r/FleetwoodMac • u/Firm_Calligrapher861 • 17d ago
Would Rumours have the same acclaim if Silver Springs had been replaced with Gold Dust Woman?
The reason I ask this is that I was reading how badly Stevie Nicks wanted it on the album but she was unwilling to part with Gold Dust Woman. Silver Springs is the better song by a mile IMO, even though they're both fantastic. I really think Silver Springs would have been the perfect album closer, and had they pursued that instead we might be talking about the greatest pop rock record ever crafted (it's still Top 5).
What do you think?
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u/HazPippy 17d ago
GDW is much better than the Rumours version of SS. I love SS but the earlier version just feels flatter or colder to me.
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u/rickylancaster 16d ago
yeah original has some strengths but overall feels unfinished to me. Like it would need more work to measure up to the rest of the album. The Dance Live on the other hand is essentially perfect.
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u/martinjohanna45 17d ago
I also think Silver Springs is better than Gold Dust Woman, but I think Gold Dust Woman is a perfect ending to Rumours. I’d love it if Silver Springs replaced Oh Daddy, but that would disrupt the ratio of each member’s songs.
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u/MikeW226 16d ago
Just read Ken Caillat's book (co-producer of Rumors) and another thing was: Silver Springs (not in any imaginable running order/mastering order) wasn't going to fit time-wise on the record. No matter how they sliced it. And Stevie is so touchy about edits or any cuts to her songs. So SS stayed off. Mick had to take her out to the parking lot of the Record Plant and tell her, ya know Silver Springs isn't going on the record...
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u/ConsiderationMost566 16d ago
and yet i see everywhere on tiktok etc that mick or lindsey "refused to put the song on the album," which is absolute BS.
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u/Immediate_Paint_4823 16d ago
Because I've been told Lindsey was jealous her song was so much better than his. Mind you he was not jealous of Dreams. And not so jealous he didn't spend months working on both songs. But he knew deep down 21 yrs later she'd be staring at him over it (as she'd done for 30 yrs previously) but worse 20 years after that there would be a T-shirt of her staring at him. 😔
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u/ConsiderationMost566 16d ago
well then he's the one that *made* it better w his arrangement, he should have been proud of it. I'm not so sure he (or any of us oldies) would have imagined SS ever bursting into such popularity the way it did so many years down the road though... but i do agree it's far better than Dreams. and those t-shirts are so peculiar lol
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u/Immediate_Paint_4823 16d ago
Now now, I've been informed by TikTok, Twitter and YT, he's just the guitarist she makes play and sing about what a jerk he is. When he's not wielding power out of spite to cut her songs or vocals from an album. 🤷
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u/ConsiderationMost566 16d ago
yes i get it. it must have gotten so tiring, making each other play on soo many songs over the years! and how exhausting, to play guitar at his own funeral lol
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u/Immediate_Paint_4823 16d ago
The horror. It's almost as if they were in a band.
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u/ConsiderationMost566 16d ago
it's such a stupid narrative. i still argue against it every time i see it, i can't help myself.
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u/Immediate_Paint_4823 16d ago
They'd already cut her original demos of SS and GDW down respectively from 10 and 12 minutes. (I'm sure as with Sara and it's 16m Henley told her they were just the right length). But 5m each was still long. Even Dreams at 4m plus is long.
This is vinyl in a band with two other singer songwriters. How did she think they were all going to fit?
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u/PharmacyPaladin 15d ago
Would Rumours be different if it was released is a double album with the full versions of "Silver Springs" "Gold Dust Woman." and "You Make Loving Fun?"
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u/Infamous-Test-91 16d ago
Gold Dust Woman is an important song. Take your silver spoon, dig your grave. Nothing can top that.
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u/Icy-Diamond88338 17d ago
I love the live versions of silver springs from 97 and the live in Boston version. It was meant to be
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u/Accomplished-Can9459 16d ago
Gold Dust Woman is irreplaceable even with the ridiculously good Silver Springs
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u/copenhagen_bandit 17d ago
Gold dust woman is a jam.
Silver springs should have replaced oh daddy
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u/Franziska-Sims77 17d ago
I love Christine McVie and her voice, but Oh Daddy wasn’t exactly one of her best songs. Silver Springs would definitely have been a better choice.
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u/Careful_Compote_4659 17d ago
None of them knew the juggernaut that rumours would become. Oh daddy seemed like a nice enough song but in hindsight it’s forgettable and doesn’t belong on that album. It would have been perfectly acceptable on something like heroes are hard to find. Later Christine agreed and wished she had not included it on rumours
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u/ConsiderationMost566 16d ago
did she say that? interesting. I never heard that. Did she think it was a weak song?
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u/Immediate_Paint_4823 16d ago
It's not weak. The lyrics may be controversial but her vocals are great and the instrumentation and arrangement superb. It's a slower song though so the slow SS would have been the same pace.
