Tusk Deluxe Edition
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Fleetwood Mac’s Tusk songs laid bare one by one

Stevie Nicks, Lindsey Buckingham, and Mick Fleetwood discuss the songs from Tusk in liner notes of the new Deluxe and Expanded editions of Fleetwood Mac‘s 1979 album Tusk. While fans have long speculated about the meaning of the songs, namely ones penned by Stevie Nicks, the band has finally come clean about how their compositions came to be. Read on.

1. Over & Over

The opening track, the first of Christine’s six songs on the album, is played remarkably slow — a ballad with a backbeat.

Lindsey: “By the time we got to this we knew we had [an album] that was not by the book. When it came to the sequencing we felt this song had a certain familiarity to it, something that people were going to be able to latch onto on one level and yet set them up for some of the other, more untraditional things. Where this got untraditional was leaving it in a fairly raw state, not too glossy in the production.”

2. The Ledge

Lindsey kicks off his contributions with the least Rumours-like song of the lot. Many of the vocals were recorded while kneeling or lying on the floor.

Lindsey: “About as far from “Over & Over” as it’s possible to go. I was trying to find things that were off the radar. I took a guitar and turned it way down, in the range of the higher notes of a bass, not like a baritone guitar, where it’s correct, but where it’s actually a little incorrect — the strings are flopping around and sharping when you hit them. I wrote a little figure with that, threw some teenage influences at it with the drums. It becomes a bit surreal — you throw a bunch of vocals on top that are communal, messy, a little bit punky even.

I don’t think there’s anyone else on there but me. There were times when the band would augment, and there were times when, even if I took a song in with the intention of having them play, it wouldn’t necessarily stick. On this, that one guitar was covering everything. It was a concept piece on that level. There was nothing for John and Christine to do.

Lyrically, I didn’t really have anything to say other than what I could put together that sounded musical. There was probably something subconscious about the lyrics. You could say that about Rumours too. I don’t think anyone in the band was in touch with the fact that we might have been writing dialogues with each other. It took the audience to help define that for us. That probably holds true for songs on Tusk too.”

3. Think About Me

This steady boogie by Christine was a Top 20 hit in the U.S. when released as a single in a punchy, remixed version.

4. Save Me a Place

In complete contrast to “The Ledge,” this Lindsey’s tenderest song on the album, and one of his tenderest ever.

Lindsey: “Stevie and I had compartmentalized our emotions in order to [get through Rumours], lived in denial. Same with Christine and John. None of us had the luxury of distance to get closure. You get to Tusk and there’s a real aggressive attitude in a lot of the songs from me. But “Save Me a Place” is one where, late at night, you reflect on the vulnerability underneath that. It’s about a feeling that’s been laid off to one side and maybe not been fully dealt with, sadness and a sense of loss. There’s also a sense of loss for my youth and my upbringing, memories of that, which I loved so much, and how I saw that receding away.”

5. Sara

ABOUT: Mick Fleetwood, Don Henley, J.D. Souther, Sara Fleetwood, and other things

Stevie’s first song on the album began as a 16-minute home demo, condensed into a nine-minute studio version, further trimmed to a six-and-a-half minute album track and, later, a four-minute single edit, which was a Top 10 U.S. hit and the version used on subsequent CD editions of the album. [Editor’s note: A different edit of “Sara,” not the official single edit, was actually used for the first CD pressing of Tusk.] The nine-minute first take, mixed down for listening purposes but not intended for release, is sometimes referred to as the “cleaning lady version,” after the dialogue at the start. It is among the bonus material in this edition.

Lindsey: “Some of Stevie’s songs were hard to rein in. If you’re very lyric driven and not overly worried about time and structure, if it’s more freeform, which a lot of Stevie’s things can be, six or more minutes is not hard to get to. The nine-minute version of this was something we cut but probably never intended it to go out at that length.

I wasn’t delving into Stevie’s private life at the time, so I was never told what it was actually about. I always assumed it was addressed to her friend, who was Mick’s wife at the time.”

