March 13, 2024 • 33 mins
Rolling Stone’s 500 Greatest Songs list is one of the most popular — and most-argued over — features the magazine has ever produced. It’s a trip through eight decades of pop music, from Elvis Presley to Elvis Costello, Aretha to Ariana, hip-hop to art-pop, and beyond. Its rankings are hugely influential, and — if you disagree enough with them, at least — infamous. In the first episode of Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs podcast, hosts Brittany Spanos and Rob Sheffield dive into the history, significance, and weird quirks of the list, zeroing in on its most recent version, from 2021.
The hosts are joined by special guest and Rolling Stone staffer Angie Martoccio as they pivot to “Dreams,” the iconic 1977 Fleetwood Mac song that finished 9th on the most recent version of the 500 Greatest Songs list. In recent years, the Stevie Nicks masterpiece found new life — and a new audience — as a tik-tok mainstay and Gen-Z touchstone, but its history runs deep. The hosts delve into the fascinating story of the song, placing it within the context of the nonstop romantic drama that was Fleetwood Mac in the 1970s. Amazingly, Nicks wrote the song “in about 10 minutes,” as a mystical elegy to her fading relationship with Lindsey Buckingham. But its legacy is so much greater than that story would suggest — it’s a testament to making great art amid turmoil, and to the singular, shawl-clad sorcery of Stevie. “Dreams” sums up everything we love about her in four brilliant minutes.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Rolling Stones five hundred Greatest Songs, a podcast
based on Rolling Stones hugely popular, influential, and sometimes controversial list.
I'm Britney Spanos and.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
I'm Rob Sheffield. We're here to shed light on the
greatest songs ever made and discover what makes them so great.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
So this podcast is based off of the twenty twenty
one list. There are three versions of the lists that exist.
There's the two thousand four list, the original one, the
twenty ten update of the list, and then of course
in twenty twenty one.
Speaker 3 (00:28):
We redid it completely and revamped it.
Speaker 1 (00:31):
And this podcast is going to have us talking about
a different song each week that we enjoy talking about,
and then we're excited to talk about I mean, Rob,
what do you remember about the two thousand and four list,
because we are going to be talking a lot about
the changes between the list as they exist and the
two kind of canonical lists and what's changed since the
(00:51):
original one. So what do you remember about the kind
of process and the voting that happened for two thousand
and four?
Speaker 2 (00:56):
Well, because the different versions of the list have involved
hundreds of voters, but different pools of voters each time.
Shout out to Ark Garfunkel, who voted in every version
of the list, and Aaron Neville. They are the absolute
MVPs of all Rolling Stone Greatest Things lists because they
(01:18):
voted in the different versions of them. But the two
thousand and four to one it was totally new, and
there were so many surprises in terms of what came
out on top. And in twenty twenty it was really
interesting to see that there was so much change in
terms of songs that were around all these years, but
(01:39):
some songs had gotten this whole new afterlife, this whole
new mystique years after the fact.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
How did you think of voting and is it different
between how you voted for the two thousand and four
list in the twenty twenty one list.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
Yes, I voted in the different versions of the poll.
When I was voting in two thousand and four, I
was trying to be more sort of well rounded orally,
and this time I was more Now I'm stuffing the
ballot box for my personal faves. My number one the
first time I voted in two thousand and four was
Common People, the classic nineteen ninety five song by Pulp,
(02:14):
And this time that was number two on my list. Yeah,
It was replaced by a Taylor Swift song involving a
scarf that was number one on my twenty twenty list.
A lot of the songs were the same on my ballot.
But it's weird how some songs change for you personally
over time, that you can spend your whole life listening
to a song and it's meaning for you changes, it
(02:35):
grows or shrinks. But very interesting to see that happen
with so many different people over the years.
Speaker 1 (02:41):
Yeah, I think I learned so much about music, and
like I used the albums and the songs list the
original one sort of as a jumping board for me
in terms of music history, and so it was really
fun to vote for the first time in the twenty
twenty one one.
Speaker 3 (02:54):
But yeah, I feel like I ended up.
Speaker 1 (02:56):
I went back and forth between like, here are songs
that you know are just like obviously very great, and
like are the canon or whatever, but also it's like,
here are songs that I really love and I think
deserve to be uplifted on the list as well. So
it mind's very like pop and dance heavy.
Speaker 2 (03:11):
Your list is amazing. What was at the top of
your list?
Speaker 1 (03:15):
Dancy on my own Robin, I think it is the
most influential song of the last I guess thirteen years.
So and then yeah, I think my number two is
believed by Share again, very influential, and I just want
to see Share on the list.
Speaker 3 (03:29):
So it's very.
Speaker 1 (03:30):
Important for me to just stuff the ballance and make
sure that song was high. But yeah, so I feel
like I ended up going for a lot of pop
songs because that was so there aren't as many kind
of like dance pop moments on the original list, and
I think in terms of the canon, you know, those
songs are getting more respect as time goes on and
sort of seen as as properly influential as they deserve
to be. Absolutely, so, we have a song that we
(03:55):
really love that.
Speaker 2 (03:56):
This is a song that you know is very near
and dear to both of our hearts.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
Yeah, very very important to our personal listening habits, and
just a band that we love so much, sung by
someone that we.
Speaker 3 (04:07):
Love so much.
Speaker 1 (04:08):
And to kick off the entire podcast, we're going to
be talking about Dreams by Fleetwood Mac And this song
was not on the original list. Actually, the song did
not make the two thousand and four list. It did
not make the two thousand and ten list, but it
ranked at number nine on the twenty twenty one list.
It is the highest placement of a song that was
not on the original list, and it came in the
(04:30):
top ten, which is like a pre big debut for
this song. And it was released in nineteen seventy seven.
It was on the album Rumors. Of course, this was
a very dramatic recording process, writing process of an album.
There were multiple breakups going on. Steven Knicks of Lindsay
Buckingham were breaking up. John and Christine mcviee were divorcing.
(04:50):
Mick Fleetwood and his wife were divorcing. Everyone was just said,
and well, you.
Speaker 2 (04:55):
Know, it's not like Mcfleetwood divorced his wife and then
started having an affair with Steven that began at the
Rolling Stone cover shoot. Yeah, for the story on Rumors,
everything about the Fleetwood Max story, the Fleetwood Mac myth
everything about it so melodramatic in every detail. And yet
Dreams is a song that has kind of come to
(05:18):
symbolize all that drama, all that mythology, and it's wild
because again we were talking about the afterlife of these songs.
You know, twenty years ago Dreams did not loom as
large in the Fleetwood Max story, in the Stevie Nicks story,
in the whole Rumor's mythology the way it does now.
Dreams is a song that's been around for almost fifty
(05:39):
years and yet has never been more popular or iconic
than it is right now.
Speaker 1 (05:43):
While because the song was so popular when it came
out too, you know, like it was it's the only
number one song that Fleetwood Mac had in the US.
It was a third single off of Rumors. Was just
a massive, massive moment for the band and really helped
solidify so much of the success that Rumors had not
only an nineteen seventy seven but for decades to come.
I mean, this album was on the album's charts for years, decades,
(06:06):
Like this is something that's been very consistent in pop music.
But I feel like Stevie and her music specifically because
this is the song is written solely by Stevie Nicks,
has had so many different lives and so many of
the songs have had different moments. My introduction to Fleetwood
Mac was Landslide, and that song had such a big
(06:26):
moment in the late nineties and early two thousands because
there were so many covers in this is Smashing Pumpkins version,
The Chicks did a version. Those were huge radio hits,
and I think for someone growing up at that time,
that was a huge introduction to Stevie Nicks, that was
and to Fleetwood Mac generally. So it's kind of crazy
how many different different cycles that all of her songs
(06:48):
kind of have and all these moments.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
Totally really amazing, and all the different lives that Stevie
Nicks has had, all the different lives that Rumors has had.
It's wild that it's always been a super famous but again,
it's never been more popular or famous than it is
right now. And it's really amazing how Rumors just gets
more iconic, more famous, and more mysterious over the years.
(07:13):
And Dreams, which you know, like you said before, it
didn't make the two thousand and four version of the list.
That wasn't one of the songs that really stood in
for the whole Rumor's story the way it does now.
But it's wild to see how it's grown into into
what it is now.
Speaker 1 (07:30):
Yeah, and great context for when the voting was happening
and when the like Dreams was having a major resurgence
and it's funny to think about, like what would happen
if the list was made this year, or what would
happen if the list had been redone.
