Fleetwood Mac's "Dreams" with Sam Sanders

One, two, three. Hey, there we go and live with us, the guys from One Song. We're talking dreams by Fleetwood Mac. It's luxury, the all-out and our friends and senders. Watch us carefully break it down here on RFS K-C-R-W. And if you know the song, sing along. And what you had and what you lost. I think you guys know these lyrics. So what you had and what you lost. Let's do it. Now it goes to chorus. And the only happens when it's raining. Players only love you when they're playing. Say women, they will come and they will go. When the rain washes you clean your nose. You know. You know. Oh, oh, oh, oh. All right. All right. On RFS, let's go. Y'all surprised me with that. Oh, thank you. Welcome, y'all. It's great to have you here. It's so fun to see real people. Yes, welcome to the studio. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you on RFS. One song and our good, good friend, Sam here. For those who don't know me, I'm writer, director, actor, and sometimes DJ, D'Ala Riddle. And I'm producer, DJ, songwriter and guy who whispers interpolation luxury. Hello. And new KCRW DJ every Friday at 10 p.m. That's right. That's right. Can I just say as a friend to masterful episodes already I've heard in there. You're doing such a good job. Today we're so excited to be doing this show in front of a live studio audience at KCRW on RFS. Yeah. We're going to be diving deep into one of the most hauntingly beautiful breakup songs of all time. Any of y'all been in a breakup, make some noise. Yeah. That's right. This is the song that reminds us all that players only love you when they're playing and women, they come and go. Right? Apparently. Or when they're riding a skateboard with a bottle of ocean spray. That's right. Let's not forget that seminal moment. We're talking one song and that song is Dreams by Fleetwood Mac. Yeah. Under the lonely, hapless, when it's raining. You never get tired of the song. Are you a little tired of the song? Never. Never. We're going to break it down. You're going to hear it like you've never, ever heard it before. And here to help us break this song down as we sang, we've invited a special friend of the pod. He is a big Fleetwood Mac fan. Please welcome award-winning reporter, radio host and podcaster extraordinaire, Sam Sanders. Thank you for having me. Thank you for coming on the show, Sam. We really appreciate it. Yes. When y'all asked me, I was like, okay, I like these guys. And they were like, it's going to be Fleetwood Mac. And I was like, okay. And then they were like, it's going to be Dreams. And I said, yeah, I'd pay you to do this. It's one of the best songs of all time. One of the best songs of all time. But there are two songs of favorite Fleetwood Mac songs of all time that you have, right? You've stated many times. Why is it neck and neck between this one? What's the other one? Tell the audience. The other one is Silver Springs, which I think is the emotional sequel or continuation of Dreams. And with both. She wrote it. She wrote it. She wouldn't let it get on the album. Exactly. She waited for 30 years to get that song on a Fleetwood album and then made him perform it live. And you can see the two of them locked in a visual embrace the whole time. And then she was like, I want to know what I love about Dreams and Stevie and Fleetwood Mac is that they are at their best the platonic ideal of like white chaos. White. Good night, everybody. We're not going to talk about it. They do this thing that I wish all white people did when they're feeling messy. Fleetwood Mac turned the mess into art. What a great way to live a life. The mess was music. Now they turn into podcasts. Real quick. Sam, by the way, I heard that that was her after she heard Go Your Own Way. Oh yeah, that was the answer to it. That was her answer. So those two songs. What two podcasts was hit them up. That was her hit them up. Oh yeah. Yeah. Well, it's also beautiful. It's like her version of their breakup was Dreams. His version was Go Your Own Way. And it just proves this universal truth that there are many truths when it comes to a breakup. And all of these truths can be beautiful. Yeah. I don't know. It's just, it's like the best way to do a breakup. Fleetwood Mac. Sam, how did your love of Fleetwood Mac begin? I grew up really Pentecostal. And so all of my music appreciation and education had to kind of come secretly when mom wasn't home because my dad didn't care. But very early on VH1 kind of raised me and behind the music was a big part of my education. And I'll never forget the Fleetwood Mac behind the music. Yes, it's a classic. I was like, how are these people so messy? How many of you guys have seen that episode? It's so good. If you remember that show, that's sort of the, the, that's the ultimate episode. Yeah. And I really elapsed onto Dreams and the entire album rumors, but it got to the point where I could hear that opening drum lick and I would know right away. Oh yeah, I'm in. I'm there. And I've had the experience of showing young people in my life or playing for them for the first time, Dreams. And you watch the moment when like they realize it's perfect. And you're like, oh, this is, this is why we're here on earth to tell young people about Fleetwood Mac. It really is a perfect song. It's 48 years old. Yeah. This song and it still feels fresh. It never gets old. It never gets old. It feels like it's captured a real moment both in the relationship of the two, of Stevie Nicks and Lindsay Buckingham. That's the he that we've been mentioning so far. We're getting deep into the stories of these people, but it's also the whole band is there's a lot going on. 48 years later, you can still feel the tension in the song. Oh yeah. And in the beauty of the song. Oh yeah. Well, and it's, it's, it's just like, it's a very simple song. When she first wrote it, I think Christine McVeigh was like, the song is too simple. It's three chords. Where is the melody? And it's perfect in its simplicity. So people really think that the drums on this song are particularly haunting and they're very haunting and hypnotic because they took, I want to say eight bars of the drums and just looped it. That's it. That's a wild. That's incredible. It worked. It puts you in a trance. We're going to be getting deep, deep, deep into each of those layers. We'll be playing for you the isolated drum tracks in the bass and the vocals, but we'll be getting into that story in particular because you're absolutely right. That contributes in big part to the hauntingness, the hypnoticness. Yeah. Real quick, I want to ask how many of you, I'm going to play a video for you real quick. How many of you know this song? Cause we got some younger people here. I see some young faces. How many of you know this song from this viral TikTok video? That's not the right one. Cut, cut. We can't embarrass my friend like that. Come