To put it simply, Fleetwood Mac’s “Tusk” is not just one of my top five greatest albums of all time (I guess I should share that with y’all in a future post!) but one of my favorite Fleetwood Mac tunes as well. Recognizing the fact that everyone has a dark side, I guess this is one that touches that part of me, recalling prior affairs and that potent mix of lust and paranoia that everyone who has ever really lived has experienced when they were younger and full of piss and vinegar. The lyrics are simple but extremely pointed:

Why don’t you ask him if he’s going to stay?
Why don’t you ask him if he’s going away?
Why don’t you tell me what’s going on?
Why don’t you tell me who’s on the phone?

Why don’t you ask him what’s going on?
Why don’t you ask him who’s the latest on his throne?
Don’t say that you love me!
Just tell me that you want me!

Tusk!

The song itself (like so many Lindsay Buckingham songs of that era) have to do with the complex relationship he had with Stevie Nicks, a relationship that was dying out when they were both brought into Fleetwood Mac back in 1975, and the emotions that were re-kindled when he discovered that Nicks and Mac drummer Mick Fleetwood were having, shall we say, a liaison at the time:

It has been well-documented that Mick believes the word “Tusk” is analogous to the male sexual organ. That imagery is indeed consistent with the overall theme of the song and makes an appropriate title (it especially goes along with the “Real savage-like” cry mid-song). But if “Tusk” was indeed symbolic of a penis, than why make it necessary to cry it, and, for that matter, keep repeating it?

Tusk goes beyond a restatement of the male genitalia. Lindsey, unable to straightforwardly expose Stevie and Mick for what they are, accuses them ambiguously with one word instead, a word symbolic of the lust and desire and deceptiveness of their affair. He has found a way of saying, “I know what you two are doing, I know where Mick goes at night, I know who’s on the phone, I know who’s on his throne!!!!!!”

Beyond even that complex meaning of Tusk, though, is another part of Lindsey the word represents: his integrity. His heart was ripped from him when Stevie left. By having an affair with someone so close, so near, he feels he is being mocked, embarrassed. You left me, now you gloat by having an affair right under my nose.

Here’s a great alternative version that emphasizes the awesome rhythm section that underlies the officially-released version. I suppose the group dynamics that made Fleetwood Mac such a potent force in the mid-to-late seventies and eighties are what makes this particular song so powerful and so unique.