>And so it is back to me waffling on about my favourite tunes, once again. This time I’m looking at a song from the lighter end of my record collection. It is a pop song, and this particular song is as good as a pop song gets. No ifs, no buts. It has all the right ingredients.
It’s called Gypsy. It’s by Fleetwood Mac. I’ve always had a soft spot for Fleetwood Mac, regardless of the lineup, though it has to be said the band in my eyes was at its best when it had Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks at the forefront of the group. Peter Green’s lineup is blues orientated and there is so much good stuff there. But for me it’s the aforementioned “Rumours” line up that is my Fleetwood Mac of choice, and certainly the most commercially successful.
The song I’ve chosen here is an overlooked single (it reached no. 46 in the UK charts) taken from the 1982 album Mirage. Mirage, which is probably their weakest effort, came after the more experimental album Tusk, which alas didn’t sell in the same quantities as Rumours so was instantly branded a flop (I’d love a flop that sold in excess of five million copies, thankyou very much). So Mirage saw the band revert back to a more rock / pop sound.
Gypsy was written by Stevie Nicks back in 1979 during the height of her fame and was initially going to be included on her debut solo album Bella Donna. However, it was held back for Fleetwood Mac. To understand the song itself, if you are so inclined, we need to understand the inspiration behind it. Put simply, it took Stevie back to a time before the height of success and fame. In fact, back to a time when Stevie and Lindsey Buckingham were still a couple with no money, just an apartment with a king size mattress on the floor. According to Stevie in an interview in 2009:
Back to the floor, that I love
To a room with some lace and paper flowers
Back to the gypsy that I was
To the gypsy… that I was”.