Stevie: “It was a 16-minute demo. My friend Sara was there when I wrote it. She kept the coffee going and kept the cassettes coming and made sure we didn’t run out of batteries, and it was a long, long night recording that demo. She was a great songwriter helper. Sara was the poet in my heart. She likes to think it was all written about her, but it really wasn’t. She’s in there, for sure, but it’s written about a lot of other things, too. Mick was the “great dark wing within the wings of a storm,” but when I was going with Mick I was hanging out with J.D. Souther and he kept saying, ‘You do know this relationship with Mick is never going to work, don’t you?’ And I said, ‘Well, when I get out of it, I’ll let you know.” And so there’s bits and pieces of him there talking to me.

I played it for J.D. and Don Henley and the both said, ‘You know what, it’s almost not too long. It’s good in its full 16 minuteness — it’s got all these great verses and it just kinda travels through the world of your relationships.’ They were really complimentary to me and these are two great songwriters. I knew I had to edit it down, but I found it hard to get below seven minutes. As simple and pretty as the song was, it turned into a magical, rhythmic, tribal thing with all those ‘oohs’ and ‘aahs.” It’s a fun song to sing.”

6. What Makes You Think You’re the One

This spirited Lindsey song is notable for the loud, enthusiastic drum track, which Mick made the most of when performed live.

Lindsey: “We cut this with just me on piano and Micks on drums, on opposite sides of the room. Aside from setting up the normal mics, we set up a cassette player, a boombox, in front of the drums and ran it into the desk. The mics in those devices have capacitors in them that act as really low-quality limiters, so you got this squash that’s really explosive, a real garage, trashy sound that you could only get that way. A good-quality limiter couldn’t replicate it. As soon as Mick heard that sound in his headphones he was, ‘Oh my god,  I love this.’ It turned him into an animal. There’s not much else on there. I did some bass and guitar, but the center of that song is Mick’s drum work, one of my favorite drum performances by him. We talk about it to this day.”

7. Storms

About: Mick Fleetwood

A perfect example of the tastefulness and delicacy of Fleetwood Mac’s playing: everybody contributes just enough to one of Stevie’s most finely poised compositions.

Lindsey: “This album is a study in contrasts. It’s a very different mood from the previous song and a very strong song in terms of its form. It has its own folky, country thing going on. The recording speaks of it being cut fairly live. I love this song.”

Stevie: “Another tragedy. It has so many layers of telling the world what was happening to me without actually saying what was happening! It was really about Mick. That’s Stevie not happy with the way that relationship ended. That relationship destroyed Mick’s marriage to Jenny, who was the sweetest person in the world. So did we really think that we were going to come out of it unscathed? So then what happened to me, my best friend falling in love with him and moving into his house and neither of them telling me? It could not have been worse. Payback is a bitch. Bad karma all around. Here’s that song in a nutshell: Don’t break up other people’s marriages. It will never work and will haunt you for the rest of your miserable days.”

8. That’s All for Everyone

Echos of the Beach Boys with layered harmonies and a tempo like waves lapping the shoreline.

Lindsey: “This was influenced by Brian Wilson. What I love about him is not just his music but his choices. He gave me the courage to flout success, showed me that what you need to do as an artist is take risks and find new avenues.

It’s a wisp of a meaning at best, more of an atmosphere piece. I had the idea of being at a function with these people and having to go home, but on a less literal level I think it may also have been about deprogramming from the formulas you need to follow to buy what the corporate world is trying to sell you.”

9. Not That Funny

Lindsey’s sarcastic rocking with a distinctive, plangent guitar sound was extended into an eight-minute tour de force at subsequent live shows. A slightly remixed version was issued as a single in the U.K. but didn’t chart.

Lindsey: “This was directed at Stevie a little bit. There’s something we are still having to deal with as a band: ‘What’s important here? People thinking you’re cool or thinking you’re cool yourself?’ It’s more how you feel about yourself, isn’t it? This is a classic pitfall of the entertainment industry. It draws people to it who are looking for a Band-Aid to fix things that have happened in their lives. The celebrity culture we live in is a very Roman manifestation of something gone a little wrong with the value system. It doesn’t speak of substance; it only speaks of visibility. It’s about not buying into other people’s idea of you — that’s the important thing.

