Favorite Song #4

Landslide by Fleetwood Mac (from Fleetwood Mac, 1975)

Although the band Fleetwood Mac gets the official credit for this beautiful song, I always think of it purely as a Stevie Nicks tune. Whatever her personal reasons were for writing it the way she did, I have my own personal reasons for loving it as I do. Landslide is a song about growing older and reassessing relationships. To me, it hits the hardest when I remember myself growing up through adolescence and into adulthood, seeing my own children go though the same process, experiencing the aging of my parents and those of my wife, the death of my mother 4½ years ago and of my mother-in-law this past March, and finally my own aging. In this, I see it much like the Cat Steven song Father and Son (#6 in my countdown), but with an entirely different feeling about it. Landslide is a very introspective song that also emphasizes that just getting out somewhere away from it all for a little while can break the limiting patterns and ruts in one’s life, enabling one to refocus on the more important, truly valuable things. Stevie Nicks has always been one of my favorite singers, and some of her songs, like Rhiannon, Gold Dust Woman, Sara, Gypsy, Seven Wonders, Stand Back, Long Way to Go, and Silver Springs are favorites of mine. Fleetwood Mac as a group also came out with a few good ones such as World Turning, Never Going Back Again, Don’t Stop, Big Love, and Peacekeeper. They got together for a reunion concert in 1997 and recorded it as their CD The Dance. The version of Landslide that they did then became a radio hit, but I prefer the original studio version. Other artists, such as Smashing Pumpkins and the Dixie Chicks, came out with their covers of Landslide, but I’ll always value the special touch that Stevie Nicks gave to it back in 1975. Fleetwood Mac owes much to Stevie Nicks and her former “partner” Lindsey Buckingham for transforming this moderately successful British blues-rock band into an international pop-rock icon. I always thought Christie McVie was pretty cool, too!

Next favorite song: #3