on. Let's watch the whole thing anyway. Okay. That's not the video we want. I'm glad you did injure yourself. I almost died. I almost died. It was worth it for the comedy. Beautiful. I've never been on a skateboard in my life. Wait, can we play the proper, I don't know. There's the one. Nathan, Apidaka, AK dog face. So COVID era. It's so COVID coded. And like it speaks to the power of this song. This is a breakup song. This is a heartbreak song. And oh boy, it's just like vibing and cruising. It's just vibing. That's how good this song is. Ocean spray crayon. Yes. Yes. It's incredible. It's like a pop culture classic right there. COVID coded. Before we dive into the music, we thought we'd have a little fun with a quick round of Fleetwood Mac trivia. First question. Are you ready? All right. That's not the first question. First question. True or false. Stevie Nicks and Lindsay Buckingham joined Fleetwood Mac almost a decade after the band had been around. Yes. That is true. That is correct. And in fact, for those who don't know, Fleetwood Mac was a going concern for a decade before Lindsay and Stevie joined in 1975. And they started as a British blues band. And by the way, they were good. And they were good. They were absolutely good. That's how it's written. Peter Green wrote the first Black Magic Woman, made more famous by Santana. But they had hits. They had hits. Yeah. Let's play one of them. This is one of my favorites. Even though I just said they were notoriously or well known for being a blues band. One of my favorite tunes, which he may recognize as this one, which is on the more chill side, this is Albatross. Before there was Cronbin, there was Albatross. This is what they were playing in Ojai, in every hotel in Ojai. I was going to say, this is like Desert Road, right? It's so Desert Road riding for wealthy people. Play too much of that. We will fall asleep. Stop horrific. Yeah. That's a stop. Dinsmore is 80. John Dinsmore is 80. Okay. John Dinsmore, the doors were straight. Well, I got question number two for you, Sam Sanders. Yes. All right. So the band, as we've just been discussing with you, previous incarnations before the famous five that we know to this day. Yes. I don't know how many guitar players sleep with Mac had in their illustrious career. Can you have no idea, but I'm going to say seven. That's a great guess. Actually, I stopped counting at eight. Okay. But with founder Peter Green, there was also Jeremy Spencer, Bob Welch, Rick Vito, Billy Burnett. Of course, Lindsay Buckingham. Yes. And Mike Campbell from Tom Petting the Heartbreakers has come back and forth taking this place when, when, but when Buckingham has recently been booted and then been reintegrated. Campbell was his replacement for awhile. All right. Next question. True or false? Christine McVee used to write reviews for a music magazine before she joined. True. Unfortunately, this is false. I told you I was going to nail you, man. She was already established. When she joined the band. So you'll get the next one. And fun fact, her maiden name. Do you happen to know this? No. This is for my dad is in the audience. He loves the fact that Christine's maiden name was perfect. So she was Christine. Perfect. And yes, she changed it to McVee. There he is. To me, you hold on to that last. Yeah. Mistake. All right. We got next question coming up here. True or false? Every member of Fleetwood Mac was either divorcing, breaking up or having an affair with another member. That is very true. Of Fleetwood Mac during the rumors era. That is very true. This is very true. Yeah. Just for those of you who don't know, Stevie and Lindsay had broken up right before the making of the record. Christine and John on keyboards and bass, respectively, the McVee's had divorced. So she left. cheating on his wife, Jenny Boyd in the process. Who's sister? White KS. Yeah, who's own. Who's sister, Patty Boyd was cheating on her husband, George Harrison, left him for Eric Clapton, and that's how we get Layla. What? Yes. Also, there should be a rule. If you are in a band and you're having relationship issues with other folks in the band, you have to stay in the band. Cause then you make a thing, you get these beautiful perfect records. You can't break up. Yeah. You can't, I don't know, you can break up, but you should stay together. Otherwise not to break up for the sake of the art. Yeah. Yeah. Every band should have to stay together. Peripheral question, not on our question list, question for you. I've been thinking about this. Yeah. I've obsessed with it. Is Fleetwood Mac a British band? No, they're American. I think they're American. America loves Fleetwood Mac more than anybody else. But it was founded and bring by British people. So was America kind of, if you think about it. All right. Fair clap back. That's a nice. That's fair. That's fair. Next question. Fleetwood Mac in the war. In the Revolutionary War of 1975. It was written. Yeah. All right. Do you know why they called the album Rumors? Well, because of the rumors. It's not, it's very close. Yeah, that's cool. So John McVie, yeah, let's give it to him. 100 points. 4 out of 5. So it out here is cute to try. John McVie suggested the album. They were making, be called Rumors, because they were all writing songs about one another without actually admitting it. But he called it. You can literally go through the entirety of the track list. We've got Go Your Own Way, Second Hand News, Never Going Back Again, All Lindsay versus Stevie. Stevie claps back, by the way, fun fact, was dating Dunn Henley at the time. Dreams, Silver Springs, I don't want to know. Gold Dust will move. Silver Springs didn't make an album in the 90s. That's right. Fair point. So that's kind of like an awesome rant. One of the reasons why I kept it off the air. He was like, no, not that much. Let's not forget that we had Christine McVie as a songwriter. The third songwriter, breaking up with her husband, John on bass, wrote, don't stop thinking about tomorrow. It's about John. It's not about Bill Clinton and a Better Tomorrow. It's about John McVie. Oh, Daddy is about Mick leaving Jenny, the aforementioned Mick Fleetwood leaving the Jenny Boyd, that other relationship. And then she wrote, you make love and fun, not about John McVie, but about her affair with the band's lighting director. That's right. That's right. Lighting directors. What were their signs? Hooking it up. Hooking it up. What were their signs? I see you, Jack. OK. What were their horoscope signs? That's a great question. I don't know. I have to know. If anyone knows, just yell it out. Would that solve everything? Because I have a theory. All right, last one, Sam. That's a hard one. It's a hard one. True or false, this song was originally called Spinner's because Stevie Nicks thought it sounded like a song by the Spinner's. Really? Sure. No. It's true. Oh, wow. It's true. Luxury, can we hear? Yes. So Stevie Nicks, apparently, when she first wrote the song, she was vibing on the two-chord vamp that we'll be talking about a little bit later. And in her mind, she's like, oh, that, yeah, that kind of reminds me of that Spinner's tune, which I will now play for you. Let's see if we think that there's any connection between them. The Spinner's. You know what? I get it. I love when this happens. My favorite of this happening when Prince was about to record Purple Rain, he called Journey to be like, I think this song, the chords sound too much like. Faithfully. Like faithfully. And Journey was like, it's OK, dude, make your song. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Good answer. Also, I love this tangent, Dave Grohl says that all of his drumming from Nevermind was just the gap band. The gap band. Fucking amazing. But I thought when you brought up Prince, I thought you were going to mention the fact that he's probably the person playing keyboards on Stevie Nicks's Stand Back. Oh, he is on Stand Back. Yeah, she heard Little Red Corvette and she was like, I love this song. And they connected. And Prince ran to the studio and laid down all these keyboard parts like that, laid it down. Lay it down. Leave it there. And when you go back and listen to Stand Back now, you're like, I can hear the Prince. Yeah. The Prince influences. Let's get our tally. You got three. You are officially a Fleetwood Mac fan. Should we call you a Big Mac? What do we call them? Fleetheads? Call me a rumor. Yeah. Everybody's like, oh, nice one. Yeah. Yeah. All right, guys. So if you're new to Fleetwood Mac, as you might have guessed from the trivia questions, this is a band with quite the story to guess dramatic career. So in the rumors era, the lineup consisted of, as we've mentioned, founding member, Mick Fleetwood on drums, John McVean bass. And for those of you who didn't know this, that's where the name comes from, Fleetwood and Mac, as in McVean. So that was the rhythm section. When John brought in his wife, Christine Perfect, AKA McVean, it was all British. And I guess the crossover into Americana happened when Lindsay and Stevie joined. Lindsay, according to the tale, they had just recorded Silver Springs. And he saw Mick Fleetwood. And Mick Fleetwood happened to be, I believe, listening to Silver Springs. And he liked the sound of it. He said, oh, that's my tune. If you dig it, I'm glad you like it. And then later got a phone call from Mixing, would you like to join the band? And famously said, I would love to, but only if you bring my girlfriend. So Lindsay and Stevie were a package deal. And that's how we have the iconic lineup that we know and love to this day. Why isn't there a reality show that recreates those dynamics? Like you bring musicians who the judges know have been sleeping together? Do you find a couple? I'm sorry, I know that. Do we find couples that are fucking and then make them do music? Can I say that? I don't know if it's. You just did. It happened. You just did. I'll start using my Warren Olney voice. Or do you find great musicians and get them to sleep together? Both. There's two houses. Then happened to the season, you flip the houses and you make it all crazier. Did he get like people sleep together who are really bad musicians? Yes. I love it. So the five of these wonderful individuals recorded rumors at the record plan in Sausalito over the course of a year. And things were tense to put it mildly. As we've mentioned before, everyone's relationships were falling apart. And they were literally writing songs about each other while still showing up to sing beautiful harmonies together. So when we get back, we're going to take a quick break. But when we get back, we're going to hear not only Stevie's beautiful, isolated vocals, the amazing musicianship. We will also hear Sam tell us why this song has stood the test of time when we get back. Ready to launch your business? Get started with the commerce platform made for entrepreneurs. Shopify is specially designed to help you start, run, and grow your business with easy customizable themes that let you build your brand. Marketing tools that get your products out there. Integrated shipping solutions that actually save you time. From startups to scale ups online, in person, and on the go. Shopify is made for entrepreneurs like you. Sign up for your $1 a month trial at Shopify.com slash setup. Welcome back to OneSog. We're about to dive into the stems of dreams penned by Stevie next. The story goes, she wrote it all in one afternoon, tucked away in Sly Stone's room at the record plan. While the rest of the band was recording, Stevie sat alone in that room with a keyboard and came up with this hypnotic spell of a song. Stevie said, quote, I found a drum pattern, switched my little cassette player on, and wrote dreams in about 10 minutes. Isn't that always the way? It's always like, yeah, we wrote that last song. It was thriller. Also, the room was wild. She said it was a black and red room with a sunken pit in the middle. And a bed. There was a piano and a big black velvet bed with Victorian drapes. What? The 70s loved a sunken pit. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like all the relationships in Fleetwood Man. Sunken pits. The sunken place, exactly. We don't have that first demo, do we? We don't have that first demo, unfortunately. But you did allude to this great quote. We do know that it was very simple and wonderfully, Christine McVeigh says, when Stevie first played the on the piano, it was just three chords and one note in the left hand. And I thought, this is really boring. But then the Lindsay Genius came into play. So Lindsay helped her develop the song. And this, by the way, just to remind everybody, not only had they broken up, but like Stevie broke his heart. And the song was about him. Yeah. And he's like, I'll help you. This is a big act of artistic generosity to participate in turning this two-chord thing that Christine was rolling her British eyes at and turning it into the masterpiece that we know it today. And we'll be getting into that in just a moment, in great detail. What other of you make a song with an X? I don't think so. That's just too intimate. I mean, you should be so vulnerable. Oh, yeah. Sing it, damn it. It could be a power trip. It's true. Yeah. You take control. Yeah. It'd be like an Abba situation, actually. That's literally what Abba was. Sing it. We are going to now play for you an early version of the song, as it was known at the time as Spinners. This is an early take. According to the story, they ran about 24 takes. And then the last one, they thought was perfect. So we're going to hear a little bit of, I don't know which take this is, but you will recognize some things, and some things will sound a little bit different. It's pretty fully formed as a song, but it's just three layers of music. And just sort of like, because