Silver Springs (song)

"Silver Springs" is a song written by Stevie Nicks and performed by British-American band Fleetwood Mac. It was originally intended for the band's 1977 album '' Rumours'' but became a B-side to the single "Go Your Own Way" instead. The subject of the song is the breakup of the romantic relationship between Nicks and Fleetwood Mac guitarist and vocalist Lindsey Buckingham.

Conflicts over "Silver Springs" led Nicks to leave Fleetwood Mac in 1991. The song appeared on Fleetwood Mac's 1992 box set, '' 25 Years – The Chain''. A live version of "Silver Springs" was released as a single from the band's 1997 album '' The Dance''; this version of the song was nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals in 1998. A version of "Silver Springs" appeared on a remastered edition of ''Rumours'' in 2004, and the song was also included in Nicks' 2007 compilation album, '' Crystal Visions - The Very Best of Stevie Nicks''.

Background

Composition and recording

Written by Stevie Nicks, "Silver Springs" describes Nicks' perspective on the ending of her romantic relationship with guitarist Lindsey Buckingham. She said:

The band recorded the basic tracks for "Silver Springs" at the Record Plant in Sausalito on 11 February 1976 with drums, bass guitar, electric guitar, a Fender Rhodes electric piano, and a scratch vocal. According to Caillat, this version possessed "a much harder feel" compared to the final mix. Two days later they attempted 19 takes that session, but none were deemed satisfactory. On the 14th, the band played the song to a click track for the purpose of time keeping. Christine McVie switched over from the Fender Rhodes to a grand piano, which was situated in an isolation room to prevent audio spill from the drums. Buckingham's guitars were fed through a guitar amplifier in one room and a Leslie speaker in another. Nicks sang her vocals into a directional microphone in a siphoned-off section of the studio with sound baffles on the walls. Take eight was deemed satisfactory and used for overdubs.

Further work was conducted at Wally Heider Studios, where Buckingham redid his guitar part. Caillat applied reverb tape delay to the instrument and picked up the high-frequencies of the Stratocaster's guitar strings with a Lavalier microphone; in Caillat's estimation, this gave the guitar a "delicate, glasslike, music box-type sound." During the song's mixing process, Ken Caillat applied EQ to the kick to remove certain frequencies that resulted in a "nasty popping sound when it was turned up too loud."

Omission from ''Rumours'' and ''Timespace''

"Silver Springs" was intended to be released on the album ''Rumours''. However, for reasons including its length and relatively slow tempo, the song was excluded from ''Rumours'' despite strenuous and repeated objections from Nicks. In his book ''Making Rumours'', Ken Caillat described "Silver Springs" as "gorgeous", "powerful", and "a masterpiece". Caillat added, "There was only one problem: I knew the song was too long to fit on the album." "Silver Springs" was released in late 1976 as the B-side of the "Go Your Own Way" single, a Buckingham-written song about his breakup with Nicks. In a 1997 documentary on the making of ''Rumours'', engineer and co-producer Richard Dashut called it "the best song that never made it to a record album".

Years later, after Fleetwood Mac's '' Behind the Mask'' tour concluded, Nicks left the group owing to a dispute with Mick Fleetwood: the drummer would not allow her to release "Silver Springs" on her 1991 album '' Timespace – The Best of Stevie Nicks'' because he planned to include it on a forthcoming Fleetwood Mac box set. Fleetwood felt that "Silver Springs" was in high demand for inclusion on a Fleetwood Mac release as its only other appearance had been as the B-side to "Go Your Own Way". "Silver Springs" subsequently appeared on the 1992 box set '' 25 Years – The Chain''.

Release as a live single

A live version of "Silver Springs" appeared on ''The Dance'', Fleetwood Mac's 1997 reunion album. Nicks said, "The fiery take on the song that appears in ''The Dance'' was 'for posterity… I wanted people to stand back and really watch and understand what he relationship with Lindseywas.'" ''The Dance'' was recorded across three performances at Warner Bros. Studios in June 1997. "I never thought that 'Silver Springs' would ever be performed onstage gain" Nicks reflected during a 1997 MTV interview. "My beautiful song just disappeared 0 years ago For it to come back around like this has really been special to me."

The live version of "Silver Springs" was released as a radio single in the United States on 22 July 1997, and it was physically issued in the Netherlands the same year. ''Radio & Records'' reported in early August that it was the most added song on Adult Alternative, Hot Adult Contemporary and Adult Contemporary stations, including 51 adds in the latter category. According to Broadcast Data Systems, the song garnered 3.8 million audience impressions from its release on 22 July through the middle of August. "Silver Springs" appeared on several charts, including the US ''Billboard'' Hot 100 Airplay chart (number 41), the Canadian ''RPM'' Top Singles chart (number 38), and the Dutch Single Top 100 (number 96). In 1998, the track was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals.

Inclusion on later releases

On a remastered edition of ''Rumours'' released in 2004, "Silver Springs" was included (as a previously unreleased, slightly longer 4:47 version) between "Songbird" and "The Chain". "We always loved her," remarked musician Danielle Haim. "But when we heard 'Silver Springs' – a song that didn't make ''Rumours'' and landed on one of the box sets – we fell in love all over again."

"Silver Springs" also appeared on Nicks' compilation '' Crystal Visions - The Very Best of Stevie Nicks'' in 2007. Nicks wrote in the liner notes that the song was intended as a gift for her mother Barbara, who later referred to it as her "rainy day song". Nicks said that the exclusion of the song from ''Rumours'' was a source of anger for many years. Nicks was particularly upset that "Silver Springs" initially generated little money for her mother, who was gifted publishing rights for the song in the 1970s. Barbara Nicks had encouraged her daughter to include the song on ''Crystal Visions'', who agreed. Stevie Nicks stated that "having that song on this package makes her a part of this."

Critical reception

''Rolling Stone'' observed, "Nicks' tender yet vengeful post-mortem on her breakup with Buckingham ecamean emotional lightning rod. The song would have behind-the-scenes repercussions for decades to come – nearly leading to the breakup of the band." Jonathan Rush, a program director from WNOK, expressed skepticism that the live recording from ''The Dance'' would perform well commercially, saying that the song "doesn't jump off the radio like we'd like it to." He nonetheless found the concept of releasing a reworked and unearthed song to be intriguing. Amanda Petrusich of ''Pitchfork'' believed that the song epitomised "the story of how Buckingham and Nicks lost each other" more than any other song before the release of ''Tusk''. She also highlighted the dynamics between Nicks and Buckingham for live performances of the song and described Nicks' voice as "feral" during the ''"was I just a fool?"'' lyric. ''The Guardian'' and '' Paste'' ranked the song number six and number two, respectively, on their lists of the 30 greatest Fleetwood Mac songs.

Personnel

* Stevie Nicks – vocals
* Lindsey Buckingham – guitar, backing vocals
* Christine McVie – keyboards, piano, backing vocals
* John McVie – bass guitar
* Mick Fleetwood – drums, percussion

Charts

Weekly charts

Year-end charts

Certifications

Notes

References

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1976 songs
1997 singles
Breakup songs
Fleetwood Mac songs
Reprise Records singles
Silver Spring, Maryland
Songs about parting
Songs written by Stevie Nicks
Warner Records singles