A lot of people don’t remember the Danny Kirwan era of Fleetwood Mac. He joined in 1968, back when Peter Green was still leading the band. After Green left in 1970, Christine McVie became a full member, and Bob Welch joined the following year. By the time Bare Trees came out in 1972, Fleetwood Mac was a very different band from the one that started out playing British blues.
Kirwan wrote the title track, and it’s probably my favorite Fleetwood Mac song. It sounds quite different from the music that would make them enormously popular later in the decade. Great guitar work everywhere, with a driving rhythm and melodic lines that keep pulling me along. The singing becomes part of that rhythm, too. The words fit the mood, but what really grabs me is how they sound against the guitars.
The rest of the album doesn’t reach the same heights for me, although it has its moments. Fleetwood Mac would deliver more consistently for my taste later in the decade. But on this song, Danny Kirwan and company already had exactly what I wanted.