"Oh Daddy"
Song by Fleetwood Mac
from the album Rumours
Released1977 (1977)
Recorded1976
GenreBlues rock
Length3:56
LabelWarner Bros.
Songwriter(s)Christine McVie
Producer(s)Fleetwood Mac, Ken Caillat, Richard Dashut

"Oh Daddy" is a song written by Christine McVie that was first performed by the British-American rock band Fleetwood Mac as the tenth song off their 1977 album Rumours.

The song was played throughout the band's Rumours and Tusk world tours,[1] and resurfaced for the 1997 The Dance tour before disappearing once again.

Background

Christine McVie stated in a series of 1977 interviews that she wrote the song about Mick Fleetwood's separation from his erstwhile wife, Jenny Boyd.[2] At the time, Fleetwood was the only father in the band, with two daughters.[3] However, both Lindsey Buckingham's former girlfriend Carol Ann Harris and Stevie Nicks' biographer Zoe Howe have written that the song was originally written for the band's lighting director, who McVie had been dating at the time.[4][5] Both Harris and Howe contend McVie only later claimed that the song was written for Fleetwood.[4][5]

Caillat described "Oh Daddy" as "a beautiful, airy song." He noted that getting the proper tempo was particularly tricky since it sounded rushed at a quicker tempo but lethargic at a slower pace.[6] Fleetwood Mac biographer Cath Carroll praised McVie's vocal and likened the song to a "sexy, old English version of The Rolling Stones' 'Fool to Cry'."[7] In 2012, Fleetwood listed "Oh Daddy" as one of his 11 greatest recordings.[8]

Production

During the Rumours sessions, the band jokingly referred to the song as 'Addy' due to a technical mishap. Caillat had made the mistake while playing back a take. "We were going to do some overdubs, and while rewinding the tape, a portable tape oscillator fell on the machine, sending it into free-wheel – the reels were spinning out of control. I jumped on the machine to stop it - and snapped the tape! Oh, man... [laughs] We listened back and there it was: ‘Oh ‘addy.’ The ‘D’ part of Christine’s vocal was cut off. My heart sunk."[9]

Near the end of one take, Christine McVie played random notes on her keyboard to grab the attention of the engineers in the control room. The band opted to keep these unplanned additions in the final version of the song.[10]

The band also utilized a $40,000 nine-foot Bösendorfer grand piano at Davlen Studios in North Hollywood. Producer Ken Caillat described the instrument as having "great action but also a dark quality". To brighten the instrument, Caillat applied some EQ to the sounds captured by some tube U-47 microphones. McVie held down the piano's sustain pedal and played long single chords on beat 1 of the verses to create a "dramatic" effect. To extend the duration of the chords even longer, Caillat gradually increased the sensitivity of the microphones so that the chord would ring for 20-30 seconds. Buckingham also accentuated certain passages with some harmonics on an acoustic guitar.[6]

Personnel

References

  1. ↑ Wilkes, Emma (22 July 2023). "Fleetwood Mac announce 'Rumours' live album". NME. Retrieved 2 December 2023.
  2. ↑ Egan, Sean, ed. (2016). Fleetwood Mac on Fleetwood Mac: Interviews and Encounters. Chicago Review Press. pp. 34, 48, 297. ISBN 978-161373-234-2.
  3. ↑ Fleetwood, Mick; Bozza, Anthony (October 2014). Play On: Now Then & Fleetwood Mac. New York: Little, Brown and Company. p. 201. ISBN 978-0-316-40342-9.
  4. 1 2 Harris, Carol Ann (2009). Storms: My Life with Lindsey Buckingham and Fleetwood Mac. Chicago Review Press. ISBN 9781569764992.
  5. 1 2 Howe, Zoe (2014). Stevie Nicks: Visions Dreams & Rumours. Music Sales Limited. ISBN 9781783231287.
  6. 1 2 Caillat, Ken & Stiefel, Steve (2012). Making Rumours: The Inside Story of the Classic Fleetwood Mac Album. Wiley & Sons. pp. 74–80, 122, 293-294. ISBN 9781118218082.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  7. ↑ Carroll, Cath (2004). Never Break the Chain: Fleetwood Mac and the Making of Rumours. Chicago Review Press. ISBN 9781556525452.
  8. ↑ Bosso, Joe (27 July 2012). "Mick Fleetwood: My 11 Greatest Recordings of All Time - Oh Daddy (1977)". MusicRadar. Future Publishing Limited. Retrieved 4 September 2023.
  9. ↑ Bosso, Joe (13 December 2022). "Fleetwood Mac's Classic Album Rumours Track-by-Track - Oh Daddy". MusicRadar. Future Publishing Limited. Retrieved 4 September 2023.
  10. ↑ Baker, J.I.; et al. (2015). "Fleetwood Mac: 40 Years Later: John, Christine, Stevie, Mick and Lindsey—Together Again". Life Magazine. p. 68.
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