Speaker 3 (07:41):
Like two years before.
Speaker 1 (07:43):
But in twenty twenty, of course, the song blew up
on TikTok of all places because a usernamed Nate Abudaca
had done a video where he's skateboarding and drinking ocean
spray cran raspberry juice and just listening to dreams, which
is just so soothing, and Stevie did a like Mick
Fleetwood made a video reenacting it. Even Lindsay Buckingham did
(08:03):
one on a white Horse.
Speaker 2 (08:05):
Lindsay did one. I was like, okay, this is off
the rails now, even by rumors standards, this is completely
mind blowing melodrama. Yeah. And the fact that you know,
Lindsay was like, sure, I'll do this with this song
that begins with my ex saying, well, here you go again,
you want your freedom? A great example of how there's
(08:25):
no end to the story of dreams. This song just
keeps mutating and changing over time, and no.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
End to the story of steveing Lindsay to the story
of Fleetwood Mac It's like one of those bands where
their lore is constantly evolving in crazy ways so true,
which is just like how people are reintroduced to them constantly.
Like thinking about the fact that even Lindsay doing that
video for the for the Dreams viral moment is so
insane because he was very dramatically kicked out of the band,
(08:53):
just like what was it a year or two before
that had happened, and like him and Stevie have not
been on the best terms recently and they have had
these bouts of being on the best terms and it's
just kind of crazy how that has continued when this
couple broke up fifty years ago.
Speaker 2 (09:06):
Absolutely, the fact that the last time that those two
were in the same room together was on stage accepting
a Humanitarian award as the Music Cares Person of the Year,
and that they actually that you were actually there for
witnessing that the.
Speaker 1 (09:23):
Only time I've seen that lineup perform together and then
it was gone.
Speaker 2 (09:27):
It was last time, last time.
Speaker 3 (09:28):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (09:29):
And the fact that any group can break up right yeah,
for Fluid Back to break up while they're on stage
accepting a Humanitarian award as the Music Cares People of
the Year, that is just priceless. That could only happen
to Fleetwood back right.
Speaker 1 (09:44):
But also in the most kind of like I feel
like everyone is too old for this thing where it
was like Lindsay giggling in the background because Stevie was
doing a speech that was like a little too long,
which is like he's known Stevie longer than anyone has
known Stevie, Like you should know.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
I know.
Speaker 3 (10:00):
The woman loves to talk. She loves to give a speech.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
Yes, do not guide a meteor. There's that great footage
of her giving her acceptance speech at the Rock and
Roll Hall of Fame. She was inducted as a solo artist,
and you see the teleprompter saying wrap it up, like
and she kept talking for eight minutes after that appeared,
and you.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
Don't tell her to wrap it up. Yes, you just
gotta let it flow. I think there's one or two
idea with her that was she. I think I asked
like two or three questions in the span of forty minutes,
Like I just kind of I was like, well, we're
talking about all of this, and I'm not sure how
we got here.
Speaker 3 (10:37):
And I love it and I appreciate.
Speaker 2 (10:39):
It absolutely absolutely. Nobody gives you more a per cue.
Speaker 3 (10:43):
Yeah, it's all great.
Speaker 2 (10:44):
Yes, Yeah, this song is so fascinating because we associate
Stevie with these sprawling epics. You know, for a lot
of people, their favorite Stevie song will be something like
gold Dust Woman or Sarah or Gypsy, these songs that
you know, tell a long story over a long period
of time. Dreams is really out of character story for her.
(11:07):
It's a very short song. It's got you know, like
verse chorus, verse, chorus, and that's the song. And it's
unique for Stevie Nicks, just as it's unique in the
history of pop music.
Speaker 1 (11:17):
Yeah, and it's very it's very direct in what's saying.
Speaker 2 (11:24):
It is direct.
Speaker 1 (11:24):
Yeah, like she she's very direct in what she's saying.
It's a very sort of kind of like whimsical pop song.
I feel like Stevie obviously is so associated with kind
of this like magical quality, this witchiness and like, but
I wouldn't call many for songs whimsical in that way.
I think a lot of the stuff with Rumors is
that there is so much anger underlying every single line
on there, and so much anger underlying the way that
(11:47):
they're all playing on certain parts of things. But the
album comes across so kind of bright when you listen
to it, like it is such like this like very
sort of sunshiny sounding kind of seventies FM pop moment,
and like it is very fueled by a lot of
deep rooted anger between every single person. Because the song
(12:08):
was a response to go your Own Way, which is
Lindsay's take on the breakup. Stevie really hates that song.
She hates the packing up, shocking up line. There's a
lot a lot of anger from that lot. Yeah, but yeah,
the same thing with like Stevie Solo starf too, Like
I feel like it's always just been there, Like Edge of
seventeen is a song that you know would be again
on the radio School of Rock, you know it's playing
(12:29):
in there, and Booty Delicious by Dsny's Child, Like you know,
it's like all these moments. So it's kind of it's
kind of wild to think about sort of just like
how so how so much of her music just quickly
became sort of rock and pop standards for for a
lot of generations of people. But yeah, I would say
Silver Springs kind of led into the full deep dive
(12:51):
of deep dive of rumors and the Stevie and Lindsay
Lore and Fleetwood Mac and all of that.
Speaker 2 (12:56):
I love that, Yeah, I love it. I was a
little kid when Rumors came and Dreams was the biggest
radio hit at first. It was, like you said, though,
it was the one that hit number one, and it
sounded so weird on seventies top forty radio. Just everything
about that song is so weirdly anomalous. That it's so spare,
(13:18):
that for a lot of it's just bass, drums and voice,
and that the lyrics are so like you said, direct,
they're so angry, they're so nasty, the humor is so
knife twisting, and that it was a song that really
jumped off the radio and that was the number one hit.
But for me, Rumors was an album that I was
(13:39):
always associated with. It was always in people's houses, when
you went over a friend's house, it was you know,
every suburban mom was into Rumors and Tapestry.
Speaker 1 (13:49):
It's kind of surreal how that album has aged so
well and how that album has continued to like, you know,
I feel like a lot of there was a lot
of parents who also had Rumors in their in their
house when I was and like, you know, it's just
kind of a.
Speaker 3 (14:02):
Thing that is just always there.
Speaker 1 (14:04):
Like it, it feels like it's always been a part of
pop music. And yeah, I mean even just like how
different it is to that point that you had mentioned
about how people think of like, you know, gold Dust
Woman or those kinds of moments or Rhiannon and things
like that. It's like such like a a delicate vocal
performance from Stevie, which I really love. I think so
much of her vocals and the way that people think
(14:26):
about them is kind of like that visceral kind of
rock voice, and you know that's why like Silver Springs
is having its own resurgence right now, and like thinking
about how she does her live performances of like gold
Dust Woman and during her live shows and like her
solo music and things like that. Yeah, I feel like
it's such like a delicate and pretty kind of understated
Stevie moment, which I really love, and kind of that
(14:49):
it feels like the song feels almost kind of like
a little bit of like a Stevie meets Christine kind
of fusion of lyrics with like the kind of melody
and that kind of pop ness.
Speaker 2 (14:59):
Absolutely vocal is really amazing. I love your point about
the way she sings the word women is so great.
There's so much going on, and just the way she
says those that particular word yes, two syllables yeah.
Speaker 1 (15:11):
Because I was listening to the live at the Forum
version on the way here, and that is also like
the way that it becomes such like an angry performance
of it, like the way that she's like able to
turn this it's already angry, but like, you know, this
like very pretty kind of you know, if you're not
listening close enough to the lyrics, it just sounds like
this like kind of theial kind of pop moment. And
(15:31):
then you listen to the live of the Forum version,
She's pissed.
Speaker 2 (15:36):
Something happened women, Women, It's wild. I mean, you hear
those songs as a little kid and you think, wow,
like these grown ups are having a life, you know,
and it's like, oh, you hear the boy singing background
in the chorus of dreams Yeah, and he's You hear
Lindsay's voice very prominently singing the line players only love
(15:58):
you when they're playing and you listen to go your
own way, and it's like, oh, Lindsay's telling the story
with Stevie's voice very prominently singing along, and it's not
like they're saying nice things about each other. It's not
like either of them is taking the high road those songs.
And it's wild to hear that, he said, she said
(16:18):
dialogue about this breakup happening in real time in these songs.