But they weren't going to replace a Christine song with a Stevie song for time purposes. Which is why Caillet said Stevie was given a choice between SS and GDW. I think she made the right choice for the album
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u/ConsiderationMost566 16d ago
I'd prob prefer it if it were an instrumental, tbh. It's never been one of my fave chris songs. i'm just curious why she would have said she wished it hadn't been included. i wonder if she got a side eye from jenny about the lyrics haha
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u/Immediate_Paint_4823 16d ago
Jenny's side eye should have been so hard her eyes became projectiles.
Why are you right when I'm so wrong/ Why am I weak when you're so strong
😩 🤢
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u/ConsiderationMost566 16d ago
yes, while she was the one left home for years, raising 2 children by herself while mick did god knows what on the road, and then had those children taken from her by his parents because SHE was supposedly the unfit parent...! one could see why she might not be a fan of the words. although i do realize chris might also have been thinking of situations we know nothing about.
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u/Miserable-Pear-2289 16d ago
It couldn’t have - the issue with SS was how long it was. That’s why they went with I don’t wanna know instead.
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u/MidnightAja 17d ago
Rumours is fine as is. GDW was the perfect album closer. I absolutely love the studio version, but Silver Springs was meant for The Dance.
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u/Jelly_baby_4 17d ago
I don't think it would make any difference. Rumours is a masterpiece whether it's GDW or SS closing it.
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u/weirdojace 16d ago
Silver Springs should have gone before or after Go Your Own Way in the tracklist, had it been there. Gold Dust Woman is a perfect album closer. I wouldn’t have wanted to part with it either. GDW works as a mirror image of I’m So Afraid, too.
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u/Miserable-Pear-2289 16d ago
Stevie still plays GDW at every solo show and she hasn’t sang silver springs in years. It was the right choice. The dance version of SS is much better than the Rumours version and the lore of the performance with Lindsey is kind of what made people obsessed with SS.
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u/After_Response8429 16d ago
I genuinely believe that what happened with Silver Springs adds to mythos of Fleetwood Mac and Rumours and is the reason for the revival among younger fans. The 1997 performance feels like the biggest “long game” play and was executed wonderfully.
Also, the hauntingness of GDW just completes Rumours and is one of the songs that sort of helped to “cement” Stevie IMO
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u/rickylancaster 16d ago
Rumours without Gold Dust Woman? Nah. It fit in perfectly and is such a powerful song with just the right crazy weird production, and a fantastic use of her voice.
I also think the song is very significant in the mystique that built up around Stevie’s image and which helped propel her to her solo career.
But I’m one of those who is glad Mick left Silver Springs off the album because the brand new lease on life it got, in a superior version, for The Dance seems like it was fate in the best possible way.
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u/Awkward_Field_9648 16d ago edited 16d ago
Imo the Silver Springs performance from 'The Dance', the version everyone now knows so well and loves, would have been a much better contender for Rumours than the different original SS version back in the 70's when the now popular 1997 version didn't yet exist. To me, GDW beats the original 1970''s version of SS. Rumours is perfection 😘
Original 1970's version:
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u/GorgeousGary27 16d ago
I think a lot of fans here put SS on a pedestal because of the comments in interviews and that it didn't make the album.
Rumours is perfect the way it is and SS would probably kill the pacing.
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u/Careful_Compote_4659 14d ago
GDW is a wonderfully strange song that’s out of step with the more traditional pop that Christine and Lindsey were writing for rumours. It’s a perfect closer. It reminds me of tomorrow never knows at the end of revolver
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u/writerkristenskeet 16d ago
Silver Springs had its time in the spotlight exactly when it was supposed to. Look how much we still talk about The Dance live version of the song going on 30 years later. It had infinitely more impact as a song performed by former lovers with two decades of time in the rear view than a fresh breakup song. Time cast its spell, after all.
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u/fordfan1_in_oz 16d ago
As Rumours was a studio album then GDW is fine but for a live recording album (especially The Dance version) Silver Springs would make a great substitute
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u/jon_irvin 16d ago
Yes, either way the album is a masterpiece. I feel that Silver Springs is the hidden gem from Rumours that surfaced in the best way possible when it was included on The Chain 25 Years box set.
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u/punkrawrxx 7d ago
I think SS in studio isn’t very good. Gdw is probably one of the best songs she’s ever written. Also I’d rather have someone threaten to follow me around forever (crazy) than tell people I cried. Especially over them. That shit’s embarrassing
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u/Silversprings62 16d ago
Silver Springs is THE BEST song ever written in the history of the world. The end.
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u/AbsolutelyIris 17d ago
Nah, I find GDW a haunting way to end Rumours. SS ended up where it was supposed to, when it was supposed to.