"Eyes of the World" is a song written by Lindsey Buckingham. It was included on Fleetwood Mac's thirteenth studio album, Mirage, in 1982. The song was included as the B-side to "Hold Me", which served as Mirage'slead single. Following its inclusion on Mirage, the band has played the song live on numerous tours.[2]
Background
According to Mick Fleetwood, "Eyes of the World" was one of two songs that Buckingham brought to the Mirage recording sessions at Le Château along with "Can't Go Back".[3]Christine McVie cited "Eyes of the World" as an example of a song that underwent significant changes in the recording studio; she said that the final product was "hardly recognizable" from when it was first introduced to the band.[4]
The song initially consisted of a three chord cycle, which was played at a slower tempo than what appeared on Mirage. Buckingham later sped up the recording and reworked the song by splicing together different musical passages, including one that he called "the Swingle Singers section". He placed this section at the beginning of the composition and reintroduced it around midway through.[5][6] He also incorporated an interpolation of an instrumental composition from his 1973 Buckingham Nicks album.[7]
Buckingham overdubbed multiple guitars on "Eyes of the World", including a Gibson Les Paul and a Fender Stratocaster, many of which were recorded in December 1981 and January 1982.[2] He used a variable speed oscillator (VSO) to make some of the guitars resemble a twelve string, which he accomplished by recording his parts at half-speed. Once this was accomplished, he sped the tapes up with the VSO, resulting in a phasing effect.[5] The song was recorded at 15 ips on a Studer24-track machine.[2]
That started off with fewer sections and ended up with. It's like a succession of little sections, sort of like Brian Wilson or classical-meets-Eddie Cochran. It starts off with the 'swingles,' then it goes into a sort of Bach-esque guitar thing and they're all fairly succinct sections within themselves, all butted up against each other
"Eyes of the World" features what High Fidelity magazine described as a "fragmentary lyric style", with some of the vocals being entirely wordless, particularly during the intro.[8][9] These vocals are set to chord progression of Pachelbel's Canon.[10] The lyrics, which touch upon themes of paranoia, are also juxtaposed with nursery rhymes,[11] including "Monday's Child".
Critical reception
Some contemporary and retrospective reviews of "Eyes of the World" compared the song to some of Buckingham's work on Tusk. John Milward of Rolling Stone thought that the song's lyrics were marginally better than the "limp language" found on "Book of Love". He also highlighted the song's "riveting guitar solo" and "'Tusk'-like beat".[12] In his review of Mirage, Ken Emerson of The Boston Phoenix highlighted the song's "nursery rhymes and Swingle Sisters harmonies".[11]Newsweek noticed the influence of the Swingle Singers in the backing vocals and called the song an "oddball".[13] Writing for The Washington Post, Geoffrey Himes believed that "Eyes of the World" was a song that exemplified his "odd brand of folkie-surf music."[14]
John Milward of Rolling StoneAnnie Zaleski of The A.V. Club characterised "Eyes of the World" as a "skeletal" and "acoustic-driven" song that was "plenty abstract".[15] Ben Allan of GQ placed the song on its list of the ten best Fleetwood Mac songs post-Rumours, saying that the song's "chaotic energy" channeled the work of Tusk while managing to be more "radio-friendly" than some of the tracks present on that album.[9] However, Michael Gallucci Ultimate Classic Rock was more lukewarm on the song and believed that it would have been more fitting on a Buckingham solo album.[16]
Live performances
"Eyes of the World" debuted during the Mirage Tour in 1982. A live recording from one of Fleetwood Mac's October 1982 performances at The Forum in Inglewood, California was later included on disc three of the 2016 deluxe edition of Mirage and the 2024 release of Mirage Tour 82.[17][18] Buckingham eschewed concert tours until 1992, when he played the song for his solo set promoting his Out of the Cradle album. He was accompanied onstage with four other guitarists, three percussionists, a bassist, and a keyboardist for these performances and played the song as one of the encores.[19]
The band played "Eyes of the World" on their opening night of The Dance tour in Hartford, Connecticut on 17 September 1997, but substituted this song for "Second Hand News" on all subsequent dates of the tour.[20][21] "Eyes of the World" also appeared on all legs of the Say You Will Tour with the exception of the 2004 North American leg, where it was replaced with "I Know I'm Not Wrong".[22] A live recording of the song taken from a performance at the Boston FleetCenter was included on both the CD and DVD editions of Fleetwood Mac: Live in Boston, which was released in 2004.[23][24]
Fleetwood Mac revived the song for their 2013 concert tour. It was the only song in the setlist other than "Gypsy" that originated from the Mirage album.[25] Fleetwood would open the song with a drum intro that led into the main song.[26] Several publications, including The Boston Globe, Cleveland Scene, and The Newtown Bee praised Fleetwood's drumming on this song, with Zaleski characterising his playing as "monstrous" in her concert review of Fleetwood Mac's performance at the Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse.[27][28][29] During these performances, visuals of zoomed-in eyeballs were projected onto a video screen behind the band.[30]
Personnel
Lindsey Buckingham – electric and acoustic guitars, lead and backing vocals
^Fleetwood, Mick; Bozza, Anthony (October 2014). Play On: Now Then & Fleetwood Mac. New York, NY: Little, Brown and Company. p. 262. ISBN978-0-316-40342-9.
^ abEmerson, Ken (27 July 1982). "Fleetwood Mac: Beyond and Back". The Boston Phoenix. pp. 1, 14. Retrieved 20 December 2024 – via The Internet Archive.