Speaker 1 (16:22):
Yeah, I mean, all the layers that they add to
their songs about each other is so crazy, Like when
you get older and you're like you're like, oh yeah,
like this like guitar part I mean, just like the
guitar playing that Lindsay does on Dreams. It's just like
so perfect and beautiful and adds so much to the song.
Like thinking about like John McPhee's bass and You Make
Loving Fun, a song that Christine wrote about looking up
(16:44):
with the lighting director. That bass is so iconic on
that song and literally leads you into it. It's so wild.
Speaker 2 (16:49):
Yeah, but that's such a huge part of the mystique
of Dreams as a song, and rumors and Fleetwood Mac
in general, that they always added so much beauty to
each other's songs even they were totally ripping each other
to shreds. So yeah, You Make Love and Fun. But
something about this bizarre five way chemistry that they had
that they always just wanted to make each other songs
(17:11):
better despite the emotional carnage going on in them. And
that's definitely happening in Dreams where Lindsay is adding so
much guitar beauty to this song and helping her shape
her draft into a song when she knows what she's
singing about. And that's kind of always the beauty of
these songs. You know. Stevie's always said that she wants
(17:32):
to kill Lindsay every single time that they've been on stage,
and he sings go your Own Way, and she's there
like playing the tambourine, and yet she sings so beautifully
on that song. Remember that great scene in the documentary
on the Dance where Lindsay is hearing Silver Springs and
he's listening back to it and he hasn't heard it
(17:53):
in a while, and he's like, Wow, that guitar, I
remember that guitar. He's talk about how awesome his guitar.
It's like, dude, you are literally listening to your ex
sing a song about how her voice will haunt you
for the rest of your life and about how no
matter how long you live, you'll never get away from
her because their voice will always be there. And to me,
that's not just the essence of Lindsay brilliance, but that's
(18:16):
really the Fleetwood Mac story in a nutshell, because they're
adding so much genius to each other's songs despite all
the pain that they're causing each other in these songs.
Speaker 3 (18:25):
Yeah, and that guitar part is very good on.
Speaker 2 (18:28):
Sord It is great to me. One of the fascinating
things about Dreams is that Stevie Nix's so many classic
songs that people love to cover, you know, people so
many people have done, as you said, Landslide, people love
to sing Gypsy, people love to sing Sarah. It's well
that nobody really covers Dreams, and when they try to,
(18:49):
you can hear why. It's a really uncoverable song.
Speaker 1 (18:51):
Yeah, it's like it's hard to for anyone to kind of,
I don't know, tackle the like the charm that Stevie
has in it, Like it's like a fel like a
song that only she can sing. Yeah, I mean just
so many of the lyrics like are just unconvincing from
anyone else, Like, like I don't want to hear about
anyone else's crystal visions, Like no one else has crystal
visions the way Stevie has.
Speaker 2 (19:11):
She invented crystalis.
Speaker 1 (19:13):
Yeah, like it's not like I can't I know, there's
like a I think the Coors did one.
Speaker 2 (19:18):
I think so much of that is what John McVie
and mcfleetwood are doing that. Yeah, you definitely hear. This
is why this band is named after the rhythm section,
and you can definitely hear this rhythm section learned how
to do this by playing blues and R and B
because what they're doing with the bass and drums all
through the song, it's not something that any other rhythm
section can duplicate. And that's the case with so many
(19:40):
Fleetwood maxims.
Speaker 1 (19:41):
Yeah, I feel like like if Dreams came out today,
it would still be a massive hit. Like that's the
thing too the song is that it is so timeless
in the way that it sounds like it doesn't sound
tied to any specific era, Like there are a lot
of moments on Rumors that sound so distinctly seventies, like
like oh your own wage just sounds like so distinctly
seventies to me, and like gold Dust Woman sounds so
(20:02):
distinctly seventies in that way, but like, yeah, I mean
there's nothing about Dreams that sounds like it. It could
have come out like any decade and it still would
have been I think a massive absolutely yeah.
Speaker 2 (20:14):
Something about the song and it's resurgence in the last
ten years. I think it has to have something to
do with One Direction, and especially Fireproof, Yeah, right, which
is it's not a cover of Dreams, but it's one
direction definitely doing a song of like let's get that,
let's get that dreams kind of groove. Yeah, Fireproof. The
(20:35):
first time you hear it, you're like, wow, I can't
believe they're doing this, and it's a phenomenal song, but
it's really funny how they go for this specific kind
of groove.
Speaker 1 (20:43):
I feel like the Mitski cover of it brings out
a lot that Fleetwood Matt totally even more so, like
you kind of get a little bit more of that
kind of like Stevinus in Mitski's take on Fireproof.
Speaker 2 (20:53):
Which is totally it's so good. I feel like, for
me and as someone who has loved that song forever,
I learned so much about Fleetwood Mac and about Dreams
from both of those versions of Fireproof, Yeah, and that
there's just so much going on in the music of
this song, even before you get to Stevie's vocals.
Speaker 1 (21:12):
Yeah, And it's like almost it's like Fleetwood Mac and
Stevie Nick specifically, they don't really have to do a
lot of upkeep on their legacy because people just find
their way to them.
Speaker 3 (21:24):
Thinking of like the last ten fifteen, I mean, the.
Speaker 1 (21:27):
Last couple of decades of like Fleetwood Mac and the
way that there's always going to be younger artists who
are going to want to evoke them and want to
like try to find elements of Fleetwood Mac in their
own music and try to find ways that make that connection.
And it's once their fans kind of hear that it's
(21:47):
not a hard cell to get further.
Speaker 3 (21:49):
Into Fleetwood Mac. You know.
Speaker 1 (21:50):
It's like I think for especially for younger artists, like
when One Direction was kind of evoking that, and then
later with Harry Styles covering the chain and having such
like a close relationship with Stevie, that's been such a
big moment for Fleetwood Mac and for Stevie Nicks generally,
just to kind of have that, you know, even younger
artists and younger fans kind of find a connection to them.
Speaker 3 (22:12):
You know.
Speaker 1 (22:13):
There's of course, like Taylor Swift and Carl Ray, Jepson
and Lord and like all these pop girls who love
Stevie and revere her so much, Florence and the Machine,
like all these artists who have found ways to channel
her specifically and found ways to channel like that Fleetwood
macnus in their own music without copying them. Like with
(22:34):
Carl Ray, I hear like a lot more like Christine
mcviee obviously and what she does. And I think like
you can kind of hear like these little pockets of
Fleetwood Mac and all the vocalist and the artists within
the band kind of coming out in a lot of
pop music these days, and people wanting to catch that magic,
and a lot of people are able to do it
in their own kind of special way.
Speaker 2 (22:53):
Absolutely, it's really amazing how it constantly inspires people, and
that it's such a timeless story. As you say, it's
so quintessentially seventies, but it's timeless. It's always so funny
to think about the fact that, you know, part of
what draws people and always draws new fans into this
story is that it's a band of people singing about
(23:14):
breaking up with each other and connecting with each other
ilicit like ways, and to have all their emotional mess
just like out there documenting it together in public. That
that's something that always draws people in.
Speaker 1 (23:31):
Yeah, I love watching people learn it in real time too,
Like I feel like, especially after Daisy Jones and The
Six came out, and that show and book are so
very clearly about Bluewood Back and so very clearly about
the relationships that the band had with each other, And
it's been so fun to kind of watch all of
these kids on TikTok and Twitter kind of become really
obsessed with them and being like, oh, this is like
(23:54):
this really happened, Like this is like a lot of stuff,
or like even crazier stuff has happened.
Speaker 2 (23:58):
You know.
Speaker 1 (23:58):
It's like, yes, like Into the Six is like barely
scratching the surface of like the decades that this band
has had together.
Speaker 2 (24:05):
You know, absolutely no fictional version could ever live up
to the melodrama the real version. And also just the
craziest is that it's wild enough that they're doing this
in nineteen seventy seven, that they're standing on stage and
singing all these songs about breaking up with each other.
How horrified would they be to think that they'd still
be doing this.
Speaker 1 (24:23):
Yeah, there's still a couple more decades they're going to
learn about. Yes, yes, yes, Like wait until everyone learns
about the music care stuff, Like they're going to be
real shocked.
Speaker 2 (24:31):
Yeah, it's like, sorry, you guys are not even halfway through.
You're just getting there, Yes, exactly. The worst is yet
to come.
