Here’s your ticket to some of the best (or, perhaps, most infamous) 7″ singles ever released! No adapter is required, although in my opinion the device pictured below is right up there with Count Chocula as one of the best inventions of the 20th century.
Today is Stevie Nick’s 68th birthday. I bought my first Fleetwood Mac album when I was eight years old, and I haven’t stopped listening to them since… (hey, how about some news on that new album already?)
Let’s celebrate Stevie’s birthday with the 7″ version of “Sara,” certainly one of Stevie’s best tracks. The details of the song’s inspiration have come to light over the past few years, with both Stevie and Don Henley confirming that “Sara” was about a baby they almost had together. It’s also partly about Stevie’s friend Sara, who began an affair with Mick Fleetwood while Stevie was also seeing Mick. Stevie broke it off with Fleetwood when she found out, and Sara eventually married Mick.
Yes, it’s true: you could mix together Days Of Our Lives and General Hospital and One Life To Live (and throw in Dynasty to boot), and combined they still couldn’t match the soap opera crafted by Fleetwood Mac in the ’70s and ’80s. But you know what? It made for some incredibly powerful music. “Sara” is simply a gorgeous song.
I finally saw the Mac play “Sara” live on the second leg of the Say You Will tour in 2004. I took my girlfriend Amanda to the show, despite the fact that she had broken up with me the year before on the very day of the Fleetwood Mac show in Dallas– and I had third row tickets! We eventually got back together, and she was there to hear “Sara” the next year– and then we broke up again. We were like our own little version of the Fleetwood Mac soap opera, played out with Fleetwood Mac as the backdrop– and like the members of Fleetwood Mac, we are somehow (miraculously) still friends to this day.
“Sara” made it to #7 on the Billboard Hot 100 in early 1980, making it the biggest hit from the band’s Tusk LP (the title track peaked at #8). The Mac still play “Sara” live– in fact, they added it to the set list in Australia during the last leg of their most recent tour. I can only hope to hear it again on their next outing– AFTER they finish the new record with Christine McVie. Are you with me, Mick?
ARE YOU WITH ME?
![Sara [Dutch 7_]](https://analogkidblog.files.wordpress.com/2016/05/sara-dutch-7_.png)
Fleetwood Mac: Sara [Dutch 7″]
Warner Bros. Records, 1979
A-side: “Sara” [7″ Version] (Stevie Nicks)
B-side: “That’s Enough For Me: (Lindsey Buckingham)
________________________________________________
Bonus Tracks!
The first rule of The Analog Kid blog is that if you write about a song on the Analog Kid blog, you share the song on the Analog Kid blog.
Fleetwood Mac: “Sara” (Stevie Nicks)
Fleetwood Mac: “Tusk” (Lindsey Buckingham)
From the album Tusk
Warner Bros. Records, 1979
Fleetwood Mac: “Sara” [Early Version] (Stevie Nicks)
From the CD Tusk (Deluxe Edition)
Warner Bros. Records, 2004
Fleetwood Mac: “Thrown Down” (Stevie Nicks)
From the album Say You Will
Warner Bros. Records, 2003
![Tusk [2015 Deluxe Edition]](https://analogkidblog.files.wordpress.com/2016/05/tusk-2015-deluxe-edition.jpg)
Fleetwood Mac: “Sara” [Live in Tucson, 8/28/1980] (Stevie Nicks)
From the album Tusk [2015 Deluxe Edition]
Warner Bros. Records, 2015
You’re too kind and gracious Analog. If she wasn’t US Rock ‘n Roll Royalty, she’d be called a white trash whore. She’s had more pricks than a 2nd hand dart board.
All I know is that I love the music! 🙂
Whatever anyone feels about Stevie Nick’s, I’m with the Kid. She gave us those songs. “Landslide” is the one song my wife can’t get through without welling up from its sheer beauty. PS: One the flip side, whenever I hear “Tusk” I now think of the very first scene of the series, “The Americans”, where two Cold War spies have the most ass-kicking fight with that rocking tune blasting over it.