What Makes You Think You're The One

"What Makes You Think You're the One" is a song by British-American rock band Fleetwood Mac, released in 1979. Composed and sung by guitarist Lindsey Buckingham, it was one of his nine songs that appeared on the '' Tusk'' album. The song was also included on the US 2002 and UK 2009 editions of ''The Very Best of Fleetwood Mac''.

Background

In February, Buckingham entered Studio D of The Village Recorder with a JVC ghetto blaster. After playing producers Ken Caillat and Richard Dashut a demo of "What Makes You Think You're the One" through some JBL speakers in the control room, Buckingham suggested that they create a new version using the JVC deck's input as the recording device. Caillat pushed back against this, insisting that the boombox would make the song excessively compressed, but Buckingham insisted that they use the device to emulate the distorted sounds of old rock and roll recordings.

Fleetwood set up his drums in the corner of Studio D and recorded the song with Buckingham using the boombox as the recording device for the drums. Fleetwood said that they "opened the mics up so that it was recording straight onto tape, and that overload and compression is straight off the ghetto blaster. It gave it that "suck and push" sound". More conventional studio microphones were also placed throughout the studio to give Caillat and Dashut further options during the mixing process.

Buckingham and Fleetwood stated that the song was created as a two-piece without any other band members, although Caillat recalled that John McVie was also present in the studio during the song's recording sessions. For the song's original tracking, Buckingham was on piano as opposed to guitar and Fleetwood used an 18-inch Paiste China cymbal in his drum set. Caillat posited that the song was directed at Stevie Nicks and that Buckingham "imitate Stevie's distinctive vibrato, giving it a bleating, goat like quality, and her rudimentary piano quality, which he knew made her self conscious".

Critical reception

'' Paste'' ranked the song number 26 its list of the 30 greatest Fleetwood Mac songs, commenting that it sounds "like a demo, hichis perfect for Buckingham’s ragged, drug-addled vocals". ''Rolling Stone'' said that "Buckingham rocks out with the raw spirit of a freewheeling garage band" on "What Makes You Think You're the One", and also placed it at number 36 on its list of the 50 greatest Fleetwood Mac songs. Tyler Golsen of '' Far Out'' likened the song to " Why Don't We Do It in the Road?" by the Beatles, adding that the song was "complete with percussive piano and simplistic observations on love. Buckingham leads the march to the outer realms of what the average Fleetwood Mac listener would put on. Buckingham’s one-man mission to diversify the scope of what Fleetwood Mac can do isn’t always successful, but it’s always fascinating."

Live performances

"What Makes You Think You're the One" was played on the Tusk Tour. A November 1979 live performance from St. Louis was included on the super deluxe edition of ''Tusk''. Christine McVie played piano for live performances of "What Make Makes You Think You're the One" despite not appearing in any capacity on the song's studio version. She remarked that "'What Makes You Think You're The One' from ''Tusk'' is especially tough to play. You have to keep crashing away at chords through the whole thing. By the time it's finished my wrists are like spaghetti."

Personnel

* Lindsey Buckingham – electric guitars, piano, vocals, possible bass guitar
* Mick Fleetwood – drums
* John McVie – possible bass guitar

References

{{Fleetwood Mac

Fleetwood Mac songs
1979 songs
Songs written by Lindsey Buckingham
Song recordings produced by Ken Caillat
Song recordings produced by Richard Dashut