaker 2: This is you know, one of, if not the least
• 44:02
  Speaker 2: known songs on this album, and yet there it was
• 44:06
  Speaker 2: getting laughs at you know, eleven forty five on a
• 44:08
  Speaker 2: Saturday night.
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and here it is another vehicle to introduce a
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: song from the album to millions.
• 44:16
  Speaker 2: So once you start looking, you start finding these, you know,
• 44:19
  Speaker 2: these things that are out there, these examples, and similarly,
• 44:22
  Speaker 2: looking for young people to talk to about the album.
• 44:26
  Speaker 2: You know, I wish I could pretend I was such
• 44:28
  Speaker 2: a great reporter that I could go out and dig
• 44:31
  Speaker 2: up these kids and find it. I did a lame,
• 44:34
  Speaker 2: super vague social media post, Hey, anybody have kids or
• 44:38
  Speaker 2: young friends or relatives who are into rumors. I think
• 44:41
  Speaker 2: I booked thirteen interviews the next day, which is also
• 44:46
  Speaker 2: totally validating because you're like, oh, okay, it really is
• 44:49
  Speaker 2: out there that it's easy to you know, it's easy
• 44:52
  Speaker 2: to find a lot of a group of young people
• 44:57
  Speaker 2: who are into this. And then once you start looking,
• 44:59
  Speaker 2: there these two younger women who were sitting behind me
• 45:02
  Speaker 2: and my wife at the Stevie Nicks show at Madison
• 45:04
  Speaker 2: Square Garden. I'm like, well, I gotta ask them. I
• 45:07
  Speaker 2: just have to figure out how to how to not
• 45:09
  Speaker 2: be a creepy older guy asking for their number, like
• 45:12
  Speaker 2: to be like, I'm here with my wife, I'll give
• 45:15
  Speaker 2: you my email. You write to me, so you know,
• 45:21
  Speaker 2: they were great, And then you just start running into oh,
• 45:24
  Speaker 2: we've got an intern this you know, this semester this
• 45:28
  Speaker 2: summer who was talking about how much he loves rumors
• 45:30
  Speaker 2: or my favorite from I grew up in Cincinnati. I'm
• 45:34
  Speaker 2: a big Cincinnati Reds fan. I'm a big baseball guy,
• 45:37
  Speaker 2: and I follow a guy on social media who's like
• 45:40
  Speaker 2: the Reds, you know, big sports guy there, does a
• 45:43
  Speaker 2: Reds thing on the radio whatever, And in one of
• 45:46
  Speaker 2: his columns mentioned my daughter was talking about listening to
• 45:50
  Speaker 2: rumors the other day. So I'm like, okay, wrote him, like,
• 45:54
  Speaker 2: if you can send me your daughter, you know, connect
• 45:56
  Speaker 2: me to her, love to talk to her for the book.
• 45:59
  Speaker 2: You know, just sort of finding people out there who
• 46:03
  Speaker 2: you know, one way or another led me to these
• 46:07
  Speaker 2: post millennials gen zs and down to like fifteen sixteen
• 46:12
  Speaker 2: year olds who were all one, you know, said how
• 46:17
  Speaker 2: important this album was in their lives. Was a great
• 46:20
  Speaker 2: journey to go on.
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it gives you a great idea. And now I
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: like the fact that there's a wide array of responses.
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: We talked about Oh Daddy, but there were some that
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: loved the song. I mean, that's the weakest link on
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: the album, But not everybody agreed that it was the
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: weakest song.
• 46:35
  Speaker 2: No. I mean, it turns out when you see I
• 46:37
  Speaker 2: think I started with some you know, Reddit page that
• 46:39
  Speaker 2: was like, what's the worst song on rumors? And that
• 46:43
  Speaker 2: was the most votes who went to that, But there
• 46:45
  Speaker 2: were even there people defending it, saying no, no, no,
• 46:47
  Speaker 2: it's great. That has to be there, you know. But okay,
• 46:50
  Speaker 2: if that emerges as the one that people point to,
• 46:53
  Speaker 2: and I can see maybe they gave the Daddy thing
• 46:56
  Speaker 2: creeps people out a little bit. Maybe in twenty twenty five, okay,
• 47:00
  Speaker 2: stand but look, I placed a big bet that people
• 47:05
  Speaker 2: would be interested in reading what a bunch of young
• 47:09
  Speaker 2: people they don't know have to say about this album.