The guitar sound is just a Stratocaster; but I love using the VSO (Variable Sound Oscillation, or Varispeed, allows you to incrementally speed up or slow down a taper recorder). I just slow the machine down, come up with a picking part like that, double or triple it and tweak the VSO on either side so that it’s slightly out of tune, and the whole thing comes out with all this phasing.”

10. Sisters of the Moon

About: A bad mood

A lyrically enigmatic Stevie contribution, with a guitar solo by Lindsey that’s reminiscent of “The Chain,” this was a surprise addition to the set on the band’s spectacularly successful 2014/15 reunion tour.

Stevie: “I honestly don’t know what the hell this song is about. I’ve been singing it on tour for the last two and a half years, and every time I’m thinking, What the hell is that? I think it was me putting up an alter ego or something, the dark lady in the corner, and there’s a Gemini twin thing. It wasn’t a love song; it wasn’t written about a man, or anything precious. It was just about a feeling I might have had over a couple days, going inward in my gnarly trollness. Makes no sense. Perfect for this record!”

11. Angel

About: Mike Fleetwood

In a contemporary documentary, Stevie noted that this upbeat rock ‘n’ roll song somehow ended up with an eerie undertone.

Stevie: “A song about Mick. Not so much my love affair with him. I was always taken with his style, and in those days he would walk in the room and I would just look up. ‘I still look up when you walk in the room… I try not to reach out.’ It’s all about him and his crazy fob watch and his really beautiful clothes. He’s a very stylish individual and I was just this little California girl who’d never really known anybody like him.”

12. That’s Enough for Me

Lindsey’s breakneck rocker with country roots. Amazingly, the band sometimes played it even faster live. The song was initially known as “Out on the Road” — that title is visible in the handwriting incorporated into the inner-sleeves collages.

Lindsey: “Rockabilly on acid. An attempt to do something quite surreal, grounded in something recognizable. I was tapping into a general set of reference points on this album. But I never thought of it in terms of nostalgia. It was anti-nostalgia, if you will.”

13. Brown Eyes

Fleetwood Mac’s founder, Peter Green, makes an uncredited appearance on this song by Christine. His solo is just discernible on the fade out here but can be hear in its entirety on The Alternate Tusk.

Lindsey: I don’t remember Peter Green coming in, so I don’t think I made any judgement on whether to use it or not. Mick would ultimately have had the decision to use his playing or not. And it was Christine’s song to do with as she wished.

Mick: Peter was living in L.A. then and hanging out at my house a lot. He was still as he is now, changed, but he used to pop into the studio occasionally. I don’t know if he was that interested or not, but he did play on this song, which I love. Classic, slinky, killer stuff from Chris. The band’s playing really shines. I can’t recall why we only used Peter at the very end, but it’s great that he’s on here, because it’s Peter and it’s his band.

14. Never Make Me Cry

Short and sweet. A classic Christine McVie ballad.

Lindsey: “I think the others wanted to counter some of the my more manic moments with something a little more downbeat, so this is the kind of thing we ended up doing. This would have worked too with more of a beat, but I assume Christine saw it as a ‘Warm Ways’ kind of ballad.”

15. I Know I’m Not Wrong

The first and last song worked on in Studio D, it went through several iterations during the band’s year in the studio, as indicated by the density of the arrangement.

Lindsey: “This is a close relative to ‘Not That Funny’ and they share a lyric. ‘Here comes the night time/Looking for a little more.’ It’s a little joke — can you find the thread here? Like a repeating theme in a novel.”

16. Honey Hi

A Christine song with a markedly subdued arrangement, designed to never quite lift off. Its close cousin, “Never Forget,” brackets the mostly mellow fourth side of the vinyl album.

17. Beautiful Child

About: Derek Taylor

“This is one of my very favourite ballads. It’s so from the heart. It was written about an English man (Late Beatles road manager Derek Taylor) I was crazy about who was quite a bit older than me — another one of my doomed relationships. He used to read poetry out loud to me in his beautiful English voice, and I would sit at his feet, just mesmerized, and he would say, ‘You are a beautiful child,’ and I’d say, ‘I’m not a child anymore.’ He was married, so we stopped, because it was going to hurt a lot of people. The song is like a straight retelling of the last night of that relationship. Every time I sing it I’m transported back to the Beverly Hills Hotel and walking across the grounds to get a cab after saying goodbye.”