Speaker 1 (24:40):
And now we are going to have a very special
guest rolling Stones, Angie Martosio, who's going to be discussing
dreams even further with us. Thank you so much, Angie
for coming to chat with us today.
Speaker 4 (24:51):
Oh, anytime I can talk about Fleetwood Mac with you
guys is special.
Speaker 1 (24:54):
So let's hear a little of your your Fleetwood Mac
origin story.
Speaker 5 (24:57):
So we're talking about the cover.
Speaker 4 (24:59):
You know, I heard you guys discuss that, and I
just want to point out that I thought for years,
as a ballet dancer that Stevie was a like professional
ballerina because of that cover of Urmers, and I did
not know for years if that was not the case.
My own Fleetwood Mac experience is pretty much similar to you.
We're the same age, so for me, it was like
(25:22):
late nineties, early aughts, you know when Fleetwood Mac in general.
I didn't know that Landslide was a Fleetwood Mac song
for a very long time. I knew it also from
the Chicks and from Smashing Pumpkins. Uh.
Speaker 5 (25:35):
And then once I.
Speaker 4 (25:35):
Fell into that obviously like it opened the doors for
everything else for me.
Speaker 1 (25:39):
And what sort of turned you into a big fan
of the band.
Speaker 4 (25:43):
This is also because of my age, but it's Stevie
Nicks simple. I love all of them for different reasons.
I think they have great eras in different periods, but
for me, Stevie is kind of what encompasses what I
love about that band.
Speaker 3 (25:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (25:56):
Yeah, And do you have any like fun origin story
for Dreams or like the first time you heard it
or was it just a song in the same way
that you know it's kind of always around.
Speaker 4 (26:06):
I really love that song to the point where I
may have fiddled with our list of the greatest Fleetwood
Mac songs recently and I may have put Dreams as
number one instead of a different song.
Speaker 5 (26:22):
Go your Own Ways Now at number two.
Speaker 4 (26:23):
I made Dreams number one, and I had some comments
being read on the side after that. That was like
a millennial must have messed with this list, and I
was like, yeah, actually I did. It's the I'm sorry.
It's just their greatest song. It's the synthesis of what
makes that band so excellent. It's all of their input together.
Obviously Stevie's leading it, but there's so much mythology around it.
(26:45):
I feel like there could be books on just.
Speaker 3 (26:48):
That song alone. Do you have a favorite line?
Speaker 4 (26:50):
I think just like a heartbeat because it reminds me
of this is so nerdy and I'm sorry, but it
reminds me of a growl and.
Speaker 5 (26:57):
Po of the tellsale art. It's like, so.
Speaker 4 (27:02):
She's making it not just like, oh you broke my
heart and I'm upset about that, She's making it this
like visceral like paranoia.
Speaker 5 (27:09):
That's very similar.
Speaker 4 (27:10):
She does that later on with Silver Springs, obviously, just
like You're never gonna escape me.
Speaker 5 (27:14):
I'm here all the time.
Speaker 4 (27:16):
This is the heartbeat that's going to drive you mad
because of what you did. And it's so it's like
it's beyond a love song to me, it's beyond a
heartbreak song. This is like full encompassing, like sick to
my stomach feeling over this yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (27:29):
Yeah, the enjamment between heart beat, it's so intense, one
of those great Stevie pauses.
Speaker 4 (27:38):
Yeah, and you know, like most incredible songs. They like
to say this that it was written in ten minutes,
which is absolutely insane, let alone on sly Stone's bed,
which I don't think is disgusted enough.
Speaker 5 (27:51):
That there's this you know, record plant, Salsalito.
Speaker 4 (27:53):
It's been it reopened recently, but it closed in two
thousand and eight. And before that you had everyone from
like Grateful Dead in there. You had obviously feet with
Mac and Slidestone had his own like little comfort zone
room and there's this bed with these like black velvet curtains,
and Stevie just took some time in there. She didn't
really want to be in the recording room unless she
(28:15):
had to, so she was obviously sitting down, you know,
with her books and art and her you know, journals.
She went up with this thing on a keyboard and
kind of brought it out to them and was like,
see what you think. And they weren't like crazy about
it at the time, and I think that's worth noting too.
It was their only number one hit in the US,
but it's not surprising that it's gotten bigger than ever.
Speaker 1 (28:38):
Yeah, And I think that also is a lot of
the story with Stevie's songs for Fleet with mac right, Like,
there's kind of a harder cell for like some of
the songs to make it to the albums and to
kind of you know, for people to get on board,
and so it's kind of wild, like how I don't
know the foresight that she had about these songs in
general being kind of so iconic and having these lives
that go well beyond their release da you.
Speaker 5 (29:00):
Know, Yeah, it's pretty incredible.
Speaker 4 (29:02):
I think just the fact that Silver Strings is left
off is like one of the greatest tragedies besides like
the Titanic, you know, Like, but it makes sense they
didn't want this like slow, it would have made it
a lot slower the album, and so I totally understand it.
But I think leaving Dreams on was obviously like the
better of that she could get.
Speaker 1 (29:20):
I mean, are there, like, who are people that you
think have sort of accomplished that kind of emulation of
Stevie as an artist.
Speaker 5 (29:29):
I'm a huge wise Blood fan.
Speaker 4 (29:32):
She to me is extremely obviously singer songwriter from La
but more than that, She's a very spiritual, mystical lady
who just reads a lot of books.
Speaker 1 (29:45):
You know.
Speaker 5 (29:45):
It's not about like being cool.
Speaker 4 (29:46):
She's not someone who like does drugs and like is
on Instagram a lot.
Speaker 5 (29:51):
She literally is just someone who loves to read and
loves history. And that was very Stevie.
Speaker 4 (29:56):
And her music is so incredible because I mean, I
can have my own episode about her in general, but Natalie,
she incorporates such Stevie mythology in the way she sings,
in her songwriting. There's so much imagery there, but it's
also not too intense, you know, and it's also very alluring,
Like it always leaves people kind of obsessed with her.
(30:17):
Has the same exact quality of her fans are like
die hard, yeah, and I see that same exact I
don't know, there's the same kind of following. I think
that's literally why I love wise Blood so much.
Speaker 3 (30:29):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I feel like I.
Speaker 1 (30:33):
Feel like Florence the Machine. I feel like we don't
we're not finding enough respect on Florence's name generally, but
I think she gets a lot of that visceral vocal
performance that Stevie does, and I feel like that's still
like seeing her live. I'm like this, this feels like
kind of reliving a lot of those like the Rhiannon
kind of TV special video that always, you know, is
(30:54):
one of the mini iconic Stevie videos that people constantly
have playing on louped in their heads. And I'm like, yes,
you've learned, You've learned well from.
Speaker 4 (31:04):
And what's also important about these two songwriters that we're
talking about is that they're not necessarily copying Stevie.
Speaker 5 (31:09):
They're taking what was.
Speaker 4 (31:10):
So great about her and almost reinventing it and introducing
it to a younger audience. Something that I always think
about is that for college kids these days, if you
ask them to name a musician over the age of fifty,
most of them would probably just know Stevie Nicks.
Speaker 5 (31:26):
And that's all you need to know right there.
Speaker 4 (31:28):
I Mean, you raised this excellent point earlier talking about
songs like you know, go your Own Way and Don't
Stop sound so seventies sometimes to a flaw, like I
obviously love that era, but like I'm sorry, like a
kid who's twenty one is not going to be like, yeah,
this is far out.
Speaker 5 (31:46):
You know, that's not a thing.
Speaker 4 (31:47):
Dreams doesn't sound like that you can't put a date
on it.
Speaker 5 (31:50):
It's very timeless. To me, it could be a hit now.
Speaker 4 (31:53):
I just feel like there's something about it that really
stands out when you look back at Rumors, and it's
it's not a shock to me. We put it so hi.
I mean, obviously, as I stated before, I was really
rallying for that, but I do think it's the one
that you can listen to over and over and not
get tired of, and it really represents what makes this
band so great and this new iteration, you know, like
(32:14):
this is a brand new They already had the first
album obviously, but Rumors was the first time they're all
sitting down together doing this and it's such a great
snapshot to me of that time.
Speaker 3 (32:24):
Well, thank you so much, Angie.
Speaker 5 (32:26):
Thank you.
Speaker 4 (32:27):
You know it's important to note too, when we're not
doing this, we're still doing this talking about it. Yeah,
this is This is a regular conversation ongoing dialostic.