• 47:13
  Speaker 2: I mean, that's not the whole book, but it sort
• 47:15
  Speaker 2: of builds to identifying this phenomenon, teasing it through all
• 47:19
  Speaker 2: these examples, and then kind of get it talking to
• 47:22
  Speaker 2: these kids about, Okay, what's that about, what does it
• 47:24
  Speaker 2: mean for you? How did you find it? What? What
• 47:27
  Speaker 2: does resonate? And I didn't know what I was going
• 47:30
  Speaker 2: to get back from them, and if that was a
• 47:32
  Speaker 2: thing that I could really, you know, build as part
• 47:34
  Speaker 2: of the skeleton of this book. But they were. They
• 47:37
  Speaker 2: all had such strong thoughts and such strong feelings about it,
• 47:42
  Speaker 2: and all really had stuff to say that I felt like, Okay,
• 47:48
  Speaker 2: this is gonna this is going to carry its weight
• 47:50
  Speaker 2: as a central element to what I want to do.
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: Here and an underlying strength that resonates with gold dust women.
• 47:59
  Speaker 2: People spawned to the Stevie Look. The cult of Stevie
• 48:03
  Speaker 2: runs very, very deep, particularly for young women. I mean
• 48:08
  Speaker 2: the icon that she has become. And I can't fully
• 48:12
  Speaker 2: figure it out because I remember going to see Stevie
• 48:15
  Speaker 2: Nicks a dozen years ago, maybe at the Beacon Theater.
• 48:21
  Speaker 2: Show was great. I'm like, Okay, she's out here, she
• 48:23
  Speaker 2: can sell out theaters. She's doing she's got a career,
• 48:26
  Speaker 2: she's doing great. Show is awesome. And then five years
• 48:29
  Speaker 2: later she's selling out Madison Square Guard and then five
• 48:34
  Speaker 2: years later she's co headlining stadiums Joel.
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: It's amazing.
• 48:40
  Speaker 2: And it's not like there was some big Stevie Nicks
• 48:43
  Speaker 2: hit in the last ten years that would have accelerated
• 48:47
  Speaker 2: this embrace of Stevie as a superstar. It just has
• 48:52
  Speaker 2: been this snowball. You know. Again, I think between Taylor
• 48:56
  Speaker 2: Swift talking about her, Harry Styles talking about her, you know,
• 48:59
  Speaker 2: all of this Lee with Max stuff, and just the
• 49:02
  Speaker 2: sort of iconic female, you know, the strength that she represents,
• 49:06
  Speaker 2: the independence that she represents, how she you know, stands
• 49:11
  Speaker 2: for this generation. But it is kind of unbelievable how
• 49:16
  Speaker 2: much the popularity and the importance of Stevie Nicks has
• 49:23
  Speaker 2: expanded in the last ten fifteen years just kind of
• 49:26
  Speaker 2: based on her, like, not out of any thing that
• 49:31
  Speaker 2: you can point to and say, oh, okay, this is
• 49:34
  Speaker 2: it's because of this thing that that happened. So Goldust
• 49:38
  Speaker 2: Woman obviously a central piece of you know, the you know,
• 49:42
  Speaker 2: the Stevie story and her telling her story. Golds Woman
• 49:47
  Speaker 2: was also the opportunity in the book to talk about
• 49:50
  Speaker 2: drugs and rumors, which I think is a thing that
• 49:52
  Speaker 2: you have to address somewhere. What that did to these
• 49:58
  Speaker 2: sessions and these relationships and you know what getting the
• 50:02
  Speaker 2: record done h required or was fighting against or however
• 50:07
  Speaker 2: you want to look at it. So in terms of
• 50:11
  Speaker 2: looking again song by song, that was a window to
• 50:14
  Speaker 2: sort of plug that piece of the story in as well.