it's fun for us obsessives, there's one lyric that ended up changing later. So I'll play it for you, see if you can identify the lyric that changed. Now here I go and see the crystal changes. Right. Crystal changes. Crystal vision is so iconic. It also feels like this version is really just hanging on two chords. So Lindsay's final version does three, it feels like. It barely does the third one. We're going to get into that, but you're nailing part of it. But part of the magic of, I think, what the whole band was able to contribute to the core idea, which was so solid, is to give it, it was really that third chord that made it cohesive feelings. But I will also weigh in and say that maybe it's the DJ and me. These drums sound way more prominent than the drums that eventually feel like this honestly feels like a disco remix of. Yeah, it's super hypnotic and you're right, it's a little less pop sounding and more dance floor, but there's no bass. There's no bass quite yet. Well, let's get into the stem. So Mick Fleetwood plays the drums, plays the congas. I've forgotten there were congas in this song. Oh, I love the congas. They're pretty buried with their there. All right, so let's start with the kick and snare was recorded separately from the hi-hat and I'll explain to you what that means, the hi-hat and the toms. And then you alluded to it, there's a whole story about the hypnoticness that was amped up with a very clever ahead of its time recording technique. But here's Mick Fleetwood. So that's both tracks, but here's just he overdived the hi-hats and snare and was just playing kick and snare separately. And then they merged them together for the final. And it's super sparse, super simple. Let me tell you, you mentioned it. So let's just jump into that loop in 1977. If you wanted to have a loop like what today would be a drum machine or a splice loop. Yeah. And you throw it in there and you copy and paste it. Back then, copy and pastement cutting with like you got 20 feet of magnetic and audio tape. Yeah. You got eight guys around the studio to get that 20 feet because they had to pull it tight. So they had microphone stands and they were like their arms were up and they were holding their breath for four and a half minutes, recording one eight bar loop of Mick Fleetwood getting it perfectly for eight bars. And then that was that's the basis of the entire song. So this is in 1977. This is kind of it's a hip hop technique. It's a break beat. I also love like the opening. It's like it's telling you. You're about to hear dreams. Every time I hear it, I'm like, Sonar, it's on. Well, let's go. Let's go. There aren't too many other songs that start off like that. I know that song in one second. Yeah, it's a signature motif. Yeah. And that was overdubbed, I believe, because for the four and a half minutes, you just have this bedrock. Yeah. That boom, that. And then he went in, Mick Fleetwood went in and overdubbed all the fills that are so iconic and that give it the interest so that it isn't just simply a hypnotic beat. Hypnotic is great, but hypnotic after a while is so horrific. It's back to Albatross land, which is great to. Great song. Great song. Sleepy to. You got that word. That's a great word. Very impressed. So a lot of, by the way, full credit on our show on one song, we like to give full credit to what we call unsung heroes. So Ken Callay wrote this great book called Making Rumors. Super detailed, super nerd fest. I highly recommend it. It's just about the making of this record. And that's how we get some of the detail about eight dudes and microphone stands and 20 feet, like those details that we know and love on this show. All came from him. So he's a co-producer and the father of Colby Gaia as well, by the way. I was wondering. Yeah, I kept seeing that name. OK, same dude, same family. Yeah. Yeah. One of the things I like the most about the drums of this are the are the congas for me because I because I because I if you listen, I mean, like those congas, I do believe is pronounced. Thank you, Melissa. Melissa taught us to say. Correctly, it's not congas. California, congas. Come get. Come back. Can we hear a little bit of the congas? I'm going to play some congas. It's mixed in with some other stuff. It's one of these tracks that's a little bit mixed up. But you'll hear them in the background along with, I believe, some Oregon and some cool Lindsey weird sounds. How are you coming? Oh, there it is. Super background. There it is. That's in the song. Yeah. So that's a B3 organ played by Christine McVeigh. It's a hammock. That's what the high sound is. Yeah. But then those little swells that are coming in and out are Lindsey playing guitar with his fingers, finger picking, because he doesn't use a pick. So that's why it gives it a very soft feeling. And it's all going through like a Leslie speaker. I never heard the congas. So funny, because maybe because I have been a drummer, I always noticed those congas in there. Yeah, and you'll you'll hear them now that you know that they're there. They're louder in some parts than others. Yes, for sure. Yeah. Really? Post second verse. Let's talk about the what's happening with the keys here now. In our notes, it says a rose, but I heard you just say Hammon B3. Well, they're both in there. Let's start with the roads, though. I believe it's Stevie playing the record credits. It's one of those things where two names are on there. So like, who did what is not always clear. I'm pretty sure, though, given that Christine McVeigh has talked about origins of the song, it was weird to her that there was just this F bass note the whole time. You'll hear that. Christine is playing two chords the whole time, the entire time. But she's interestingly not moving the bass along with it. You'll hear it and it'll make sense. Here it comes. Stevie Nicks, Fender Roads. See how the chord goes up, but the bass is still. So we're already in super hypnotic lands. And that's the whole song, by the way. So good. In the chorus, she changes the rhythm. It's beautiful because it's like it's it's it's never given you resolution. It's no resolution. You're nailing that low Fender note is hanging on the four, which is just a note of no resolution. There's no resolution. Five that wants to go to three. I like where you go. And they're just hanging there saying, yeah, that's heartbreak, but. I'm glad you said that. So no resolution, no resolution. You'll never be resolved. You'll never be resolved. You won't keep saying this all the time. This is structurally such a weird song because like usually like a song like this would have like some crazy bridge that was like almost like a different song, but like this song literally it starts. She sings the verse. They go to the chorus. It starts over. She sings one more verse, one more course. Like we do finish that first verse. The song is halfway over. And both literally and