Thursday, December 29, 2005

"The Green Manalishi"

Before the days of "Rumours" and Stevie Nicks' witchy-woman fetish, Fleetwood Mac was a sharp, sharp blues group with just the faintest trace of psychedelia going on, Peter Green was a thinking fan's guitar hero on a par with Syd Barrett, and songs like "Albatross" were a million miles away from "Don't Stop" or "Go Your Own Way".
I love the barely-contained menace and unsettling paranoid feel of this song. The riff is crunchy, steady, plodding even, like an unstoppable force stalking you up the blind alley of a waking nightmare, there's a cackling echo to add to the Halloween vibe, and an otherworldly howling ever so far down in the mix to make you feel just that little bit more unsettled.
It's a song for obsessives, for depressives, for repressives - chock-full of dysfunction: "Cause you're the Green Manalishi with the two-pronged crown/All my trying is up - all your bringing is down/Just taking my love then slipping away/Leaving me here just trying to keep from following you."
And it's a song that isn't afraid to take on those devils - the extended, spooked instrumental at the end just eats itself up in a frenzy of slow-burning mania, revels in its evils, if you like. You say you've had a bad day? You don't need Daniel Powter, you need this.

2 comments:

Natsthename said...

I am a Mac fan of every stage of their musical journey, with the exception of the post-Lindsey/Stevie era, which was merely Mick and John hanging on far passed the expiration date.

Fleetwood Mac certainly was more than just a 70's pop superband!

Russell CJ Duffy said...

now this was when fleetwood mac were good. long before the syrupy stuff they did in the mid to late 70's. at one time they lookked like they were going to be as big as led zep but then they all went their different ways.
fine post mte.