• 50:19
  Speaker 1: Hey guys, thanks so much for checking out the Booked
• 50:21
  Speaker 1: on Rock podcast. If you've just found the podcast, welcome.
• 50:25
  Speaker 1: If you've been listening, thank you so much for your
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: support and make sure you tell a friend, a family member,
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: Share on social media and let people know about Booked
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: on Rock, and if you do like the podcast, make
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: sure you subscribe give a five star review. Wherever you
• 50:39
  Speaker 1: listen to the Booked on Rock podcast, Run Amazon, Apple, iHeart, Spotify, Spreaker,
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: tune in, and on YouTube music. You can check out
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: the full episodes on video, along with video highlights from
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: episodes on the Booked on Rock YouTube channel. Find it
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: at Booked on Rock. Thanks again for listening. Now back
• 50:56
  Speaker 1: to the show, seeing Stevie get into the and Roll
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: Hall of Fame as a solo artist, and seeing and
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: reading about how essentially Lindsay was out of Fleetwood Mac
• 51:08
  Speaker 1: because it was an ultimatum. It's it's Mere or him,
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: And at that point they were like, yeah, you know what, Stevie,
• 51:15
  Speaker 1: You're You're, You're you.
• 51:17
  Speaker 2: Know, Stevie holds all the cards.
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: And that strength, that's I think that's the strength that
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: people are.
• 51:23
  Speaker 2: They can go they can go be Fleetwood Mac with
• 51:27
  Speaker 2: Stevie Nick in the band and Lindsay Bockingham. Not they
• 51:30
  Speaker 2: cannot go out and be Fleetwood Mac with Lindsay in
• 51:33
  Speaker 2: the band and not Stevie so you know that. And yes,
• 51:37
  Speaker 2: being the first woman inducted twice into the Rock Hall
• 51:41
  Speaker 2: as a solo artist in addition to as part of
• 51:43
  Speaker 2: the band was certainly a big, you know, a pivotal moment,
• 51:47
  Speaker 2: you know, a marker for her.
• 51:49
  Speaker 1: I wonder how much too. Also the fact that she's
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: never She's like, I'm never going to get married. She
• 51:54
  Speaker 1: did get married, but she realized music is my is
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: the love of my life. That that is it. I'm
• 52:01
  Speaker 1: not gonna commit And I think there's something to be
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: said to that too.
• 52:04
  Speaker 2: Just just the other night, just the other week, when
• 52:06
  Speaker 2: Taylor Swift was on Stephen Colderer to promote the new
• 52:11
  Speaker 2: Era's Docuseriies, he asked her who who can give you advice?
• 52:16
  Speaker 2: Like who do you turn to and listen to what
• 52:19
  Speaker 2: they say? The first thing she said was, I am
• 52:21
  Speaker 2: lucky enough to be friends with Stevie Nicks. That is
• 52:25
  Speaker 2: somebody I can turn to, who can you know, give
• 52:28
  Speaker 2: me guidance and has had the experience that she's had
• 52:31
  Speaker 2: and I'm very fortunate that I that I have that.
• 52:34
  Speaker 2: That was the first thing out of her mouth. So
• 52:36
  Speaker 2: you know, we see it paid paid forward.
• 52:39
  Speaker 1: Like that Silver Springs. We talked about it. Why was
• 52:42
  Speaker 1: it left off?
• 52:42
  Speaker 2: Again? So the official reason that Silver and Springs was
• 52:45
  Speaker 2: not on the initial album was this was back in
• 52:47
  Speaker 2: the days when LPs, you know, when albums came out
• 52:51
  Speaker 2: as LPs and you could basically only have twenty minutes
• 52:55
  Speaker 2: of music. You could maybe stretch to twenty two minutes
• 52:58
  Speaker 2: of music on a side of an album, or you
• 53:01
  Speaker 2: started to really degrade the sonic quality. The grooves got
• 53:05
  Speaker 2: too narrow and you started to lose sound. It wasn't
• 53:08
  Speaker 2: as loud, it wasn't as rich when you cut the album.
