Fleetwood Mac: “Say You Love Me”

March 4, 2017 • 7:15 am

I declare this Fleetwood Mac Week, and I’ll put up some of my favorite tunes. This one, “Say you love me,” is among them, written by Christine McVie for the 1975 “Fleetwood Mac” album. Here she performs it 12 years later in one of the live tracks from “The Dance“—a recording before an audience in Burbank, California that was made into a live album. I particularly like Lindsey Buckingham’s banjo solo at the beginning and again at at 1:39.

Consider this a tribute to one of the best bands ever—on the 20th anniversary of this concert.

What a lot of music from only a banjo, a bass guitar, two drums and a cymbal, and four voices! This is one of the few live performances that equals (or betters) the original recorded songs.

41 thoughts on “Fleetwood Mac: “Say You Love Me””

    1. The amazing “first” Fleetwood Mac greatest hits, including the brilliant Oh Well. How might Fleetwood Mac have turned out had Peter Green stayed well?
      Regrettably I suspect like the Yardbirds – relatively a band with a short shelf life

      The Fleetwood Mac format that is the Rumours line up will still be remembered in a 100 years time.

  3. Certainly one of the best of our generation. Who does not have at least, Fleetwood Mac greatest hits.

    1. Who does not have at least, Fleetwood Mac greatest hits.

      Me for one. I’m not even sure that I had a copy before I gave my music collection away. I did definitely have a copy of “The Chain” on a tape of MoR stuff I found in a hire car though. Until that got eaten.

      1. Stop by my place and I’ll let you copy some. No one should be without some music and maybe a good set of ear phones.

        1. Or a good st of ears. Since I got issued with hearing aids, I only bother to put them in about 1/4 of the time. It’s not worth the effort unless I know that I’m going to be talking to people against background noise.

          1. I’m batting a big zero so far today. I know several people who have trouble with the hearing aids. They cost a lot of money and the batteries are always running down. Very glad I do not have that issue.

          2. Don’t cost a penny (well, it’s all part of general taxation), and the purchasing authority get a lot better price for ordering them by the 10,000-pack than by the 10-pack.
            Batteries – yes, a PITA. Change them once week (as long as I remember to crack the casing when I take them out at night), and every 3 or 4 months I pop along to the ears clinic at the local health centre to pick up another box of batteries. FoC, of course.
            Sorry – do you live in a country without civilised healthcare?
            Actually, I got one of the several adjustments on the right ear correct yesterday, making it a lot more comfortable. I’ll probably have the fitting done right by the time I have my next audiology appointment.

  4. Does “this week” begin on Saturday and end on Friday? Or is today just a preview of what really starts tomorrow? I will be enjoying it either way!

    1. Weeks begin on Monday, as everyone agrees that Friday is the start of the weekend. Apart from those who don’t so agree.

  5. I’ve long felt that, if you want to get a grip on 20th century Brit rock ‘n’ roll, the taproot is John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers”. Most anybody who was anybody served an apprenticeship with that band, including Mick Fleetwood and John McVie. It’s where they formed their first rhythm section in ’67.

    1. Indeed. (To say nothing of Eric Clapton, Jack Bruce, Mick Taylor, Paul Butterfield…. The list goes on and on.)

  6. “… … the lights go down, And there’s not another living soul around ! ” Yeah ! True, too, at my March’s clothesline this very early morning: I have no memory of being able in wintertimes’ past to hang out on the line (and expect them, later, actually dried) any laundry loads.

    But today ? Again after also those two loads .out. within Iowa’s mid – February y2017, as well ? O the songbirds ! As simple and lovely this morning as Ms McVie’s lyrics !

    Blue

    1. Using the clothesline at all is something you don’t see too often any more. Some may not even know what you are talking about…

      1. Lucky you Blue! I love my clothesline! Not using it today though, here in Eastern Ont. It’s -21 with a wind chill of -32 !!!!!! Got clothes hanging on a rack by the wood stove instead.

        1. And Ms Baker, by the stove on a rack soooo works out very well, too ! Mighty fine humidity this practice provides for the nasal turbinates’ mucosae belonging to All of the critters who, say cuz of those outer temperatures, are required for long periods of time to be indoors !

          Blue

          1. It’s my favourite chore too! Breeze off the lake, birds chirping, sun shining. Can’t wait till spring!

            I just checked the weather again: it is now *only* -19 with a wind chill of -29. Won’t be going outside anytime soon…

            Besides the clothes drying indoors by the stove, I also keep a large kettle filled with water on it, for just that reason that you mentioned. Good for the nasal passages.

