Oh Daddy (Fleetwood Mac song)

"Oh Daddy" is a song written by Christine McVie that was first performed by the British-American rock band Fleetwood Mac as the tenth song off their 1977 album Rumours.

The song was played throughout the band's Rumours and Tusk world tours, and resurfaced for the 1997 The Dance tour before disappearing once again.

Background
Christine McVie stated in a series of 1977 interviews that she wrote the song about Mick Fleetwood's separation from his erstwhile wife, Jenny Boyd. At the time, Fleetwood was the only father in the band, with two daughters. However, both Lindsey Buckingham's former girlfriend Carol Ann Harris and Stevie Nicks' biographer Zoe Howe have written that the song was originally written for the band's lighting director, who McVie had been dating at the time. Both Harris and Howe contend McVie only later claimed that the song was written for Fleetwood.

Producer Ken Caillat described "Oh Daddy" as "a beautiful, airy song." He noted that getting the proper tempo was particularly tricky since it sounded rushed at a quicker tempo but lethargic at a slower pace. Fleetwood Mac biographer Cath Carroll praised McVie's vocal and likened the song to a "sexy, old English version of The Rolling Stones' 'Fool to Cry'." In 2012, Fleetwood listed "Oh Daddy" as one of his 11 greatest recordings.

Production
During the Rumours sessions, the band jokingly referred to the song as 'Addy' due to a technical mishap. Caillat had made the mistake while playing back a take. "We were going to do some overdubs, and while rewinding the tape, a portable tape oscillator fell on the machine, sending it into free-wheel – the reels were spinning out of control. I jumped on the machine to stop it - and snapped the tape! Oh, man... [laughs] We listened back and there it was: ‘Oh ‘addy.’ The ‘D’ part of Christine’s vocal was cut off. My heart sunk."

Near the end of one take, Christine McVie played random notes on her keyboard to grab the attention of the engineers in the control room. The band opted to keep these unplanned additions in the final version of the song.

The band also utilized a $40,000 nine-foot Bösendorfer grand piano at Davlen Studios in North Hollywood. Caillat described the instrument as having "great action but also a dark quality". To achieve a brighter tone from the piano, Caillat used some tube U-47 microphones and applied some EQ to the instrument. McVie held down the piano's sustain pedal and played long single chords on beat 1 of the verses to create a "dramatic" effect. To extend the duration of the chords even longer, Caillat gradually increased the sensitivity of the microphones so that the chord would ring for 20-30 seconds. Buckingham also accentuated certain passages with some harmonics on an acoustic guitar.

Personnel

 * Christine McVie – piano, Hammond B3, Moog, lead vocals
 * Mick Fleetwood – drums, castanets, gong
 * John McVie – bass guitar
 * Lindsey Buckingham – acoustic guitars, electric guitars, backing vocals
 * Stevie Nicks – backing vocals