• 53:11
  Speaker 2: So having Silver Springs on there would have made the
• 53:14
  Speaker 2: album too long, would have taken it up over forty
• 53:17
  Speaker 2: five minutes. So that's the you know, that's the official reason.
• 53:21
  Speaker 2: The other complicated reasons were, would you really want Dreams
• 53:27
  Speaker 2: and Old Dust Woman and Silver Springs kind of three
• 53:31
  Speaker 2: of these big Stevie styles sort of mid tempo, you
• 53:35
  Speaker 2: know that kind of a feel. Was that going to
• 53:38
  Speaker 2: overwhelm the balance of the record too much? Did Lindsay
• 53:43
  Speaker 2: have issues with you know that here was another this
• 53:45
  Speaker 2: is another song about him and there, you know, was
• 53:48
  Speaker 2: there anything personal that he was bringing into that? He
• 53:50
  Speaker 2: says it was not about that. It was really just
• 53:53
  Speaker 2: about it wouldn't fit, so we had to, you know,
• 53:57
  Speaker 2: we had to take it off replace with I Don't
• 54:01
  Speaker 2: Want to Know went on. She still got another writing
• 54:04
  Speaker 2: credit on the album. It didn't cost her that but
• 54:07
  Speaker 2: a two and a half minute song instead of a
• 54:09
  Speaker 2: five and a half minutes so it was the B
• 54:13
  Speaker 2: side of Go Your Own Way. It was not on
• 54:16
  Speaker 2: the album. But then CDs come out. Length doesn't matter anymore.
• 54:23
  Speaker 2: You can do seventy five minutes on a CD. So
• 54:26
  Speaker 2: now Silver Springs goes back on the album. Now the
• 54:29
  Speaker 2: question is where do you put it. The album exists,
• 54:33
  Speaker 2: you know, and there are different CDs. There were different
• 54:36
  Speaker 2: pressings that have Silver Springs in different places on the album.
• 54:40
  Speaker 2: There are some where it's basically between the first and
• 54:43
  Speaker 2: the second side, where it goes between Songbird and the
• 54:47
  Speaker 2: chain in the middle, and then there are others where
• 54:50
  Speaker 2: it's at the end where then you get gold Dust
• 54:53
  Speaker 2: Woman and Silver Springs back to back, which is a
• 54:55
  Speaker 2: which is weird.
• 54:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so and then of course we made that call.
• 55:00
  Speaker 2: I assume Warner Brothers the baby I don't know. And
• 55:03
  Speaker 2: then you get to streaming, of course, and you get
• 55:05
  Speaker 2: the super deluxe box set, and it's all just it.
• 55:08
  Speaker 2: So it really when you came to rumors, determines whether
• 55:13
  Speaker 2: you think Silver Springs is on this album or not.
• 55:16
  Speaker 2: I got to use the phrase Schrodinger's rumors, because here
• 55:19
  Speaker 2: is a song that simultaneously is and is not on
• 55:23
  Speaker 2: this album, depending which version of the album is your
• 55:28
  Speaker 2: introduction to the album. But again, now, particularly because of
• 55:32
  Speaker 2: this TikTok thing, it's absolutely a central piece of the
• 55:36
  Speaker 2: story of this album, and I couldn't not address it
• 55:40
  Speaker 2: and not deal with it, both to be able to
• 55:43
  Speaker 2: tell that story, but then also to talk about you
• 55:47
  Speaker 2: know what that performance at the dance was about, you know,
• 55:52
  Speaker 2: her very pointedly turning it into this sort of accusatory,
• 55:57
  Speaker 2: confrontational song, and and how that has lived on, particularly
• 56:02
  Speaker 2: through this kind of TikTok explosion in the last couple
• 56:05
  Speaker 2: of years.
• 56:07
  Speaker 1: Hey guys, we'll get back to the show, but first
• 56:09
  Speaker 1: I want to tell you about an exclusive deal for
• 56:11
  Speaker 1: booked on Rock listeners get fifteen percent off any purchase
• 56:15
  Speaker 1: at old glory dot com. Over three hundred thousand officially
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  Speaker 1: Old Glory dot com. Make sure to use the promo code.