figuratively, it's like about two or two. And the song's like four or four. So like, yeah, it's just enough. And like you said, it's left unresolved, totally unresolved. Let's move to the chorus and hear some more unresolved. And there's a drone that gets added. I'll just play it for you and then we'll talk about it. That's yeah. You hear her? She sort of switched. She's like the high part of the five. The base note is now changing. It's going out. The chord is not changing. Yeah. She just flipped what she keeps the same. And that's essentially the whole of the chorus. You hear like her angers. She's like, girl, let me do this. There's more than two chords in the world. Yeah. And then finally, because we've all been alluding to it, there's this really crucial bridge. So this is the setup for what will be for what we, the punchline will come later, so to speak. But this bridge is the moment, as you were saying, the midpoint of the song. First chorus bridge, middle eight, eight bars. First, second chorus. That's the whole song. Very simple. And it's the same two chords the whole time in this bridge, in the roads. She just keeps doing the same thing. And that F is still nagging. It's like this nagging. It's like her. She won't go away. He won't go away. What if I won't go away? That F is just nagging and persistent. So that's the setup. We'll resolve that in a moment because somebody saved the day. Another unsung hero of the song gives us the third chord that only briefly appears in the bridge, but it's not there yet. And what's interesting about going back to the demo is in the demo, it didn't exist yet either. So our unsung hero is a band member who was like, I'm going to play one different note just momentarily breaking up this unresolved tension and then we'll get right back into it for the last half of the song. Well, let's listen to some Christine McVie on interestingly enough, you may not have noticed, she plays the vibraphone in the pre-chorus. I'll play you a little bit of that by itself and then I'll build for context. And then we already teased this a little bit before, but then you can hear her B3 organ playing in that section. Let me see if I can find you like a new version of it. Here we go. That high note is the B3 organ. Oh, it's Stevie, it's the two lutes. The high organ vibraphone, it's like the Roy Ayres episode. It's super Roy Ayres. It's also 1977. These are the instruments of the era. Well, and also like the beauty of that song is that like all of it works so well together. You don't hear the pieces, you just hear this wonderful wall of Fleetwood Mac. Yeah, it's so. It washes over. It washes over you. And if you were, if you were to ask any fan of that song, name all the instruments you hear in this song, they couldn't do it. Yeah, they couldn't do it. That's the beauty of it. So let's go back to Lindsay for a moment, because as mentioned before, when Stevie handed her demo to him and played it for him for the first time, and some of his contributions were very simple at first. It was just a basic acoustic guitar, not dissimilar to what I played at the top of our show. But gradually over time, because they it was 1977 and it was lots of money for the budget. So many months of overdubs. They were in Sausalita, but they also did some in LA. And what emerged was this really beautiful, strange swells and bends that are sound more than they are, like clearly a guitar. I'll play some of that for you. And of course, you'll recognize it because it makes the song very early on what it is. Melodically, I should say. Before the vocals come in, this is the melody. It's very alike. It's foggy. That's the melodic. No, well, he's playing guitar, but he's playing with his fingers. OK. And between that and some other treatments, I believe there's a tremolo. I believe there's my there's certainly a Leslie. There's all of these effects basically on the guitar. Guitar that contribute to it not sounding very guitar. It sounds like Sausalita sounds very foggy like Sausalita. I'm nor count. Super good. Can I say? Yeah, man. If there was one that made me not listen to this song. Yeah, it was probably this time. Really? In like that sounds. I love that part. Oh, here's the thing. I grew up in Atlanta. This one element sounded like country music. I was going to say it's brand new. And I ran to the others. Oh, good. But they do the Grammys. They would like present like the country war. My mom was always like bathroom break. Wow. Why were we such haters? But in our defense, country fans in the South were not into us. See, I love a good steel guitar moment. I'm all about that. No, I love it. I'm like, I do. I like it. Now I like it. Have you heard of Shibuzy? I'm. Let's give a little more shine to Lindsay because of the beautiful things he did in the pre-chorus, which is where we heard that vibraphone before. He does this and as always, I'll build after I play by itself. Arpeggio. He makes it walk. So we get to that third chord. We're going FG to A minor and then back. We're teasing the A minor. Yes. Yes. We're teasing the A minor and I promised you to build. You know what's so interesting as it happened, I was like, that sounds like a train wreck, but it's in the song. What he's doing is building. He's rising. The chords are going up basically. Yeah. And so is in the vibes. So is Chris. But Stevie is not. And so there's a little bit of a rub, which is why I love doing the show. Yeah. Because for music producers and songwriters out there, the demonstration that some of the most iconic songs of all time have like things that are imperfections. Yeah. Technically, you're not wrong, but like to your ear. Here, I'll just play with you what I'm talking about. Here's the Rhodes. And then when I add those other things, he'll be like, is that right? Because he's just playing the two chords, but these guys are rising. Yeah. It sounds great. There's nothing wrong with it at all. What are they in? Interesting. We're in it's kind of F major seven to G six ish in the chorus. But there's also like that E drone going on in there, which makes it the F minor seven. Basically, it's super tense chords. Yes. That cycle through one bar per chord, the whole song without resolving until our unsung Yeah, our unsung hero comes into play and that's my man, Johnny McVeigh, who starts out innocently enough with two notes. Johnny, play us the two notes. Little eighth note anticipation, little fills, but that's it. That's how he keeps himself awake for four and a half minutes of the two notes. I'll give you some drums just so we get the full rhythm section because it's satisfying. And can I just say the bass is, you know, we always say on the show, fight me. It's the best part of the song. It is the best part of the song. The bass does a thing in the second verse that I absolutely love. Oh, man. I feel like you're building up to that. Well, I'm building up to the bridge. And what