By MICHAEL BAGINSKI/ My recent trip to Wales got me thinking about my favourite song about “an old Welsh witch,” as Stevie Nicks called it.
“Rhiannon” wasn’t Fleetwood Mac’s first hit, but it was the first for the classic line-up that took shape after Nicks and partner Lindsay Buckingham joined the band, symbolized by their self-titled 1975 album, which included the Nicks-penned song.
It’s still one of the band’s most popular and is also remembered for Nicks’ early performances of it, in which she was known to lose herself in the mystical, dreaminess of the story, prompting Mick Fleetwood to once declare, “her Rhiannon in those days was like an exorcism.”
Have to say that early versions – like this incomparable stunner from The Midnight Special in February, 1976 – also remind of Nicks’ natural voice, before years of use and abuse began to show the strain.
Lyrics
Rhiannon rings like a bell through the night
And wouldn’t you love to love her?
She rules her life like a bird in flight
And who will be her lover?
All your life you’ve never seen
Woman, taken by the sky
Where would you stay if she promised you heaven?
Would you even try?
He says Rhiannon, don’t go
And he says Rhiannon, stay
He says, “I still cry out for you
“Don’t leave me”
“Don’t leave me”
Rhiannon rings like a bell through the night
And wouldn’t you love to love her?
She rules her life like a bird in flight
And who will be her lover?
All your life you’ve never seen
Woman, taken by the sky
Would you stay if she promised you heaven?
Would you even try?
She is like a cat in the dark
And then she is the darkness
She rules her life like a fine skylark
And when the sky is starless
All your life you’ve never seen
Woman taken by the wind
Would you stay if she promised you heaven?
Would you even try?
Would you even try?
Rhiannon
Rhiannon
Rhiannon
Rhiannon
She rings like a bell through the night
And wouldn’t you love to love her?
She rules her life like a bird in flight
And who will be her lover?
All your life you’ve never seen
Woman taken by the sky
Would you stay if she promised you heaven?
Would you even try?
Would you even try?
Rhiannon
Rhiannon
Rhiannon
Dreams unwind
Love’s a state of mind
Dreams unwind
Love’s a state of mind
Your dreams unwind and still it’s hard to find. I know
Dreams unwind and still it’s a state of mind
Your dreams unwind and still it’s hard to find, I know
Dreams unwind and still it’s a state of mind, I know
Take me like the wind, child
Take me with the sky
Take me now
Take me like the wind
Take me with the sky
All the same all the same, Rhiannon
All the same, all the same
And he still cries out for her
“Don’t leave me now”
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