• 56:33
  Speaker 1: Booked on Rock. Also find a link in this episode
• 56:36
  Speaker 1: show notes, or just go to booked on rock dot
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  Speaker 1: com and click on my deals. So I want to
• 56:41
  Speaker 1: finish by asking you what you think of the album now,
• 56:43
  Speaker 1: more importantly, what do you feel when you listen to
• 56:45
  Speaker 1: it today compared to when you first heard it? As
• 56:49
  Speaker 1: a change?
• 56:49
  Speaker 2: Happily, I do still love it. This is an album
• 56:52
  Speaker 2: I bought when I was eleven years old. It was
• 56:54
  Speaker 2: one of the first albums that I bought. I remember
• 56:57
  Speaker 2: hearing those songs on the radio, and you know what
• 57:00
  Speaker 2: what that was to initially hear this record and love
• 57:03
  Speaker 2: it then. But obviously you hear it through different years,
• 57:07
  Speaker 2: this many years later, this many different you know parts
• 57:10
  Speaker 2: of this story. And I think that you know two
• 57:14
  Speaker 2: things that really stuck out to me. One, you know,
• 57:17
  Speaker 2: as as I said before, hearing this spectrum of emotions,
• 57:24
  Speaker 2: that I think a lot of these newer listeners here
• 57:28
  Speaker 2: in this album not defining it so much as the
• 57:32
  Speaker 2: you know, the tension and break up album, but hearing
• 57:35
  Speaker 2: all of the different aspects that are on there. I mean,
• 57:38
  Speaker 2: of course we know that, but that over time that
• 57:44
  Speaker 2: really becomes you know that it is a much richer
• 57:47
  Speaker 2: and much deeper tale that is being told in these songs.
• 57:51
  Speaker 2: And the other thing that really stuck with me is
• 57:55
  Speaker 2: I talked to again. I talked to a bunch of
• 57:56
  Speaker 2: producers and I took this WiMN Emily Lazar, who's a
• 57:59
  Speaker 2: mastering engineer who's won Grammys and it's done thousands of
• 58:02
  Speaker 2: record worked with Beck and the Foo Fighters at him
• 58:05
  Speaker 2: and lots of the great rock bands today and she said,
• 58:10
  Speaker 2: these bands come to me and I asked them, what
• 58:11
  Speaker 2: do you want your record to sound like? She said,
• 58:14
  Speaker 2: like can Most of them say, well, we wanted to
• 58:16
  Speaker 2: sound like Rumors. And she says, okay, but what does
• 58:20
  Speaker 2: that mean to you when you say that, what are
• 58:23
  Speaker 2: you talking about? And they say, well, we want it
• 58:27
  Speaker 2: to sound organic and warm and live and kind of
• 58:31
  Speaker 2: rich and woody. And she says, okay, I get what
• 58:35
  Speaker 2: you're talking about, but Rumors is actually none of those things.
• 58:40
  Speaker 2: The only thing that is live on Rumors is that
• 58:44
  Speaker 2: instrumental part of the chain. Everything else on this record
• 58:48
  Speaker 2: was overdubbed, every part who was played separately, to a
• 58:52
  Speaker 2: point where there's a moment where the physical tapes of
• 58:56
  Speaker 2: the album were about to fall apart. The tape was
• 59:00
  Speaker 2: coming off of the backing and they had to do
• 59:03
  Speaker 2: this crazy, you know, bringing an engineer who could sync
• 59:08
  Speaker 2: up and recut the tape to match so that they
• 59:12
  Speaker 2: had a version they could work with or they were
• 59:14
  Speaker 2: going to lose the whole album. So there's nothing organic
• 59:19
  Speaker 2: about rumors at all. It's this perfectly constructed thing. And
• 59:26
  Speaker 2: talking to Mark Ronson about it also, you know as
• 59:29
  Speaker 2: a producer in a DJ and he's like, we think
• 59:32
  Speaker 2: of it like we think about a Steely Dan record,
• 59:34
  Speaker 2: Like we think it's this pristine seventies thing, But actually,
• 59:37
  Speaker 2: if you listen to those parts, there's some real sort
• 59:40
  Speaker 2: of rough, raw stuff on there. There's parts where Nick
• 59:44
  Speaker 2: Fleet would have just beaten the hell out of the drums.