happens in the bridge? We're building up to that in this whole episode. It's been a three. It's been a teamwork to get this bridge idea to this moment. Yeah, yeah, you've arrived at the right time. I'm ready. If you've just tuned in, what the hell was that? We're all in the same room the whole time. Yeah, I don't know what I was saying, but I do know this. When we get to the bridge, we've been hearing just those two chords. I'll play you Stevie. She's playing this. Still playing that. Stevie with a nagging F nagging, nagging, nagging. But I'll play what John plays and then I'll put them together. So John goes up to the octave in the bridge. And right here, he goes to A. He's been doing the resolves. That's it for a second. One quarter note and then da, da, da. He's like, you think you're over this heartbreak? You're not. He's playing this A note just for the one quarter note. And then he returns to briefly. But in the mix, I'll bring back those other instruments. It has this magical effect of you momentarily can breathe out. And then he comes to the A right here. It's like when you've been arguing with somebody and then you briefly have like a moment where you like start laughing together. What are you about? Oh, yeah. That tension was released for a second. That's actually not the part I was thinking about. Oh, really? There's another part in the second verse. Oh, I know what you're talking about. Do you know what I'm talking about? And you've got to rise with her a little bit. Also hearing this play, especially when the bass comes in, you realize this song is always faster than you remember it. Yeah, it's 120 B.P. Yeah, it moves. It feels like a 112, right? One 13. It's a disco beat and a disco tempo. Yeah. And this is like a heartbreak song. Like it's a love ballad, but like it moves. It's moving. It's moving. It's pulsating. It drives you mad. It's relentless. Yeah. Like Stevie. Here's the part I think you're talking about. Yeah. And I will tease a little Stevie just because it's pleasant. You're right. You got to you got to hear with her a little bit. John is basically playing what she's singing. So I'll play it alone and then we'll hear it together. Here it is. That little part. That little part. Hell yeah, John. Do you want to hear it with John? Do you want to hear it? I don't know why I said it like that. But it does get me amped. I love that part. Let's hear it. We'll see this. You can hear how they participate, how they how they collab in this little moment. That's a good bass player. That's a city listener. It's so good in it. It's good. And he only does it once in the whole song. Yeah. It's such a strange. Such a strange. I know I would have been like just do the whole song. Would have been way less special. He can't do more of that because that would take you out of the transfuge state of the song. Yes. No, I know. That's got to be. Trust me, they rejected my my suggestions. There's a dance break in the middle. And we modulate up a half step. Then there's a flash mob. That baby is talking. He's not even one. OK. Honestly, what makes this song really stand out for me is the powerhouse vocal performance to me. It's what it's such a huge part of what makes it a multi generational hit. We have Stevie's isolated vocals. And let me say when we open the stems, we were surprised that the first thing we heard was not her singing, but it was Stevie humming. Can you play a song? Maybe the Uber fans already knew this. I never noticed it. I don't think I know. You'll never hear it again without noticing this at the very beginning before the verse. She does this. I never noticed that. She does that twice. And then she sings verse one and it sounds like this. Here we go. Now here you go. Can you say you want your freedom? Well, whoever I keep you down. Lindsay does a thing right here. We're told to write this. Should play the way you feel it. But listen carefully to the sound. I hate stopping things in the middle. Believe me, that's painful, but we should talk. We should talk before we move on. Thoughts feel. I saw some people like just really feeling it right now. Yeah. This is the beauty of a really great vocalist. Yeah. They sing what is actually a difficult performance, but they sing it so smoothly that you think you can sing it. I don't know what you're talking about. The amazing thing about this song, as soon as anybody hears it, in the first listen by the second course, you want to sing it too. Yeah. Her voice is inviting you to sing along with her, which is wild because no one can sing like her. She is one of the truly greatest voices of all time. And she has such a distinctive voice. The quality is you can't. All of this breakdown is useless when you get to the human voice. Yeah. Like I there's it just is Stevie Nicks. And it has a unique. You can use words like rasp and you can use word like witchiness. Like, well, there's also. But you can't really nail down any. There's a language for it. Well, it's just. No, the language is spiked. Like you. You might. If you listen to the vocals and think about the the context in which she's singing this. I stand corrected. She is she is singing a song about her X that her X helped her fit. Arrange. Then the other girl in the band was like, I don't like your damn song. Anyway. And the whole time she's singing it with lungs of steel and the wings of an angel. She like she is steely with spite. I hear it. I hear it to build on what you were saying to about the first two. It's, you know, a a b c of the of the first four lines. The first two are roughly the same melody and it hooks you in because it's simple. Yeah. Da da da da da da da da da da da. I can do that. These are the it's called conjunct when the notes are so close together and they're sequential. But then what does she do next? I'm like, whoa, how do I do that? Your average sink, your average layperson cannot hit that. Yeah, it's all the way. And like she doesn't struggle at all. Like you were like when she's walking up to that jump, she's just like. How'd you do that? It's like there's a spike. It's like. It's like. I just also want to say like when they you had to remember when the band went to hire them, they were hiring one person. They thought they were hiring Lindsay and the fact that Stevie was the star and that Steve is just like, he's like, no, he's only said you have to hire her to work at the, you know, Buckingham, Nixon had been the, uh, the album. But like she stole the show. Yeah, he stole the show. As you move on to the pre chorus. Yeah, let's keep going. Keep noticing how few notes there are. I think the pre chorus is again, like three notes about 80% of the time. And you're also not getting a lot of rhymes. You're getting a handful of near rhymes. But like you don't even notice like you're so between the chords being cycling through the two, the two bar loop, you're essentially distracted because of her voice, because