‘Smile At You’: The mysterious Fleetwood Mac song with two distinctive versions
Given Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham’s history, it’s no surprise that the Fleetwood Mac opus Rumours sounds the way it does. After all, this was the album the pair got to air their grievances, taking hits at each other and transforming it into sheer artistry, sometimes working together with their respective demos to make the best possible record they could.
Many of these songs became some of the band’s most iconic and well-known hits, proving that their turbulent relationship provided the ultimate fodder for creativity. Aside from the obvious ‘Dreams’ and ‘Go Your Own Way’, which each signalled the two quintessential pillars of the entire album, others, like ‘Silver Springs’, demonstrated a different kind of vehemence that went beyond the safety of the studio.
The song might initially sound somewhat reserved, like a slow, considered rumination on betrayal, but what seems like a calm reflection soon becomes a presentation of the ultimate frustration. Most associate this song’s popularity with the band’s notorious 1997 performance in California when Nicks and Buckingham seemed to bring their disdain to the stage, singing the lyrics at each other in a heated fury.
However, while it’s anyone’s guess whether they were playing up their internal chemistry for the audience, several aspects of their relationship seem relatively under the radar, especially when it comes to certain ideas or tracks that didn’t make it onto the album, or were included in others but re-surfaced later as different versions. This was the case with ‘Smile At You’, the somewhat “lost” Mac tune that has been subjected to mass speculation over the years among online fan communities.
Written by Nicks, ‘Smile At You’ is quite possibly one of the band’s most cutthroat compositions, with Nicks spitting hate-fuelled remarks like “My first mistake was to smile at you”, “I won’t be staying”, and “I should just turn around and run, fly”. Released later as part of the album Say You Will, some suggest it was written during the sessions for their earlier records but was left off after some dispute behind the scenes regarding Nicks and Buckingham, though it’s unclear exactly what happened.
That said, it’s difficult to ignore the suspicion that these disagreements were rooted in something darker, especially considering the other version—the so-called “angry version”—shows a more intense and embittered Nicks expressing a deep-seated sense of frustration aimed at her former partner. Unlike Nicks’ other shots at Buckingham, ‘Smile At You’ is an unfiltered display of complete resentment, delivering a more unflinching attack compared to her more considered efforts, like ‘Dreams’.
One of the other theories surrounding ‘Smile At You’ is that Buckingham fought for it to be omitted from Mirage. However, these conspiracies have never been confirmed or denied, despite the ongoing mystery attached to the track and why it somehow seemingly emerged from nowhere without much backstory. With the band’s other hits, there’s usually a sense of reasoning behind the composition and the lyrics, but this one is entirely shrouded in ambiguity.
Still, it seems unlikely that Buckingham would have pushed to remove the song from the tracklist unless he felt strongly about its content and what it meant for him. While he may have had other reasons—such as claims that he wasn’t involved in its production—it doesn’t quite fit that he would be so determined to leave this one out, especially since he typically supported Nicks’ work, even when her words were particularly sharp.
