Rumours: Going Beyond Surface Level · Rock Singing Success

Rumours: Going Beyond Surface Level

Fleetwood Mac in 1975 was a band that didn’t know the incredible ups and downs just laying in wait for them in the next two years. At the same time Fleetwood Mac’s popularity was exploding, all the romantic relationships of the people within the band were imploding.

Simultaneous explosion and implosion created incredible art: their 1977 masterpiece Rumours.

From that album, the #1 hit single Dreams is four minutes and 13 seconds of sonic bliss wrapped up inside of a story of loneliness and heartbreak.

"Now here I go again

I see the crystal vision

I keep my visions to myself

It's only me who wants to wrap around your dreams and

Have you any dreams you'd like to sell?

Dreams of loneliness

Like a heartbeat, drives you mad

In the stillness of remembering what you had

And what you lost And what you had

Ooh, what you lost"

Did you ever have someone you loved enough to want to wrap your dreams around them? How would you handle having that relationship and losing it?

It’s about remembering those things in solitude, in a silence so impenetrable that you can't hear anything except the sound of your own heartbeat slowly driving you mad.

There is what you had and there is what you lost.

What you had.

And what you lost.

You think back to when you were together and as often as the two of you had great times, right now all you can think about is how did something so good end up so bad? When the two of you were happy together, you heard the sound of your lover’s laughter on a daily basis. You were both so happy.

Then the two of you stopped being happy and the silence became deafening.

A wonderful thing had imploded. At the same time, the two of you were in a band that was exploding in popularity. You were becoming rock stars.

This is what you had and what you lost. It was the price to pay for being in Fleetwood Mac and becoming two of the biggest rock stars on the planet. It was so much, so soon. Too much change for your relationship to withstand.

Every night you’d go onstage together and smile as if nothing was wrong. The music was the only thing that was keeping the two of you together. You had decided that the music the band made was too important to let anything get in the way of it.

Your band decided to stay together, even though the bass player and his wife who played keyboards and sang were getting a divorce. You had all decided to become like a chain that could not be broken.

The art you were creating demanded that the chain must not be broken. Cooperating and being onstage together when your personal lives were in disarray was a daunting task.

It hurt to get onstage and look into the eyes of the lover you had and lost.

It's amazing how quickly sadness can turn to rage. There’s a very fine line between deep despair and nearly uncontrollable anger.

You walked that fine line every night so that you could go on creating your art. You did all that to give people enjoyment. To make their lives better.

You made yourself into a multi-millionaire. You were recognized everywhere you went. The adulation was unreal. You could buy anything you wanted except one thing:

What you had and what you lost.

You lost a love you could never buy back. That was the price to be paid for this level of fame. You could buy anything but that which you lost. You have adulation from everyone, yet you have no one who wants to wrap around your dreams.

All you have left is your music and the drive that created that music.

That drive is what will get you through the storm. The sun will eventually break through and you will find someone else. You just have to believe that, because what else is there?

You can't let it destroy you. Tomorrow will come. You can't stop thinking that tomorrow will bring something better.

The songs on Rumours deal with all of this stuff.

They are great art that came about as the result of simultaneous explosion and implosion. The songs on Rumours are profound. There’s so much there beyond what you immediately hear. There’s so much there beneath the surface.

Dreams is my favorite song on it but the whole album is exquisite. It rises to the level of serious art because it’s so much more than it appears at surface level.

The music seems so happy on a lot of the songs. It is a masterpiece of trying to be happy and doing a very good job of putting on that appearance when on the inside you are crumbling.

There’s enough beneath the surface of the songs on Rumours to immerse yourself in it. To drown in something beautiful…that particular type of drowning is another story. For that, people would have to wait for their next album.

1 comment