Speaker 3 (32:35):
Bleetwood, Mac.
Speaker 2 (32:38):
Steve and Christine Rolling Stone.
Speaker 1 (32:40):
Thanks so much for listening to Rolling Stone's five hundred
greatest songs. This podcast is brought to you by Rolling
Stone and iHeartMedia. Written and hosted by me Britney Spanos
and Rob Sheffield. Executive produced by Jason Fine, Alex Dale
and Christian Horde, and produced by Jesse Cannon with music
by Eric Siler.
Speaker 2 (32:57):
Thanks so much for listening and we'll see you in
the next episode. He
Welcome to Rolling Stones five hundred Greatest Songs, a podcast
based on Rolling Stones hugely popular, influential, and sometimes controversial list.
I'm Britney Spanos and.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
I'm Rob Sheffield. We're here to shed light on the
greatest songs ever made and discover what makes them so great.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
So this podcast is based off of the twenty twenty
one list. There are three versions of the lists that exist.
There's the two thousand four list, the original one, the
twenty ten update of the list, and then of course
in twenty twenty one.
Speaker 3 (00:28):
We redid it completely and revamped it.
Speaker 1 (00:31):
And this podcast is going to have us talking about
a different song each week that we enjoy talking about,
and then we're excited to talk about I mean, Rob,
what do you remember about the two thousand and four list,
because we are going to be talking a lot about
the changes between the list as they exist and the
two kind of canonical lists and what's changed since the
(00:51):
original one. So what do you remember about the kind
of process and the voting that happened for two thousand
and four?
Speaker 2 (00:56):
Well, because the different versions of the list have involved
hundreds of voters, but different pools of voters each time.
Shout out to Ark Garfunkel, who voted in every version
of the list, and Aaron Neville. They are the absolute
MVPs of all Rolling Stone Greatest Things lists because they
(01:18):
voted in the different versions of them. But the two
thousand and four to one it was totally new, and
there were so many surprises in terms of what came
out on top. And in twenty twenty it was really
interesting to see that there was so much change in
terms of songs that were around all these years, but
(01:39):
some songs had gotten this whole new afterlife, this whole
new mystique years after the fact.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
How did you think of voting and is it different
between how you voted for the two thousand and four
list in the twenty twenty one list.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
Yes, I voted in the different versions of the poll.
When I was voting in two thousand and four, I
was trying to be more sort of well rounded orally,
and this time I was more Now I'm stuffing the
ballot box for my personal faves. My number one the
first time I voted in two thousand and four was
Common People, the classic nineteen ninety five song by Pulp,
(02:14):
And this time that was number two on my list. Yeah,
It was replaced by a Taylor Swift song involving a
scarf that was number one on my twenty twenty list.
A lot of the songs were the same on my ballot.
But it's weird how some songs change for you personally
over time, that you can spend your whole life listening
to a song and it's meaning for you changes, it
(02:35):
grows or shrinks. But very interesting to see that happen
with so many different people over the years.
Speaker 1 (02:41):
Yeah, I think I learned so much about music, and
like I used the albums and the songs list the
original one sort of as a jumping board for me
in terms of music history, and so it was really
fun to vote for the first time in the twenty
twenty one one.
Speaker 3 (02:54):
But yeah, I feel like I ended up.
Speaker 1 (02:56):
I went back and forth between like, here are songs
that you know are just like obviously very great, and
like are the canon or whatever, but also it's like,
here are songs that I really love and I think
deserve to be uplifted on the list as well. So
it mind's very like pop and dance heavy.
Speaker 2 (03:11):
Your list is amazing. What was at the top of
your list?
Speaker 1 (03:15):
Dancy on my own Robin, I think it is the
most influential song of the last I guess thirteen years.
So and then yeah, I think my number two is
believed by Share again, very influential, and I just want
to see Share on the list.
Speaker 3 (03:29):
So it's very.
Speaker 1 (03:30):
Important for me to just stuff the ballance and make
sure that song was high. But yeah, so I feel
like I ended up going for a lot of pop
songs because that was so there aren't as many kind
of like dance pop moments on the original list, and
I think in terms of the canon, you know, those
songs are getting more respect as time goes on and
sort of seen as as properly influential as they deserve
to be. Absolutely, so, we have a song that we
(03:55):
really love that.
Speaker 2 (03:56):
This is a song that you know is very near
and dear to both of our hearts.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
Yeah, very very important to our personal listening habits, and
just a band that we love so much, sung by
someone that we.
Speaker 3 (04:07):
Love so much.
Speaker 1 (04:08):
And to kick off the entire podcast, we're going to
be talking about Dreams by Fleetwood Mac And this song
was not on the original list. Actually, the song did
not make the two thousand and four list. It did
not make the two thousand and ten list, but it
ranked at number nine on the twenty twenty one list.
It is the highest placement of a song that was
not on the original list, and it came in the
(04:30):
top ten, which is like a pre big debut for
this song. And it was released in nineteen seventy seven.
It was on the album Rumors. Of course, this was
a very dramatic recording process, writing process of an album.
There were multiple breakups going on. Steven Knicks of Lindsay
Buckingham were breaking up. John and Christine mcviee were divorcing.
(04:50):
Mick Fleetwood and his wife were divorcing. Everyone was just said,
and well, you.
Speaker 2 (04:55):
Know, it's not like Mcfleetwood divorced his wife and then
started having an affair with Steven that began at the
Rolling Stone cover shoot. Yeah, for the story on Rumors,
everything about the Fleetwood Max story, the Fleetwood Mac myth
everything about it so melodramatic in every detail. And yet
Dreams is a song that has kind of come to
(05:18):
symbolize all that drama, all that mythology, and it's wild
because again we were talking about the afterlife of these songs.
You know, twenty years ago Dreams did not loom as
large in the Fleetwood Max story, in the Stevie Nicks story,
in the whole Rumor's mythology the way it does now.
Dreams is a song that's been around for almost fifty
(05:39):
years and yet has never been more popular or iconic
than it is right now.
Speaker 1 (05:43):
While because the song was so popular when it came
out too, you know, like it was it's the only
number one song that Fleetwood Mac had in the US.
It was a third single off of Rumors. Was just
a massive, massive moment for the band and really helped
solidify so much of the success that Rumors had not
only an nineteen seventy seven but for decades to come.
I mean, this album was on the album's charts for years, decades,
(06:06):
Like this is something that's been very consistent in pop music.
But I feel like Stevie and her music specifically because
this is the song is written solely by Stevie Nicks,
has had so many different lives and so many of
the songs have had different moments. My introduction to Fleetwood
Mac was Landslide, and that song had such a big
(06:26):
moment in the late nineties and early two thousands because
there were so many covers in this is Smashing Pumpkins version,
The Chicks did a version. Those were huge radio hits,
and I think for someone growing up at that time,
that was a huge introduction to Stevie Nicks, that was
and to Fleetwood Mac generally. So it's kind of crazy
how many different different cycles that all of her songs
(06:48):
kind of have and all these moments.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
Totally really amazing, and all the different lives that Stevie
Nicks has had, all the different lives that Rumors has had.
It's wild that it's always been a super famous but again,
it's never been more popular or famous than it is
right now. And it's really amazing how Rumors just gets
more iconic, more famous, and more mysterious over the years.
(07:13):
And Dreams, which you know, like you said before, it
didn't make the two thousand and four version of the list.
That wasn't one of the songs that really stood in
for the whole Rumor's story the way it does now.
But it's wild to see how it's grown into into
what it is now.
Speaker 1 (07:30):
Yeah, and great context for when the voting was happening
and when the like Dreams was having a major resurgence
and it's funny to think about, like what would happen
if the list was made this year, or what would
happen if the list had been redone.
Speaker 3 (07:41):
Like two years before.
Speaker 1 (07:43):
But in twenty twenty, of course, the song blew up
on TikTok of all places because a usernamed Nate Abudaca
had done a video where he's skateboarding and drinking ocean
spray cran raspberry juice and just listening to dreams, which
is just so soothing, and Stevie did a like Mick
Fleetwood made a video reenacting it. Even Lindsay Buckingham did
(08:03):
one on a white Horse.
