If you’ve spent time listening to any of these alternate versions of Fleetwood Mac’s beloved behemoths, whether in vinyl form (like this parallel Tusk) or via scores of tracks that litter deluxe-edition digital copies, you’ve got to admit: Sometimes it’s really hard to discern much difference between outtakes and finished products.
Certainly some sound dramatically altered: ‘That’s Enough for Me,’ for instance, might well have been an uptempo country tune had Lindsey Buckingham not blitzed it with manic energy and fuzzier fretwork. Others come hyper-extended, like this set’s nine-minute take of Stevie Nicks’s supreme ‘Sara,’ the last third of which has me convinced all her multitracked vamping wasn’t intended for a mere fadeout — that maybe they really hoped it might run that long.
What you notice if you concentrate is that these are nearly complete iterations with only a few details left to iron out.
You can hear it in the way Christine McVie (the reason I’ve dug this deep) hasn’t quite landed on the right feel for her tacked piano on ‘Sara’: one minute she’s fluid and graceful, the next plodding without proper sustain. It’s noticeable in the way she phrases title choruses in ‘Think About Me,’ clipping off fuller tones that eventually will help the song soar and underscore the romance of its sentiment.
I don’t mean to pick on Chris. Her ‘Over & Over’ here is almost perfect, lacking only lush background vocals; ‘Never Make Me Cry’ is every bit as lovely in a different key; and though ‘Honey Hi’ would later be wisely treated to campfire percussion, her keys work smartly switched from grand to electric piano, you can tell she’d already finessed its architecture.
Everyone has near-misses that, in hindsight, are often unqualified successes they simply couldn’t hear while their cocaine eyes were frantically seeking unattainable perfection.
That said …
Ultimately all these rawer doppelgängers display ingredients more than present chef’s-kiss dishes, yet unlike other such regurgitated Mac meals, this one doesn’t always benefit from singular alternates. ‘Tusk’ itself, if you’re a fan, merits multiple listening variants to truly understand how that tune works — and how silly some of its random chatter and clatter might have seemed had such shenanigans not been smoothed over in post-production à la ‘I Am the Walrus.’
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Similarly, one more version of ‘I Know I’m Not Wrong’ — the deluxe edition serves up a whopping six — doesn’t adequately explain the song’s nervy evolution. This take is fairly fascinating, though: it finds Stevie sharing lead and adding low-register counterpoint, bits eliminated from the final mix.
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What that underscores, as with other cuts that feature more vocal interplay than the official results, is just how much of Tusk could have recaptured the sense of unity amid breakdown that Rumours conveyed so strikingly while still avoiding the trap of sounding like a too-obvious sequel. Fractured brilliance emerged instead — three solo albums in search of impossible cohesion. That it holds together so well is a testament to this rare trio of talents, not to mention one of the sharpest spotlight-deflecting rhythm sections that ever anchored a rock band.