of the spite in her voice, because of the lyrical cut. There's all these other things, but it's not really rhyming. And it's not really repeating melodies very much. Without further ado, let's get into the pre. We throw in the backgrounds. And what you love and what you have. And there's a big stack coming up. Oh, thunder only happens when it's raining. Fun fact, no fewer than two people as we were rehearsing the song, we're like, are you sure that's the right note? Because I wasn't really nailing it. But it's really in the stack. It's a three part harmony. Well, and then like there's a moment when she's walking up to the chorus where that high note is lingering on the five, which is not a note you would think to hang on given this chord progression, but it works. And it's like this, this like siren call. Yeah, it's incredible. It's momentarily. Yeah, there are moments. This is this is a three part harmony that's basically I think it's root third, fifth, but a handful of times we diverge from that. Like you're saying, we get a jazz moment or gospel moment. Yeah. And it's all steamy, right? No, it's not part. I was just going to say perfect. Thank you for taking the blend. We do this. The blend is the three songwriters in the band. It's Stevie, Lindsey and Christine. Christine RIP, you know, yeah. It's a couple of years ago. I believe so. Christine McGee is singing the third, but live, I think she seems to lead. In case you were wondering, I thought that fact was important enough to stop the show and spend nearly five minutes. Jesus, we live in the weeds on this show. It's true. It is a weedy show. Hearing you, hearing you introduce the chorus, it reminds me of my favorite reality of this song, like the most popular lyric of the song is a lie. It can thunder when it's not raining. Wait, what? I've thought about it. No, I'm so glad you brought this up. It's not raining. Thunder only happens when it's raining. That's a lie. True. That's a lie. Not true. Team Lindsey on that one. I'm from Texas. We have like just like weird weather all the time. It's like thunder for no goddamn reason. Never dawned on me. Yeah. Interesting. It's such a beautiful. It's delivered so beautifully. Do you think they noticed that that was the case and therefore I'm sure Lindsey noticed I was like, steamy. And she's like, fuck you. No, because maybe singing the song. There you go with your theological lies again. Only because it's one of those songs where like the title of the song is not the chorus. Exactly. So theoretically, the chorus might have been thunder only happens when it's raining. Maybe they were about to press it and send it out the dorm. Someone was like, wait a second. Hold on. This is going to throw some people because it's a lie. It's a lot. You know, maybe, maybe players love things other than playing. We don't know. We don't know. Dreams just distract them with dreams. And that'll distract everybody. Does she sing the word dreams? It comes up once. I think twice maybe. I'm going to say in the second verse. I think I have many dreams. She brings up the idea. Yeah. Dreams of something. Have you any dreams you'd like to sell? Dreams of loneliness. Yeah. So that's not the chorus. That's not the chorus. You can do that though. It's okay. Do you guys want to hear one more chorus and then into the end of the song with that last little bend? Yeah. Let's do it. Let's give you a little bit of isolated Chris and Stevie. See, I'm vindicated. That's what I was singing. Yeah. I'm vindicated. Women, they will come and they will go. Don't attack me. Hearing the way they sing this is very country, my dude. It's super country. I didn't want to say it. It's very country. Because I can tell the audience's story turned against me. The three-part harmonies are country. The three-part harmonies are country. And so is the guitar, right? It sounded like gospel country. Yes. Also, the way they sing women is like women. They will come and they will go. Did you hear that? Women. Women. I win that. Women will come and they will go. They come and they go. This could have been George Freight's song. I didn't have the Pena Costum upbringing. Play it again. Play it again. Listen for it. Win, okay. All right. Win, okay. Win, win. I hear that. Oh, she heard it. Sing it right to Lillie. Yep, she heard the back. She's like, win, win. They will come and they will go. Where can we go? We're gonna have to sweat up here. Oh my God. I know. It's the hot light. That concludes our STEM portion. That's the STEM portion. Music portion. Yes, give it up. It's a good STEM portion. Give it up for the fabulous fivesome. We're all feeling the feels here. We've heard the stems. Tell us, Luxury, how do the song splits break down? 100% Stephanie Lynn Nix. She didn't share anything. Good for her. It's just her song. Good for her. Sam, after going through these stems with us today and really immersing yourself in dreams, what do you think the legacy of dreams by Fleetwood Mac is? The legacy of dreams and the legacy of Fleetwood Mac as a band from the very start was finding creative and collaborative partners that you trust enough to create with through every emotional arc, everyone. I think we have not had a band like that since. I know so many bands from my youth that had a good run and broke up because they were fighting or had a good run or broke up because one of them broke the other's heart. Fleetwood Mac said we will go through the breakups and the fights and the animosity and we will still make music together and we will still help each other perfect their songs and will perform them together for decades. That is such a beautiful way to approach your art and to approach collaboration with anybody else. That is the pinnacle of artistic trust. I trust you enough to be happy around you and sad around you and to sleep with you and to not sleep with you and to love you and to hate you and still make songs with you. Yeah. No one does that anymore. And when I think of the ways in which conflict musically has changed in our modern era, like imagine if today artists who had beef with each other said, I'm not going to put you down. I'm not going to fight with you. We're going to make music together. Imagine if Drake and Kendrick had to look at each other in the eye and perform a song together. To look at each other in the eye and like imagine Kendrick saying to Drake, here's how you make that disline about me better. We'd all be better and richer for it. Right. I think it's like, I don't know. Our MP3 collections are poorer for that having that happen. I totally agree. Yeah. And so like I listened to Fleetwood Mac and listened to Dreams and I enjoyed the music and I think it's sonically beautiful, but I think it's even more beautiful for the story it tells about emotional endurance with creative partners. We need more of that. Luxury. I want to ask you the same question. What's the legacy of Dreams? I