Speaker 2 (08:05):
Lindsay did one. I was like, okay, this is off
the rails now, even by rumors standards, this is completely
mind blowing melodrama. Yeah. And the fact that you know,
Lindsay was like, sure, I'll do this with this song
that begins with my ex saying, well, here you go again,
you want your freedom? A great example of how there's
(08:25):
no end to the story of dreams. This song just
keeps mutating and changing over time, and no.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
End to the story of steveing Lindsay to the story
of Fleetwood Mac It's like one of those bands where
their lore is constantly evolving in crazy ways so true,
which is just like how people are reintroduced to them constantly.
Like thinking about the fact that even Lindsay doing that
video for the for the Dreams viral moment is so
insane because he was very dramatically kicked out of the band,
(08:53):
just like what was it a year or two before
that had happened, and like him and Stevie have not
been on the best terms recently and they have had
these bouts of being on the best terms and it's
just kind of crazy how that has continued when this
couple broke up fifty years ago.
Speaker 2 (09:06):
Absolutely, the fact that the last time that those two
were in the same room together was on stage accepting
a Humanitarian award as the Music Cares Person of the Year,
and that they actually that you were actually there for
witnessing that the.
Speaker 1 (09:23):
Only time I've seen that lineup perform together and then
it was gone.
Speaker 2 (09:27):
It was last time, last time.
Speaker 3 (09:28):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (09:29):
And the fact that any group can break up right yeah,
for Fluid Back to break up while they're on stage
accepting a Humanitarian award as the Music Cares People of
the Year, that is just priceless. That could only happen
to Fleetwood back right.
Speaker 1 (09:44):
But also in the most kind of like I feel
like everyone is too old for this thing where it
was like Lindsay giggling in the background because Stevie was
doing a speech that was like a little too long,
which is like he's known Stevie longer than anyone has
known Stevie, Like you should know.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
I know.
Speaker 3 (10:00):
The woman loves to talk. She loves to give a speech.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
Yes, do not guide a meteor. There's that great footage
of her giving her acceptance speech at the Rock and
Roll Hall of Fame. She was inducted as a solo artist,
and you see the teleprompter saying wrap it up, like
and she kept talking for eight minutes after that appeared,
and you.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
Don't tell her to wrap it up. Yes, you just
gotta let it flow. I think there's one or two
idea with her that was she. I think I asked
like two or three questions in the span of forty minutes,
Like I just kind of I was like, well, we're
talking about all of this, and I'm not sure how
we got here.
Speaker 3 (10:37):
And I love it and I appreciate.
Speaker 2 (10:39):
It absolutely absolutely. Nobody gives you more a per cue.
Speaker 3 (10:43):
Yeah, it's all great.
Speaker 2 (10:44):
Yes, Yeah, this song is so fascinating because we associate
Stevie with these sprawling epics. You know, for a lot
of people, their favorite Stevie song will be something like
gold Dust Woman or Sarah or Gypsy, these songs that
you know, tell a long story over a long period
of time. Dreams is really out of character story for her.
(11:07):
It's a very short song. It's got you know, like
verse chorus, verse, chorus, and that's the song. And it's
unique for Stevie Nicks, just as it's unique in the
history of pop music.
Speaker 1 (11:17):
Yeah, and it's very it's very direct in what's saying.
Speaker 2 (11:24):
It is direct.
Speaker 1 (11:24):
Yeah, like she she's very direct in what she's saying.
It's a very sort of kind of like whimsical pop song.
I feel like Stevie obviously is so associated with kind
of this like magical quality, this witchiness and like, but
I wouldn't call many for songs whimsical in that way.
I think a lot of the stuff with Rumors is
that there is so much anger underlying every single line
on there, and so much anger underlying the way that
(11:47):
they're all playing on certain parts of things. But the
album comes across so kind of bright when you listen
to it, like it is such like this like very
sort of sunshiny sounding kind of seventies FM pop moment,
and like it is very fueled by a lot of
deep rooted anger between every single person. Because the song
(12:08):
was a response to go your Own Way, which is
Lindsay's take on the breakup. Stevie really hates that song.
She hates the packing up, shocking up line. There's a
lot a lot of anger from that lot. Yeah, but yeah,
the same thing with like Stevie Solo starf too, Like
I feel like it's always just been there, Like Edge of
seventeen is a song that you know would be again
on the radio School of Rock, you know it's playing
(12:29):
in there, and Booty Delicious by Dsny's Child, Like you know,
it's like all these moments. So it's kind of it's
kind of wild to think about sort of just like
how so how so much of her music just quickly
became sort of rock and pop standards for for a
lot of generations of people. But yeah, I would say
Silver Springs kind of led into the full deep dive
(12:51):
of deep dive of rumors and the Stevie and Lindsay
Lore and Fleetwood Mac and all of that.
Speaker 2 (12:56):
I love that, Yeah, I love it. I was a
little kid when Rumors came and Dreams was the biggest
radio hit at first. It was, like you said, though,
it was the one that hit number one, and it
sounded so weird on seventies top forty radio. Just everything
about that song is so weirdly anomalous. That it's so spare,
(13:18):
that for a lot of it's just bass, drums and voice,
and that the lyrics are so like you said, direct,
they're so angry, they're so nasty, the humor is so
knife twisting, and that it was a song that really
jumped off the radio and that was the number one hit.
But for me, Rumors was an album that I was
(13:39):
always associated with. It was always in people's houses, when
you went over a friend's house, it was you know,
every suburban mom was into Rumors and Tapestry.
Speaker 1 (13:49):
It's kind of surreal how that album has aged so
well and how that album has continued to like, you know,
I feel like a lot of there was a lot
of parents who also had Rumors in their in their
house when I was and like, you know, it's just
kind of a.
Speaker 3 (14:02):
Thing that is just always there.
Speaker 1 (14:04):
Like it, it feels like it's always been a part of
pop music. And yeah, I mean even just like how
different it is to that point that you had mentioned
about how people think of like, you know, gold Dust
Woman or those kinds of moments or Rhiannon and things
like that. It's like such like a a delicate vocal
performance from Stevie, which I really love. I think so
much of her vocals and the way that people think
(14:26):
about them is kind of like that visceral kind of
rock voice, and you know that's why like Silver Springs
is having its own resurgence right now, and like thinking
about how she does her live performances of like gold
Dust Woman and during her live shows and like her
solo music and things like that. Yeah, I feel like
it's such like a delicate and pretty kind of understated
Stevie moment, which I really love, and kind of that
(14:49):
it feels like the song feels almost kind of like
a little bit of like a Stevie meets Christine kind
of fusion of lyrics with like the kind of melody
and that kind of pop ness.
Speaker 2 (14:59):
Absolutely vocal is really amazing. I love your point about
the way she sings the word women is so great.
There's so much going on, and just the way she
says those that particular word yes, two syllables yeah.
Speaker 1 (15:11):
Because I was listening to the live at the Forum
version on the way here, and that is also like
the way that it becomes such like an angry performance
of it, like the way that she's like able to
turn this it's already angry, but like, you know, this
like very pretty kind of you know, if you're not
listening close enough to the lyrics, it just sounds like
this like kind of theial kind of pop moment. And
(15:31):
then you listen to the live of the Forum version,
She's pissed.
Speaker 2 (15:36):
Something happened women, Women, It's wild. I mean, you hear
those songs as a little kid and you think, wow,
like these grown ups are having a life, you know,
and it's like, oh, you hear the boy singing background
in the chorus of dreams Yeah, and he's You hear
Lindsay's voice very prominently singing the line players only love
(15:58):
you when they're playing and you listen to go your
own way, and it's like, oh, Lindsay's telling the story
with Stevie's voice very prominently singing along, and it's not
like they're saying nice things about each other. It's not
like either of them is taking the high road those songs.
And it's wild to hear that, he said, she said
(16:18):
dialogue about this breakup happening in real time in these songs.
Speaker 1 (16:22):
Yeah, I mean, all the layers that they add to
their songs about each other is so crazy, Like when
you get older and you're like you're like, oh yeah,
like this like guitar part I mean, just like the
guitar playing that Lindsay does on Dreams. It's just like
so perfect and beautiful and adds so much to the song.
Like thinking about like John McPhee's bass and You Make
Loving Fun, a song that Christine wrote about looking up
(16:44):
with the lighting director. That bass is so iconic on
that song and literally leads you into it. It's so wild.
