Red Rover (song)
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| "Red Rover" | |
|---|---|
| Song by Fleetwood Mac | |
| from the album Say You Will | |
| Recorded | 1995–2002 |
| Studio |
|
| Length | 3:58 |
| Label | Reprise |
| Songwriter | Lindsey Buckingham |
| Producers | Lindsey Buckingham Rob Cavallo |
"Red Rover" is a Fleetwood Mac song written and sung by Lindsey Buckingham. It first appeared as the sixth track on the band's 2003 studio album Say You WIll after initially being recorded for one of Buckingham's solo albums. Buckingham has since performed the song live on tour both as a solo artist and a member of Fleetwood Mac.
Buckingham wrote "Red Rover" with the idea of creating a song with "one guitar doing all the work, with some edges on it."[1] He aimed to create a guitar part that would "cover so much ground" and underpin the entire track. Commenting on "Red Rover", Buckingham said that there was "a lot of stuff going on, but it's not too loud. It's kind of a rumble underneath. It's all about letting the guitar part have so much presence and melodicism on its own that I just let it do its thing and then find a melody to go over that."[2]
Buckingham remarked that the song was "probably sped up a little" and that "people either like that or they don't."[3] He doubled the acoustic guitar track, slowed the guitars down, and then bounced the audio to a different track, where he oscillated the part with a fader in time with the rest of the music. Buckingham compared the sound he achieved to gated effects found on 1980s records. He also wanted the guitars to supplant the role that a drum kit would otherwise provide, adding that he "had to slow the tape machine way down to get the rhythmic manipulations as precise as possible."[4] The song's refrain of "red rover/we come to take you over" is a modification of a phrase found in the children's game of Red Rover."[5]
Buckingham listed "Red Rover" as his favorite track from the Say You Will album in a 2004 interview with The Sunday Mail, saying that it was "about a simple guitar part doing the work of the whole rhythm track to a great degree. That's the kind of thing that interests me at the moment."[6] He also identified "Red Rover" as one of the songs on Say You Will that was "more adventuresome than anything we've ever done."[7] When asked by Devon Ivie of Vulture to name the nerdiest song in his discography, Buckingham cited "Red Rover" as one example.[8]
