Jump to content

Tell Me All the Things You Do

Add links
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
"Tell Me All the Things You Do"
Song by Fleetwood Mac
from the album Kiln House
B-side"This Is the Rock"
Recorded1970
StudioDe Lane Lea, London
Length4:10
LabelReprise
Songwriter(s)
Producer(s)Fleetwood Mac

"Tell Me All the Things You Do" is a song by the British rock group Fleetwood Mac. It was written by Danny Kirwan and released as the second track from their 1970 Kiln House album. In France and the Netherlands, the song was also released as a single, with "This Is the Rock" serving as its B-side.[1][2]

Background

[edit]

"Tell Me All the Things You Do" is largely an instrumental composition with minimal lyrics.[3] The lyrics primarily consist of the song's title; some personal pronouns were swapped in on a few lines.[4] Mick Fleetwood said in an interview that Kirwan "was a producer of music. He never really felt comfortable singing anything."[3]

Jeremy Spencer recorded the electric piano part on a Wurlitzer and sought to emulate the style of Ray Charles, although he was dissatisfied with the final result.[4] The song's rhythm section consisted of John McVie on bass and Fleetwood on drums and percussion, with certain passages featuring cowbell hits.[3][4] Distortion and wah-wah effects were applied to the guitars, which supplied the main riff and solos.[4] Fleetwood Mac played the song live starting in the early 70s and it also appeared on a few setlists in 1977.[5] A live recording from when Spencer was still in the band was included on the Madison Blues album.[6]

The band did not perform the song again until their An Evening with Fleetwood Mac Tour in 2018–2019.[5] Mike Campbell, who joined the band in 2018 as one of the replacements for Lindsey Buckingham, had suggested the song's inclusion in the setlist.[3] Fleetwood Mac continued to perform the song through 2019, but they dropped it from the set later in the tour in part due to the audience's general unfamiliarity with the song.[3][7]

Critical reception

[edit]

In his review of Kiln House, J.R. Young wrote in Rolling Stone that listeners who purchased the album would "find [themselves] humming 'Tell Me All the Things You Do' for the next few months."[8] Along with "Station Man", Beat Instrumental cited "Tell Me All The Things You Do" as a successful demonstration of the band's "multi-guitar work".[9] Nick Logan of NME labelled "Tell Me All The Things You Do " as Kirwan's best song on the album. He found "a shade" of Peter Green in some of Kirwan's playing and thought that the guitar playing was also "distinctive" and "unmistakably his own".[10]

Alexis Petridis of The Guardian felt that the song "pack[ed] enough muscular riffs into four minutes" and demonstrated the band's ability to emulate band's like Led Zeppelin.[11] Bruce Eder described the song as "hard-rocking" in his Kiln House review for AllMusic.[12] In Mojo, Mark Blake characterised "Tell Me All the Things You Do" as a "great cheery Kirwan track [that] shone through" and said that it was a "brisk guitar groover embellished by uncredited new recruit Christine McVie's piano."[13]

Track listing

[edit]
  1. "Tell Me All The Things You Do" – 4:10
  2. "This is the Rock" – 2:45

Personnel

[edit]

References

[edit]
  1. ^ "Tell Me All The Things You Do - Fleetwood Mac". Les Charts. Archived from the original on 12 November 2021. Retrieved 6 April 2025.
  2. ^ "Tell Me All The Things You Do - Fleetwood Mac". dutchcharts.nl. Archived from the original on 20 November 2021. Retrieved 1 March 2025.
  3. ^ a b c d e Blake, Mark (2024). The Many Lives of Fleetwood Mac. New York: Pegasus Books. pp. 116–117. ISBN 978-1-63936-732-0.
  4. ^ a b c d Roubin, Olivier; Ollivier, Romuald (1 April 2025). Fleetwood Mac: All The Songs. New York: Black Dog Leventhal Publishers. p. 177. ISBN 978-0-7624-8630-4.
  5. ^ a b Reed, Ryan (8 October 2018). "Fleetwood Mac Set List Primer: 5 Rare Songs From New Tour". Ultimate Classic Rock. Retrieved 2 March 2025.
  6. ^ Jurek, Thom. "Madison Blues - Fleetwood Mac". AllMusic. Retrieved 8 March 2025.
  7. ^ Freeman, Doug (11 February 2019). "Fleetwood Mac Goes a New Way at Frank Erwin Center". The Austin Chronicle. Retrieved 2 March 2025.
  8. ^ Young, J.R. (26 November 1970). "Kiln House". Rolling Stone. Archived from the original on 17 April 2023. Retrieved 1 March 2025.
  9. ^ "Records" (PDF). Beat Instrumental. October 1970. p. 62 – via World Radio History.
  10. ^ Logan, Nick (12 September 1970). "Fleetwood's Latest LP Full of Surprises". NME.
  11. ^ Petridis, Alexis (25 July 2024). "Hard rock, ambient weirdness and UFOs: exploring the greatness of early 70s Fleetwood Mac". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 1 March 2025.
  12. ^ Eder, Bruce. "Kiln House - Fleetwood Mac". AllMusic. Retrieved 2 March 2025.
  13. ^ Blake, Mark (July 2015). "Mac Nuggets #1". Mojo. p. 69. Retrieved 2 March 2025 – via The Internet Archive.
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Tell_Me_All_the_Things_You_Do&oldid=1287271384"