Speaker 2 (16:49):
Yeah, but that's such a huge part of the mystique
of Dreams as a song, and rumors and Fleetwood Mac
in general, that they always added so much beauty to
each other's songs even they were totally ripping each other
to shreds. So yeah, You Make Love and Fun. But
something about this bizarre five way chemistry that they had
that they always just wanted to make each other songs
(17:11):
better despite the emotional carnage going on in them. And
that's definitely happening in Dreams where Lindsay is adding so
much guitar beauty to this song and helping her shape
her draft into a song when she knows what she's
singing about. And that's kind of always the beauty of
these songs. You know. Stevie's always said that she wants
(17:32):
to kill Lindsay every single time that they've been on stage,
and he sings go your Own Way, and she's there
like playing the tambourine, and yet she sings so beautifully
on that song. Remember that great scene in the documentary
on the Dance where Lindsay is hearing Silver Springs and
he's listening back to it and he hasn't heard it
(17:53):
in a while, and he's like, Wow, that guitar, I
remember that guitar. He's talk about how awesome his guitar.
It's like, dude, you are literally listening to your ex
sing a song about how her voice will haunt you
for the rest of your life and about how no
matter how long you live, you'll never get away from
her because their voice will always be there. And to me,
that's not just the essence of Lindsay brilliance, but that's
(18:16):
really the Fleetwood Mac story in a nutshell, because they're
adding so much genius to each other's songs despite all
the pain that they're causing each other in these songs.
Speaker 3 (18:25):
Yeah, and that guitar part is very good on.
Speaker 2 (18:28):
Sord It is great to me. One of the fascinating
things about Dreams is that Stevie Nix's so many classic
songs that people love to cover, you know, people so
many people have done, as you said, Landslide, people love
to sing Gypsy, people love to sing Sarah. It's well
that nobody really covers Dreams, and when they try to,
(18:49):
you can hear why. It's a really uncoverable song.
Speaker 1 (18:51):
Yeah, it's like it's hard to for anyone to kind of,
I don't know, tackle the like the charm that Stevie
has in it, Like it's like a fel like a
song that only she can sing. Yeah, I mean just
so many of the lyrics like are just unconvincing from
anyone else, Like, like I don't want to hear about
anyone else's crystal visions, Like no one else has crystal
visions the way Stevie has.
Speaker 2 (19:11):
She invented crystalis.
Speaker 1 (19:13):
Yeah, like it's not like I can't I know, there's
like a I think the Coors did one.
Speaker 2 (19:18):
I think so much of that is what John McVie
and mcfleetwood are doing that. Yeah, you definitely hear. This
is why this band is named after the rhythm section,
and you can definitely hear this rhythm section learned how
to do this by playing blues and R and B
because what they're doing with the bass and drums all
through the song, it's not something that any other rhythm
section can duplicate. And that's the case with so many
(19:40):
Fleetwood maxims.
Speaker 1 (19:41):
Yeah, I feel like like if Dreams came out today,
it would still be a massive hit. Like that's the
thing too the song is that it is so timeless
in the way that it sounds like it doesn't sound
tied to any specific era, Like there are a lot
of moments on Rumors that sound so distinctly seventies, like
like oh your own wage just sounds like so distinctly
seventies to me, and like gold Dust Woman sounds so
(20:02):
distinctly seventies in that way, but like, yeah, I mean
there's nothing about Dreams that sounds like it. It could
have come out like any decade and it still would
have been I think a massive absolutely yeah.
Speaker 2 (20:14):
Something about the song and it's resurgence in the last
ten years. I think it has to have something to
do with One Direction, and especially Fireproof, Yeah, right, which
is it's not a cover of Dreams, but it's one
direction definitely doing a song of like let's get that,
let's get that dreams kind of groove. Yeah, Fireproof. The
(20:35):
first time you hear it, you're like, wow, I can't
believe they're doing this, and it's a phenomenal song, but
it's really funny how they go for this specific kind
of groove.
Speaker 1 (20:43):
I feel like the Mitski cover of it brings out
a lot that Fleetwood Matt totally even more so, like
you kind of get a little bit more of that
kind of like Stevinus in Mitski's take on Fireproof.
Speaker 2 (20:53):
Which is totally it's so good. I feel like, for
me and as someone who has loved that song forever,
I learned so much about Fleetwood Mac and about Dreams
from both of those versions of Fireproof, Yeah, and that
there's just so much going on in the music of
this song, even before you get to Stevie's vocals.
Speaker 1 (21:12):
Yeah, And it's like almost it's like Fleetwood Mac and
Stevie Nick specifically, they don't really have to do a
lot of upkeep on their legacy because people just find
their way to them.
Speaker 3 (21:24):
Thinking of like the last ten fifteen, I mean, the.
Speaker 1 (21:27):
Last couple of decades of like Fleetwood Mac and the
way that there's always going to be younger artists who
are going to want to evoke them and want to
like try to find elements of Fleetwood Mac in their
own music and try to find ways that make that connection.
And it's once their fans kind of hear that it's
(21:47):
not a hard cell to get further.
Speaker 3 (21:49):
Into Fleetwood Mac. You know.
Speaker 1 (21:50):
It's like I think for especially for younger artists, like
when One Direction was kind of evoking that, and then
later with Harry Styles covering the chain and having such
like a close relationship with Stevie, that's been such a
big moment for Fleetwood Mac and for Stevie Nicks generally,
just to kind of have that, you know, even younger
artists and younger fans kind of find a connection to them.
Speaker 3 (22:12):
You know.
Speaker 1 (22:13):
There's of course, like Taylor Swift and Carl Ray, Jepson
and Lord and like all these pop girls who love
Stevie and revere her so much, Florence and the Machine,
like all these artists who have found ways to channel
her specifically and found ways to channel like that Fleetwood
macnus in their own music without copying them. Like with
(22:34):
Carl Ray, I hear like a lot more like Christine
mcviee obviously and what she does. And I think like
you can kind of hear like these little pockets of
Fleetwood Mac and all the vocalist and the artists within
the band kind of coming out in a lot of
pop music these days, and people wanting to catch that magic,
and a lot of people are able to do it
in their own kind of special way.
Speaker 2 (22:53):
Absolutely, it's really amazing how it constantly inspires people, and
that it's such a timeless story. As you say, it's
so quintessentially seventies, but it's timeless. It's always so funny
to think about the fact that, you know, part of
what draws people and always draws new fans into this
story is that it's a band of people singing about
(23:14):
breaking up with each other and connecting with each other
ilicit like ways, and to have all their emotional mess
just like out there documenting it together in public. That
that's something that always draws people in.
Speaker 1 (23:31):
Yeah, I love watching people learn it in real time too,
Like I feel like, especially after Daisy Jones and The
Six came out, and that show and book are so
very clearly about Bluewood Back and so very clearly about
the relationships that the band had with each other, And
it's been so fun to kind of watch all of
these kids on TikTok and Twitter kind of become really
obsessed with them and being like, oh, this is like
(23:54):
this really happened, Like this is like a lot of stuff,
or like even crazier stuff has happened.
Speaker 2 (23:58):
You know.
Speaker 1 (23:58):
It's like, yes, like Into the Six is like barely
scratching the surface of like the decades that this band
has had together.
Speaker 2 (24:05):
You know, absolutely no fictional version could ever live up
to the melodrama the real version. And also just the
craziest is that it's wild enough that they're doing this
in nineteen seventy seven, that they're standing on stage and
singing all these songs about breaking up with each other.
How horrified would they be to think that they'd still
be doing this.
Speaker 1 (24:23):
Yeah, there's still a couple more decades they're going to
learn about. Yes, yes, yes, Like wait until everyone learns
about the music care stuff, Like they're going to be
real shocked.
Speaker 2 (24:31):
Yeah, it's like, sorry, you guys are not even halfway through.
You're just getting there, Yes, exactly. The worst is yet
to come.
Speaker 1 (24:40):
And now we are going to have a very special
guest rolling Stones, Angie Martosio, who's going to be discussing
dreams even further with us. Thank you so much, Angie
for coming to chat with us today.
Speaker 4 (24:51):
Oh, anytime I can talk about Fleetwood Mac with you
guys is special.
Speaker 1 (24:54):
So let's hear a little of your your Fleetwood Mac
origin story.
Speaker 5 (24:57):
So we're talking about the cover.
Speaker 4 (24:59):
You know, I heard you guys discuss that, and I
just want to point out that I thought for years,
as a ballet dancer that Stevie was a like professional
ballerina because of that cover of Urmers, and I did
not know for years if that was not the case.
