Just got back from lunch and happened to have Fleetwood Mac’s The Dance in the CD player in the car. This reminded me of a question I have had since the early 80’s:
In the song “Tusk,” Buckingham is going along singing actual lyrics that make actual sense, then suddenly all of the band members shout, “TUSK!” Why? Is there any meaning, or was it just a fun word to sing?
RR
“Tusk” was Mick Fleetwood’s term for his Throbbing Python of Love.
The lyrics make sense? I must not have heard them correctly.
Ew!
The explanation I heard on a local radio station is that they’re yelling ‘TUSC’, The University of Southern California. Then it was changed to Tusk for the song title. No idea if that’s true or the dj was just goofing around.
The DJ was an idiot. Nobody in history has ever refered to USC as TUSC.
There’s a song I will never listen to the same way again. Ever.
My college was TESC.
I’ve heard the Mick Fleetwood story, too. And one of the images on the album sleeve has a picture of an infant, I believe, with some kind of “tuskish” item so placed.
Makes sense about the “TUSC/tusk” connection, though (even if it is made up). Their marching band did play on that song.
Being an absorber of all manner and varieties of useless knowledge, which is usually why I am lurking here at the Dope, this is an occasion when I can actually contribute something, so, here goes…
Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham famously broke up and went back together numerous times in the late 70s and early 80s, and Lindsey never handled it well. Usually the reason for them breaking up had to with him bring overly jealous and trying to be very controlling of her. There are also people who say he smacked her around, too. He would swear he would never do it again, and Stevie would take him back. The Eagles songs “Life in the Fast Lane” and “Victim of Love” are said to be about them from Don Henley’s own witness and involvement as a third party in their dysfunctional relationship. When Stevie and Lindsey were apart he usually acted like a big cry baby and wrote nasty songs about Stevie in retaliation. Christine McVie has been quoted as calling the whole Tusk LP the “bitch at Stevie album”.
Stevie got really involved in cocaine, and Mick, who evidently had been trying to get in Stevie’s pants from the very beginning, became her partner in crime as far as drugs went, and soon the two were having an affair. Stevie has recently said it was all because of the coke goggles and she regrets it tremendously. At the time, Lindsey found out and went ballistic with jealousy. The song Tusk is his sacastic snarky way of getting his feelings out.
The lines about “why won’t you tell me who’s on the phone” is him letting her know he was suspicious all along, and “why won’t you tell me who’s the latest on his throne” refer to a conversation between Stevie and Lindsey when he asked her who Mick’s latest conquest was, and Stevie refused to answer (because it was her). The “throne” of course being the seat of the drum kit and a direct reference to Mick.
“Don’t say that you love me” is Lindsey mocking Stevie and expressing his disbelief that she could sleep with Mick and claim to love him. The word “Tusk” is supposed to refer to Mick’s trouser trout, but whether it was someting that Mick himself started is unclear.
The song was meant to be raunchy and to make Stevie angry. She was, and for a long time refused to sing it on stage, but now she says she isn’t angry about it anymore. The original recording has Lindsey saying “real savage like” somewhere in the middle, and he has said he stopped saying that and won’t say it anymore in concert because even he had to admit that was harsh, since it was a reference to how cheap, slutty, and down-and-dirty Lindsey felt Stevie and Mick’s sex must have been. The whole song was meant as an insult.
Stevie said at the time she hated the whole Tusk album, that it was too far away from Rumours, and that it made her like “we were stomping around in the tribal African burial ground”.
Stevie and Lindsey have a very tumultous relationship to this day, and despite him being married with kids, they both say they will always love each other in one way or another.
Sorry that was so involved, but I can’t help myself once I get going.
I first “heard” it in the soundtrack to a rather…unique…work of fanfiction (I think it actually has more than one MSTing). I don’t think I’ve ever actually heard it, but I still possess a chilling, unnatural hatred of it.
It’s like the Lovecraftian projected nightmare-memory of pop rock, for me.
Dude! Do us all a favor and post more often! You rock!
Allow me to add an Amen to that. Thanks for the take.
Also: “trouser trout?” Don’t believe I had heard that one before.
RR