Read more about Stevie’s relationship with Derek Taylor

18. Walk a Thin Line

Lindsey’s experiment in embellishing a stately melody with multitracked drums.

Lindsey: “This was sparked by a Charlie Watts drum fill in ‘Sway’ on Stick Fingers. There are a couple of times where he does a kind of military press-roll across the beat, and I was in love with that moment. When I thought about the tempo of the song I was reminded of ‘Sway’ and that fill. It was a spirited idea that fit the song.”

19. Tusk

This is the first music from the album that the world heard when it was released as a single. It became a Top 10 hit in the U.S. and U.K., and versions of the main guitar and drum riff appear on soundcheck tapes—labeled simply “Stage riff”—from as far back as 1975.

Mick: “My dad had just passed away and I went to see my mum, who lived in the south of France, and it was all pretty crazy. The first night I was drinking like a fish and I got woken in the morning, with an outrageous hangover, by the local brass band playing outside my window—a thing they do every weekend in a lot of places in Europe. It was like the pied piper: the whole village, old fisherman, kids, people in wheelchairs, all following this band, going ‘round and ‘round the village. Just as I thought I’d get back to sleep, the band would march past again. In the end I thought, Fuck it, I’ll keep on drinking. So I sat on the veranda with my brandy at 8 o’clock in the morning and started to think, What a cool thing, involving everyone in the village, bringing people together, a celebration. That’s what we should do on that track. Who might be the best brass band in L.A.? The USC marching band was touted, and I sold the idea to the band. John was uncontactable, off sailing somewhere, when we got the chance to record and film the band, so we took a cardboard cutout of him to Dodger Stadium to be in the video.”

Lindsey: “On some level this song was the embodiment of the spirit of the album. Riffs were a big thing for me, and Mick was always one to pick up on the potential of that. Christine helped me on this with some chords. The drum track is a loop. We found a 15-second section we liked and made a circular loop of two-inch tape that went across the room. We let it run for ten minutes and put the song over it. It was Mick’s idea to include the marching band. It was a great thing for USC. Not a particularly hummable song in the normal sense, but it functioned as a commercial piece, and it’s a killer moment in the live show.

I can’t say that I remember a strategy for it appearing at this point on the album. But because it stood alone, in terms of how it was done and with the marching band, if you were to stick it in too early it might blow too many cookies too soon. It feels like a capper of sorts.”

20. Never Forget

After the crazy parade of the title track, this mellow coda by Christine functions like a wave goodbye, possibly chosen to close the record for its repeated sentiment: “We will never forget tonight.”

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LIVE IN CONCERT (2024)

Stevie Nicks

MAY 3, 2024 – MAY 5, 2024
Lovin’ Life Fest
Charlotte, NC
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MAY 7, 2024
Enterprise Center
St Louis, MO
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MAY 10, 2024
WinStar World Casino & Resort
Thackerville, OK
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MAY 14, 2024
Bridgestone Arena
Nashville, TN
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MAY 18, 2024
Frost Bank Center
San Antonio, TX
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MVP Arena
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JUN 15
Hersheypark Stadium
Hershey, PA
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JUN 18
Van Andel Arena
Grand Rapids, MI
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JUN 21, 2024 (with Billy Joel)
Soldier Field
Chicago, IL
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JUL 12, 2024
BST Hyde Park
London, England
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^ Non-Live Nation show


Previous 2023 dates

March 10, 2023 – BILLY JOEL
Los Angeles, CA
SoFi Stadium

March 15, 2023
Seattle, WA
Climate Pledge Arena

March 18, 2023
Las Vegas, NV
T-Mobile Arena

May 12, 2023
Raleigh, NC
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May 16, 2023
Knoxville, TN
Thompson-Boling Arena

May 19, 2023 – BILLY JOEL
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Nissan Stadium

