“Some beautiful slide guitar”: The Mick Fleetwood song George Harrison played on
Fleetwood Mac is one of the most unique entities in music, not just because of their impact, but because each member genuinely admired their peers’ craft beyond the band’s limits. For instance, many of their sets were geared to celebrate the collective and solo efforts of each member, while Mick Fleetwood, among others, reinterpreted beloved songs for his own material in later years.
While it’s not unique for bands to continue to feel connected to their projects years after release, Fleetwood Mac feels somewhat special when it comes to its legacy. For instance, many members still feel as connected to its lasting impact as when it was all happening. Nicks, for starters, constantly incorporates many of their signature tunes into her performances, keeping its spirit alive and thriving even as they go their separate ways.
Fleetwood also demonstrates his unwavering passion in various ways and often praises many of their songs and creative processes in interviews despite the turbulence that occurred along the way. What’s particularly interesting about Fleetwood’s position is that he has also developed different attachments to songs over the years, ones that he didn’t necessarily grasp the true depth of at the time.
‘Oh, Daddy’, for instance, was written by Christine McVie as a thank you for Fleetwood being the anchor for a band that would have otherwise allowed their disruptions to define them, but he didn’t realise until much later, at which point it began to mean more to him than it ever had. Others, like ‘Walk A Thin Line’, became a significant part of him straight away, developing an appreciation that would linger years later, emerging for Fleetwood’s 1981 record The Visitor.
‘Walk A Thin Line’ was originally recorded in 1979 for Fleetwood Mac’s album Tusk, but Fleetwood loved the song so much that he felt compelled to reimagine it for his solo record a couple of years later, recording in Africa and placing his own spin on it as if it was his, to begin with. Lindsey Buckingham wrote the song, but Fleetwood always wished it had come from him instead.
“I really loved the song and wished that I’d written it,” he told MusicRadar, recalling how he enlisted “a whole ensemble of African musicians”, which made him feel like, as a percussionist, “a pig in shit”. However, such a choice enabled him to enhance the appeal of the original track, making it deeper and more expansive than he could have achieved within the band.
As he put it: “The most important thing to me was, I knew I was talking this song to Africa to reinterpret, and what you hear on the whole of The Visitor is an extension of what you hear on ‘Walk A Thin Line’.” When he arrived back in England, he linked up with George Harrison, who “put some beautiful slide guitar on the track”, which pulled the entire thing together and gave it its overarching dreamlike feel.
While there will always be something more raw and endearing about the original version, Fleetwood’s undeniably gives it a more enticing and slick feel, perfect for those moments when you’re after getting lost in the haze of some easy listening. While the Tusk version remains an ultimate product of Fleetwood Mac’s folk-rock convergence, Fleetwood’s adds an atmosphere that makes it feel almost otherworldly.
