Crystal

I don't even like Stevie Nicks, not specifically. Never really got into her witchy symbolism or her layers of spinning skirts, but I was a huge Fleetwood Mac fan. They were part of the soundtrack to my life, along with a huge bandwidth of music that included soul, funk, pop, classical and classic rock.

"Oh my God, where did you get this?" I said, reaching into a milk crate stuffed with cds already "ripped" into the ipod playlist, waiting to be sold on the cheap at some future yard sale. "I remember this one."

Recently my 4-year-old has taken an interest in adult music, or maybe it's more that we're completely over and have banished any sort of toddler tunes, Disney or otherwise. Although entertaining, we even tired of the They Might Be Giants kids cds. Can't do it anymore. My ears can only take so much repetition. We moved on to the Beatles so she can be exposed to great melody, harmony and counterpoint, but we've already worn out Sgt. Pepper and Abbey Road, so now she listens to Guster, Coldplay, the Gin Blossoms, Counting Crows, the Pretenders, Howie Day, Toad the Wet Sprocket, and whatever else I put into the car's cd changer. She has also been asking to hear some of the music I listened to as a girl.

Then, we stumbled upon that first Fleetwood Mac album, the one before Rumors, the first record when Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks joined the band, the record that would change lives. It's in the car now.

I can't seem to get through "Crystal" without tearing up. I don't know, is it the hormones, or am I weeping for a past that seemed so innocent, so possible?

Personally I remember my lithe dancer's body, flat-chested in a tank top and jeans, passionate and propelled forward as if by some unyielding knowledge of what I must do to express myself, like I'd die if I couldn't, made only more bittersweet by the knowledge of what I didn't accomplish in hindsight. I'm a realist now.

Or maybe I'm crying because professionally, that band would never exist today. It couldn't. Not the way the music business is run now. You couldn't put an album out that sounded so disparate from track to track. No label would buy it. And 3 lead singers? That would only fly if it was a girl band, something like Destiny's Child or the Spice Girls. And my favorite cuts, "Crystal, " "Landslide," and "World Turning" aren't necessarily "radio-ready" singles, so they'd probably be dropped from the record altogether or at least buried past track 9 or 10.

Or, am I moved because the lyrics speak of love, so universal, one can't help but recognize it and be held captive, motivated and magnetized into a higher state of oneness? It rings so pure, so true? I too was driven "like a magnet to the sea"…where I found love. Where I found myself.

After all these years, "Crystal" remains a gorgeous track and it still gets to me. I love the way Lindsey starts singing after only 2 guitar strums…no big intro set-up here. Subtle. Innocent. Then the harmony builds on the second verse. And the way the guitar and keyboards shimmer like sunlight hitting the ocean on the instrumental out…I can almost see it…it's stunning.

I love to sing Stevie's harmony part as I'm driving in my car through the streets of LA, carefully blending my phrasing to match Lindsey's as if I had the headphones on in the booth and was tracking it myself. I wonder why Stevie wrote that song yet had Lindsey sing it, as if in those days she wasn't confident enough to sing her own lead vocals. I also notice that even though she wrote it, she had to give up her publishing, splitting it three ways. I suppose you have to give in order to get. (That part hasn't changed.)


Crystal
(Nicks)

Do you always trust your first initial feeling?
Special knowledge holds true, bears believing

I turned around and the water was closing all around
Like a glove, like the love that had finally, finally found me

And then I knew in the crystalline knowledge of you
Drove me through the mountains
Through the crystal-like and clear water fountain
Drove me like a magnet
To the sea
To the sea…

How the faces of love have changed turning the pages
And I have changed, oh, but you, you remain ageless

I turned around and the water was closing all around
Like a glove, like the love that had finally, finally found me

And then I knew in the crystalline knowledge of you
Drove me through the mountains
Through the crystal-like and clear water fountain
Drove me like a magnet
To the sea
To the sea…

©1973 Buckingham/Nicks Music/Dona Marta Music (ASCAP)

***

Today I sang on a session for a Midwestern dairy ad campaign. It was a Barry White sounding groove and I was one of the groovettes. It was lovely to add the oo's and ah's, stacked up like a good chocolate layer cake, breathy and lush, frosting the track. Damn, that old sound sounded good. Put a glow on the rest of my day.

Ally McBeal's Ikettes got nothin' on N. and my 6-part harmonies!

Wish more of my life, my music, was that easy and satisfying.

There's nothing better than dancing around with your 4-yr-old to the sounds of Barry White and the Love's Unlimited Orchestra…real or our ad campaign facsimile. As we listen to the playback, wild blonde hair flying, she runs, jumps and spins with such freedom, such utter abandon, it is pure expression. Wordless. Timeless.

I'm done in by it.