“Looking out for love…BIG BIG love,” Lindsey Buckingham tunefully wails on the Top 5 lead single from Fleetwood Mac’s 1987 glossy pop classic Tango in the Night. “Big Love” also led to the creation of a BIG BIG remix with a BIG BIG production that epitomized the BIG BIG ’80s sound. Remixers basically threw in everything that made noise, including the proverbial kitchen sink of beat boxes, synthesizer solos, and assorted blips and bleeps. (Go BIG or go home!)
For better or worse, the Tango in the Night remixes offered fans “fly-on-wall” soundbites of the tumultuous Tango in the Night recording sessions; namely Stevie Nicks’ raucous backup vocals, which were decidedly left off the album. (Stevie later admitted these parts “totally sucked.”) In his 1990 autobiography, Mick Fleetwood said that these elusive vocals were later weaved into the mix of the album to create a more cohesive band sound. But whether that was actually done for the main release remains debatable, as you can only hear trace amounts of Stevie singing on her bandmates’ songs. (Christine McVie’s “Little Lies” is the only song on the album that distinctly features all three singers.)
So where did Stevie’s rockin’ backup vocals end up? On the remixes! On the “Big Love” Extended Remix and House on the Hill Dub, you can hear Stevie occasionally belting the chorus and some of the verses. She also contributes similar parts on the “Little Lies” and “Family Man” remixes.
There was also a edit of the Extended Remix, but it doesn’t include any of Stevie’s backup vocals.
Both versions can be found on Disc 3 of the 2017 deluxe package for Tango in the Night.