My own Fleetwood Mac experience is pretty much similar to you.
We're the same age, so for me, it was like
(25:22):
late nineties, early aughts, you know when Fleetwood Mac in general.
I didn't know that Landslide was a Fleetwood Mac song
for a very long time. I knew it also from
the Chicks and from Smashing Pumpkins. Uh.
Speaker 5 (25:35):
And then once I.
Speaker 4 (25:35):
Fell into that obviously like it opened the doors for
everything else for me.
Speaker 1 (25:39):
And what sort of turned you into a big fan
of the band.
Speaker 4 (25:43):
This is also because of my age, but it's Stevie
Nicks simple. I love all of them for different reasons.
I think they have great eras in different periods, but
for me, Stevie is kind of what encompasses what I
love about that band.
Speaker 3 (25:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (25:56):
Yeah, And do you have any like fun origin story
for Dreams or like the first time you heard it
or was it just a song in the same way
that you know it's kind of always around.
Speaker 4 (26:06):
I really love that song to the point where I
may have fiddled with our list of the greatest Fleetwood
Mac songs recently and I may have put Dreams as
number one instead of a different song.
Speaker 5 (26:22):
Go your Own Ways Now at number two.
Speaker 4 (26:23):
I made Dreams number one, and I had some comments
being read on the side after that. That was like
a millennial must have messed with this list, and I
was like, yeah, actually I did. It's the I'm sorry.
It's just their greatest song. It's the synthesis of what
makes that band so excellent. It's all of their input together.
Obviously Stevie's leading it, but there's so much mythology around it.
(26:45):
I feel like there could be books on just.
Speaker 3 (26:48):
That song alone. Do you have a favorite line?
Speaker 4 (26:50):
I think just like a heartbeat because it reminds me
of this is so nerdy and I'm sorry, but it
reminds me of a growl and.
Speaker 5 (26:57):
Po of the tellsale art. It's like, so.
Speaker 4 (27:02):
She's making it not just like, oh you broke my
heart and I'm upset about that, She's making it this
like visceral like paranoia.
Speaker 5 (27:09):
That's very similar.
Speaker 4 (27:10):
She does that later on with Silver Springs, obviously, just
like You're never gonna escape me.
Speaker 5 (27:14):
I'm here all the time.
Speaker 4 (27:16):
This is the heartbeat that's going to drive you mad
because of what you did. And it's so it's like
it's beyond a love song to me, it's beyond a
heartbreak song. This is like full encompassing, like sick to
my stomach feeling over this yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (27:29):
Yeah, the enjamment between heart beat, it's so intense, one
of those great Stevie pauses.
Speaker 4 (27:38):
Yeah, and you know, like most incredible songs. They like
to say this that it was written in ten minutes,
which is absolutely insane, let alone on sly Stone's bed,
which I don't think is disgusted enough.
Speaker 5 (27:51):
That there's this you know, record plant, Salsalito.
Speaker 4 (27:53):
It's been it reopened recently, but it closed in two
thousand and eight. And before that you had everyone from
like Grateful Dead in there. You had obviously feet with
Mac and Slidestone had his own like little comfort zone
room and there's this bed with these like black velvet curtains,
and Stevie just took some time in there. She didn't
really want to be in the recording room unless she
(28:15):
had to, so she was obviously sitting down, you know,
with her books and art and her you know, journals.
She went up with this thing on a keyboard and
kind of brought it out to them and was like,
see what you think. And they weren't like crazy about
it at the time, and I think that's worth noting too.
It was their only number one hit in the US,
but it's not surprising that it's gotten bigger than ever.
Speaker 1 (28:38):
Yeah, And I think that also is a lot of
the story with Stevie's songs for Fleet with mac right, Like,
there's kind of a harder cell for like some of
the songs to make it to the albums and to
kind of you know, for people to get on board,
and so it's kind of wild, like how I don't
know the foresight that she had about these songs in
general being kind of so iconic and having these lives
that go well beyond their release da you.
Speaker 5 (29:00):
Know, Yeah, it's pretty incredible.
Speaker 4 (29:02):
I think just the fact that Silver Strings is left
off is like one of the greatest tragedies besides like
the Titanic, you know, Like, but it makes sense they
didn't want this like slow, it would have made it
a lot slower the album, and so I totally understand it.
But I think leaving Dreams on was obviously like the
better of that she could get.
Speaker 1 (29:20):
I mean, are there, like, who are people that you
think have sort of accomplished that kind of emulation of
Stevie as an artist.
Speaker 5 (29:29):
I'm a huge wise Blood fan.
Speaker 4 (29:32):
She to me is extremely obviously singer songwriter from La
but more than that, She's a very spiritual, mystical lady
who just reads a lot of books.
Speaker 1 (29:45):
You know.
Speaker 5 (29:45):
It's not about like being cool.
Speaker 4 (29:46):
She's not someone who like does drugs and like is
on Instagram a lot.
Speaker 5 (29:51):
She literally is just someone who loves to read and
loves history. And that was very Stevie.
Speaker 4 (29:56):
And her music is so incredible because I mean, I
can have my own episode about her in general, but Natalie,
she incorporates such Stevie mythology in the way she sings,
in her songwriting. There's so much imagery there, but it's
also not too intense, you know, and it's also very alluring,
Like it always leaves people kind of obsessed with her.
(30:17):
Has the same exact quality of her fans are like
die hard, yeah, and I see that same exact I
don't know, there's the same kind of following. I think
that's literally why I love wise Blood so much.
Speaker 3 (30:29):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I feel like I.
Speaker 1 (30:33):
Feel like Florence the Machine. I feel like we don't
we're not finding enough respect on Florence's name generally, but
I think she gets a lot of that visceral vocal
performance that Stevie does, and I feel like that's still
like seeing her live. I'm like this, this feels like
kind of reliving a lot of those like the Rhiannon
kind of TV special video that always, you know, is
(30:54):
one of the mini iconic Stevie videos that people constantly
have playing on louped in their heads. And I'm like, yes,
you've learned, You've learned well from.
Speaker 4 (31:04):
And what's also important about these two songwriters that we're
talking about is that they're not necessarily copying Stevie.
Speaker 5 (31:09):
They're taking what was.
Speaker 4 (31:10):
So great about her and almost reinventing it and introducing
it to a younger audience. Something that I always think
about is that for college kids these days, if you
ask them to name a musician over the age of fifty,
most of them would probably just know Stevie Nicks.
Speaker 5 (31:26):
And that's all you need to know right there.
Speaker 4 (31:28):
I Mean, you raised this excellent point earlier talking about
songs like you know, go your Own Way and Don't
Stop sound so seventies sometimes to a flaw, like I
obviously love that era, but like I'm sorry, like a
kid who's twenty one is not going to be like, yeah,
this is far out.
Speaker 5 (31:46):
You know, that's not a thing.
Speaker 4 (31:47):
Dreams doesn't sound like that you can't put a date
on it.
Speaker 5 (31:50):
It's very timeless. To me, it could be a hit now.
Speaker 4 (31:53):
I just feel like there's something about it that really
stands out when you look back at Rumors, and it's
it's not a shock to me. We put it so hi.
I mean, obviously, as I stated before, I was really
rallying for that, but I do think it's the one
that you can listen to over and over and not
get tired of, and it really represents what makes this
band so great and this new iteration, you know, like
(32:14):
this is a brand new They already had the first
album obviously, but Rumors was the first time they're all
sitting down together doing this and it's such a great
snapshot to me of that time.
Speaker 3 (32:24):
Well, thank you so much, Angie.
Speaker 5 (32:26):
Thank you.
Speaker 4 (32:27):
You know it's important to note too, when we're not
doing this, we're still doing this talking about it. Yeah,
this is This is a regular conversation ongoing dialostic.
Speaker 3 (32:35):
Bleetwood, Mac.
Speaker 2 (32:38):
Steve and Christine Rolling Stone.
Speaker 1 (32:40):
Thanks so much for listening to Rolling Stone's five hundred
greatest songs. This podcast is brought to you by Rolling
Stone and iHeartMedia. Written and hosted by me Britney Spanos
and Rob Sheffield. Executive produced by Jason Fine, Alex Dale
and Christian Horde, and produced by Jesse Cannon with music
by Eric Siler.
Speaker 2 (32:57):
Thanks so much for listening and we'll see you in
the next episode. He
Hosts And Creators
Brittany Spanos
Rob Sheffield
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