mean, that was really well said. I will say that one thing that strikes me thinking about Stevie Nicks is how she never went on to like have, you know, children or kind of music was her like dreams or baby music and song writing is her family and creativity is what she is in the world. And she's made a lot of sacrifices. Perhaps she doesn't think that way. I don't want to like push that on her that, you know, her value is only clearly we are richer on this earth because Stevie Nicks has chosen music over everything, but there must be part of her that feels that that choice has led to things that she didn't do and that she doesn't have in her life. We can only wonder she seems quite happy, but it's such a sacrifice. She sacrificed everything for her music. Yeah. What about you, Joe? I had a pre-written answer. I'm tossing it out. I'm tossing it out. I'm tossing it out. It's a conversation. No, seriously, this conversation is bad. I, after immersing for like, you know, the last couple of days and weeks, I think this is a little bit out there. Lindsay and Stevie were in a relationship and they were like, they were hippies. You know, like they were living in San Francisco. And I think I read somewhere where he said, I think if we hadn't started making music together, we would have lasted as a couple. But the fact is, is that they went from being extremely broke to extremely famous in six months, which, you know, to throw that into a relationship. And it may not be fair to them, but I see them almost as like these avatars for like that hippie generation that fell in love in 68. And 69. And then they try to make music together. And then by the mid seventies, and I always thought of the seventies as sort of a weary decade anyway, like you can hear sort of like a weariness of like the, the, the, the free love and the drugs and everything has started to take its toll six and seven years on. And you can see all of that in microcosm in this group, you know, people who fell in love with the blues and rock and they started making music. But then all of the excesses by 1975 and 76 and 77 have started to take their toll. So whenever I think of that generation of, of, of free love and, and, and the hippies, I always do sort of think, and we saw it a little bit more here earlier at it on their fest, you, you sort of get this sense of like, yeah, that, that wasn't sustainable. You know, the, the parts of it, the word that were beyond the, the, the intellectualism, all that stuff. It wasn't sustainable. And I, I sort of see that in microcosm. Well, and the part of their story that lingered the most was a story of the unsustainability, like the story of the heartbreak. That's what lingers of them, not the stuff before, right? You know, it's beautiful in this tragic way. Being vulnerable and throwing that pain into the music is what has made this music generally. There's something everybody writes songs with their exes. Do it. That is the lesson. That is the lesson. There's almost something on the nose about how this song perfectly embodies and remains 50 years later, a song that is unresolved about an unresolved couple and an unresolved situation with unresolved chords. And the, the, it's almost two on the nose and perfect musically, what they did in the song, but it is demonstrates the effectiveness that we are still talking about it. And it still has the magic that it has literally half a century later. This is half a century old. Oh yeah. Okay. Well, before we end the show, Sam, we want to play a game with you. We already played again. A second game. It's called what's one song here? The rules will ask you a question. You'll give us a one song answer. You have a minute to respond to as many of these questions as you can. So please don't overthink it. Answer as quickly as possible. Let's begin. What's one song that never fails to make you emotional? I'm a millennial. Robin's dancing on my own. Oh, nice. Always. What's one song you wish you could have been in the studio for? Hey, what a weird fucking song. They broke up. The time thing is you're a strange. What's one? Truly what's one song that's taught you something about yourself? Herbie Hancock's recording of the jazz standard, my ship. Listen to it. What's one song that you think is underrated? You just talked to him with novena about the black I.G. A lot of those songs are actually good. I was not expecting that. Name one. Name one. Not what I saw. Boom, boom, pah. What? Holy shit. Wow. Did not see that. Underrated. What's one song you low key know all the words to? That's just nice and slow. That was a great song. Sing all those words. That's a great song. What's one song that you'll always dance to no matter where you are? Boom, boom, pah. All right. Thanks for being here. Everybody give it up for Sam Sander. This was so much fun. This was a blast. I love this. I hope we can do this again with you again. You know, we'll figure out a way. Let's do Tusk next time. Okay. Underrated album. Good choice. Underrated album. Okay. Well listen. Thank you so much, Sam. As always, you can find our team on Instagram and TikTok. You can find me on Instagram at dialo, dialo, and on TikTok at dialo riddle. You can find me on Instagram at luxxury or on TikTok at luxuryxx. And where can we find you, sir? At Sam Sanders only Instagram. I don't get the TikTok. I think me too. Yeah, it's too much. But I will also say that you can follow our podcast on TikTok and Instagram at One Song Podcast for exclusive content. You can also watch full episodes of One Song on YouTube and Spotify. Just search for One Song Podcast. We'd love it if you'd like to subscribe. Also, be sure to check out the One Song Spotify playlist for all of the songs we discuss in our episodes. You can find the link in our episode description. And if you've made it this far, you're officially part of the One Song Nation. Show us some love, give us five stars, leave a review and send this episode to a fellow music fan. It helps to keep the show running. That is it for us today. Where's your catchphrase? Oh gosh, I forgot. Luxury, help us in this thing. Hi, producer DJ, songwriter and musicologist Luxury. And I'm actor, writer, director and sometimes DJ, D'Yalla Riddle. And this has been One Song. We'll see you next time. This episode was produced by Melissa Duane as our video editor is Casey Simonson. Our associate producer is Jeremy Vimbo, mixing by Michael Harman and engineering by Eric Hicks. Production supervision by Rizak Boykin. Additional production support from Z Taylor. This show is executive produced by Kevin Hart, Mike Stein, Brian Smiley, Eric Eddings, Eric Wilde and Leslie Guam. At Betway Casino, Kelly Brooke is our casino ambassador. And for all new customers, state 20 pounds and get 150 free spins. Download the Betway Casino app today. 18 plus T's and C's apply. Bet the responsible way. 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