May 22, 2023
Atlanta, GA
State Farm Arena

May 25, 2023
Orlando, FL
Amway Center

June 16, 2023 – BILLY JOEL
Philadelphia, PA
Lincoln Financial Field

June 20, 2023
Toronto, ON (Canada)
Scotiabank Arena

June 23, 2023
Chicago, IL
United Center

June 27, 2023
Louisville, KY
KFC Yum! Center

August 5, 2023 – BILLY JOEL
Columbus, OH
Ohio Stadium

August 8, 2023
Milwaukee, WI
Fiserv Forum

August 12, 2023
Houston, TX
Toyota Center

August 15, 2023
Austin, TX
Moody Center

August 19, 2023 – BILLY JOEL
Kansas City, MO
Arrowhead Stadium

September 23, 2023 – BILLY JOEL
Foxborough, MA
Gillette Stadium

September 27, 2023
Pittsburgh, PA
PPG Paints Arena

October 1, 2023
New York, NY
Madison Square Garden

October 4, 2023
Buffalo, NY
KeyBank Center

October 7, 2023 – BILLY JOEL
Baltimore, MD 
M&T Bank Stadium

October 28, 2023
Memphis, TN
FedEx Forum

November 1, 2023
Savannah, GA
Enmarket Arena

November 4, 2023
Allentown, PA
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November 7, 2023
Detroit, MI
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November 10, 2023 – BILLY JOEL
Minneapolis, MN
U.S. Bank Stadium

November 29, 2023
San Diego, CA
Viejas Arena

December 2, 2023
Inglewood, CA
The Kia Forum

December 5, 2023
Palm Desert, CA
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Phoenix, AZ
Chase Field

December 12, 2023
Sacramento, CA
Golden 1 Center

December 15, 2023
San Francisco, CA
Chase Center

FEB 10, 2024
Mark G Etess Arena
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FEB 14, 2024
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Belmont Park, NY

FEB 17, 2024
CFG Bank Arena
Baltimore, MD

FEB 21, 2024
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Greenville, SC

FEB 24, 2024
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Hollywood, FL

FEB 28, 2024
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New Orleans, LA

MAR 3, 2024
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Omaha, NE

MAR 6, 2024
Simmons Bank Arena
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MAR 9, 2024
AT&T Stadium
Arlington, TX
Billy Joel

 



2022 Tour

Stevie Nicks

Jazz Aspen Snowmass
Snowmass, CO
Labor Day 2022

Ravinia Festival
Highland Park, IL
September 8, 2022
September 10, 2022

Pine Knob Music Theatre
Clarkston, MI
September 13, 2022
w/ Vanessa Carlton

Sea Hear Now Festival
Asbury, NJ
September 17, 2022

Xfinity Center
Mansfield, MA
September 19, 2022
w/ Vanessa Carlton

Maine Savings Amphitheatre
Bangor, ME
September 22, 2022
w/ Vanessa Carlton

Sound on Sound Festival
Bridgeport, CT
September 24-25, 2022

Ohana Festival
Dana Point, CA
September 30, 2022

Hollywood Bowl
Los Angeles, CA
October 3, 2022
w/ Vanessa Carlton

POSTPONED
Ak-Chin Pavilion

Phoenix, AZ
October 6, 2022
w/ Vanessa Carlton

POSTPONED
Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion

The Woodlands, TX
October 9, 2022
w/ Vanessa Carlton

Ameris Bank Amphitheatre
Alpharetta, GA
October 12, 2022
w/ Vanessa Carlton

Ascend Amphitheater
Nashville, TN
October 16, 2022
w/ Vanessa Carlton

Credit One Stadium
Charleston, SC
October 19, 2022
w/ Vanessa Carlton

PNC Music Pavilion
Charlotte, NC
October 22, 2022
w/ Vanessa Carlton

MIDFLORIDA Credit Union Amphitheatre
Tampa, FL
October 25, 2022
w/ Vanessa Carlton

iTHINK Financial Amphitheatre
West Palm Beach, FL
October 28, 2022
w/ Vanessa Carlton

Orion Amphitheatre
Huntsville, AL
October 31, 2022

RESCHEDULED SHOWS

Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion
The Woodlands, TX
November 2, 2022
w/ Vanessa Carlton

Ak-Chin Pavilion
Phoenix, AZ
November 5, 2022
w/ Vanessa Carlton