      2. This — what you state, Randy — made me giggle ! I know the substance of it is likely quite true: it is just that out of all of the household chores that I am mostly loathe (to having cuz of necessity) to do, hanging laundered things (specifically) .out. is The One to which I actually look forward. The space out and stuffs like, every single time, the darling songbirds and the squirrels racing along on the power lines (which fascinates the ‘ell outta me as to why they, doing that !, do not [seem to me] to get electrocuted !) out there. One’s labor’s end – result. Especially the fabrics’ final olfactory delights — their aromas. All to The Good.

        And one of my kiddos has three of his own now. Six to tween years. When they were truly, truly wee, though, they each in a front pack ‘d accompany him from the cellar outside to his (eastern Iowa) line at where he would, as he hung, sing to them, “Diddees on the line, Kiddo. Daddy’s got your diddees up on this – here line, Babe !” Through, then, my smiling (of course) at him and his babes — — yet now recalling those years of his makes me, well, … … tear up.

        Blue

  8. I never listened to Fleetwood Mac beyond what was on the radio, with the exception of “Dreams” which I downloaded a while back on my phone.

    Thanks to Jerry posting the previous Stevie Nicks video, I’ve just ordered “Rumours” on vinyl.

    I’ve got some catching up to do, apparently.

    1. I would just throw out a few titles you might want to give a listen:

      Rhiannon
      As Long As you Follow
      Little Lies
      Over My Head

          1. Thanks for all the suggestions. I will look into them! Wow amazon is fast, the Rumours album already arrived!

          2. Yes, I’m an Amazon Prime subscriber so I always get the fast shipping free but if you’re in Toronto you can now get it the same day. Amazon Bideo is finally in Canada now too. I hope the music service show up soon. I have 3 Amazon Echo type devices too so i how that comes to Canada soon (i got mine all from the US).

          4. And that should have been video not bideo of course.

            Watch Man In The High Castle — an Amazon original based on the Philip K Dick story. Seasons 1 & 2 are available now in Canada.

    1. Thanks for this – my sentiments exactly. What nearly everyone who obtained their music from the radio (esp. AM)in the 50s, 60s, and 70s until now has been POP music with a soupcon of rock. This includes much of the output of artists like the Beatles and Elvis: not everything they did can be construed as rock ‘n’ roll.
      At minimum, rock is defined by electric guitars and a driving backbeat: Nirvana playing an acoustic version of Lead Belly’s “In the Pines” was beautiful, but wasn’t rock ‘n’ roll.

      I have proved to myself that good – even excellent – rock ‘n’ roll is still being produced by creating several playlists on Spotify and Youtube (link in my name)that contain several hundred examples from very recent (2005 to date) years.

      1. P.S to our host Jerry, whom I respect a great deal for providing such an excellent site with much thoughtful content: Please listen to the 9th (since 2008) album by Ty Seagall. See if it doesn’t remind you of some of your favorites from the late 1960s and 1970s. I think it is the most accessible of his albums, although many rock music lovers prefer others.
        https://www.youtube.com/%5BREMOVE ME & MY BRACKETS]watch?v=GF4i84mWuvU

  11. Always had an ear for Christine McVie (Perfect) ever since Chicken Shack. She did a stupendous rendition of Etta Jame’ s ‘I’d rather go Blind’. Between McVie and Peter Green, white and english, they certainly bought their own vocal qualities to the soulful blues they played and sang back when.

  12. I like this song, I thought it was sung by a high-pitched male singer until today. Sort of disappointed. It doesn’t matter what the lyrics are, I always feel this is a light-hearted happy song, really like to listen to it while I was walking, it matched with my pace perfectly.

  13. I vote for “Then Play On” as their finest album, when they were a blues band and before Stevie and Christine turned them into a pop act

  14. The first time I heard the “Rumors” album, I was visiting my girlfriend’s sister at the old church she and her husband had converted into a home. The four of us sat in the “sanctuary” and listened to it, with the sunlight shining through the stained-glass windows and the tendrils of smoke from some excellent pot swirling around us; one of the more memorable, iconic experiences of my life! Often, when I listen to “old favorites” like this, I get emotional at the sheer beauty of it, the reminder of how our time on Earth is SO fleeting: I ask myself often these days, “The world is such a wonderful place- why are people so determined to F___ it up?

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