• 59:46
  Speaker 2: There's parts that are a little distorted and kind of frayed,
• 59:50
  Speaker 2: and that's what gives the album more life. That's where
• 59:52
  Speaker 2: you hear this emotion that we're talking about. It's not perfect,
• 59:56
  Speaker 2: it's not immaculate, right, and that's what where you feel
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 2: that energy and so I think we bring these associations.
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 2: Do we think about the time and the album cover
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 2: and the clothes they were wearing and the shag carpeting, like,
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 2: we think about it so much that you know, we
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 2: associate it to this time and place and bring all
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 2: that in when we listen to rumors that isn't actually
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 2: what rumors sounds like. And I thought, though, that was
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 2: a really really interesting thing to think about and to
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 2: think about more broadly, how we listen to stuff. How
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 2: much of that is, all of the everything that we
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 2: bring in our brain, that we attach to the time
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 2: and where we heard it and how we listened to
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 2: it and how we were exposed to it, that isn't
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 2: really an accurate representation of what it is. Doesn't make
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 2: it less valid, doesn't mean that stuff isn't true and
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 2: isn't there in our head, but it may or may
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 2: not actually be what the thing is. So I think
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 2: those were the things that sort of opened up for
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 2: me in research this and sort of trying to connect
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 2: the dots through the years, or you know, we all
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 2: have these conceptions, and younger listeners do have these conceptions
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 2: of what this album is. That's part of it and
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 2: then there are all these other parts, and that's where
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 2: all these other people can find their way into it.
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 2: You know, all these kids talked about. Of course, my
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 2: parents had rumors. Everybody had rumors. We grew up with
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 2: it in the house. But that isn't. I don't listen
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 2: to this album for nostalgia. I had to. This album
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 2: had to become my album and had to become about
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 2: my relationship to them. That's why I care about this.
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 2: I don't care about this because my parents or God
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 2: help us, my grandparents in some cases listen to this album.
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 2: I was aware of it, but until I could make
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 2: it mine, that's when it really mattered to me. And
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 2: that's the experience we all go through with with the
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 2: music that we love. I mean, there's stuff that we
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 2: listen to. It reminds us of a time, it takes
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 2: us to that place. But if we don't feel it
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 2: for ourselves, that isn't you know, we don't care about
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 2: it in that same way. That's what I got to
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 2: hear over and over and that's really powerful to hear about.
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 2: You know, any piece of you to be talking to
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 2: kids about music that they love. But also, you know,
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 2: we get we do this stuff every day you get
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 2: jaded about it, you get cynical, You feel like, ah,
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 2: music doesn't mean what it used to. It's not as
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 2: important as it used to be. It's not like it was.
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 2: You talk to these kids about their feelings for these songs,
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 2: and you feel that power and you feel how important
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 2: it is. That's inspiring. That's what keeps me wanting to
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 2: pay attention to this stuff.
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 1: I'd love to hear that. Don't stop. Why we still
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 1: love flutood Max rumors out now. Find out wherever books
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 1: are sold. Look for it at yourineer's bookstore. You can
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 1: go to book down rock dot com to find your
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 1: nearest independent bookstore. See if you can pick up a
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 1: copy there. Where can people find you online? Alan, Well, the.
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 2: Best place right now is my is over on the
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 2: podcast that I co host with my friend Mark Goodman.
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 2: We spent a bunch of years on Sirius XM together
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 2: doing a show daily and channel. Our channel got shut down,
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 2: so we've been doing that. So sound Up is our
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 2: podcast sound uppod dot com. You can find us there,
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 2: but we're we're up every week and that's kind of
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 2: the best place to uh see what's what's going on?
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 2: In my world.
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 1: Allen Night, thanks so much for coming on the show.
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 1: I really was looking forward to this.
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 2: This was great, Eric, absolutely a pleasure. Thanks for bringing
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 2: me on. That's it. It's in the books.