Not That Funny

Last updated
"Not That Funny"
Not That Funny cover.jpg
Single by Fleetwood Mac
from the album Tusk
B-side "Save Me a Place" (UK)
"Think About Me" (EU)
Released7 March 1980 (UK) [1]
Recorded1979
Studio The Village Recorder, Los Angeles, California
Genre
Length3:11
Label Warner Bros.
Songwriter(s) Lindsey Buckingham
Producer(s)
Fleetwood Mac singles chronology
"Sara"
(1980)		"Not That Funny"
(1980)		"Think About Me"
(1980)

"Not That Funny" is a song by British-American rock band Fleetwood Mac, released in 1980. Composed and sung by guitarist Lindsey Buckingham, it was written as a response to the punk movement in the late 1970s. [3] The song shares some lyrics with "I Know I'm Not Wrong", another Buckingham penned song that appeared on the Tusk album. [4]

Contents

Background

"Not That Funny" was derived from an unused Buckingham song titled "Needles and Pins", originally recorded in June 1978. "Needles and Pins" later split into two different songs, "Not That Funny" and "I Know I'm Not Wrong", both of which share the "don't blame me" lyrics found in the chorus and the "here comes the nighttime" lyrics found in the bridge. [5]

Buckingham performed his vocal part on the ground in a push-up position to achieve the desired vocal take. He also insisted on recording the vocals in a replica of his own personal bathroom, which was installed in Studio D of the Village Recorder studio in Los Angeles. To satisfy Buckingham's request, Ken Caillat, who served as the album's co-producer and engineer, taped a microphone to the bathroom's tile floor. [6]

Some of the electric guitars were detuned and recorded at high speed before being slowed down to 30 inches per second. [5] Buckingham multitracked the electric guitar parts on a Stratocaster and treated the instrument with a variable speed oscillator (VSO) to achieve a phasing effect. [7] The electric guitars were also sent through a tape recorder and mixing console to achieve a lower pitched, compressed, and thicker sound. The inverse occurred for the acoustic guitars, which were recorded at a slower speed but sped up with the VSO so that the instrument would resemble a harpsichord or music box. Buckingham played the acoustic guitars sparingly on the verses but used them more extensively during the bridge and chorus with an eighth and sixteenth note feel. [5]

For the drums, Buckingham layered several tracks of kick and snare drums and overdubbed tom drum fills leading to the vamp. The vocals were tripled, some of which were sung by Christine McVie. Fleetwood Mac engineer Hernán Rojas commented that Buckingham often asked McVie to help out with vocals on his songs due to their vocal blend. Buckingham also played the cello setting on a Chamberlin M1 keyboard to provide additional textures to the rhythm track. [5]

Release and live performances

"Not That Funny" was released as the third single from Tusk in certain European countries, including the UK, Germany, and The Netherlands. [8] [9] [10] "Think About Me", which appeared as the B-side to "Not That Funny" in the Netherlands, was issued as the third single in North America instead. [8] [10] Both singles were also slightly remixed for radio, with these mixes later appearing on the 2015 deluxe edition of Tusk. [11] While "Think About Me" reached the top 20 in the US, [12] "Not That Funny" failed to chart at all, but it did receive some airplay in the UK, including on BRMB and Radio Clyde. [13] [14] Hernan Rojas, who engineered Tusk, expressed surprise that Buckingham selected "Not That Funny" as the album's third single instead of "I Know I'm Not Wrong". [5]

Despite the lack of initial success, the song became a live staple at Fleetwood Mac concerts. Played live, the song took on an entirely new arrangement – stretched out to almost nine minutes frequently. [14] A live recording of "Not That Funny" from Fleetwood Mac's performance in Cleveland was included on their 1980 Live album. [15] Blair Jackson of BAM magazine described this version as a "bopping, shaking, and, ultimately, exploding rocker". [16]

For the Tusk Tour, Fleetwood Mac wanted their keyboard tech, Jeff Sova, to play synthesizers on the song to recreate some of the additional sounds heard on the record. However, this idea was dropped as it was interfering with his stage work. Instead, the only keyboard used on the song was a Yamaha console piano, played by Christine McVie. [17] The band also performed "Not That Funny" on the Mirage tour, [18] The Dance tour, [19] and the Live 2013 tour. [20] The band's rendition of "Not That Funny" on their The Dance Tour in 1997 also featured a percussion solo from Mick Fleetwood where he used a computerised vest with pads that triggered various sound effects when tapped. [19]

Critical reception

"Not That Funny" has generally received positive reception. Stephen Holden, a reviewer for Rolling Stone , compared the production of the track to a beautifully recorded basement tape. [21] Another reviewer from Rolling Stone pointed similarities in the guitar work between "Not That Funny" and a Go Insane track, "Loving Cup". [22] Raoul Hernandez of The Austin Chronicle said that "Not That Funny" perfectly demonstrates Buckingham's ability to craft pop/rock songs, and that it reveals the "staleness" of Rumours . [23] In his review of Tusk for NME , Nick Kent described "Not That Funny" as "a Cajun-style bruising thump-up with a fade-out all too redolent of more White Album idiocies." [24]

In Rock of Ages: The Rolling Stone History of Rock & Roll, the authors characterised "Not That Funny" as an "anti-pop song that is little more than Buckingham yelling 'Well, it's not that funny, is it?', over and over until his vocal cords fray and shred and finally give way." [25] Ed Harrison of Billboard thought that song's instrumentation evoked a "youthful new wave band." [26] Record World dismissed "Not That Funny" as "a rock pounder which has a beat but nothing else." They also questioned its release as a single and predicted that the song would struggle commercially. [13]

Retrospectively, Marcello Carlin of Uncut described it as a "disturbing" song "on which Buckingham’s near-psychotic guitar and vocal screams approach Pere Ubu territory." [27] In his piece for Melody Maker 's Unknown Pleasures guide, Simon Reynolds drew comparison to Faust's "It's a Bit of Pain" (1973), and praised Buckingham's "hornet-in-your-earhole fuzz solo". [28] David Bennun of The Quietus wrote that "Not That Funny" resembles the music of Devo. [29] Annie Zaleski of The Guardian has commented that while some of Fleetwood Mac's songwriting peers of the 1960s and 1970s "incorporated dance influences and synthesisers" to varying levels of success, the group's "new wave nod", "Not That Funny", was a "transformative" example. [30]

Personnel

References

  1. ↑ "Music Week" (PDF). 8 March 1980. p. 30.
  2. ↑ Holtje, Steve (1998). "Fleetwood Mac". In Graff, Gary; Durchholz, Daniel (eds.). MusicHound Rock: The Essential Album Guide. Detroit: Visible Ink Press. p. 434.
  3. ↑ Harr, Douglous (13 January 2016). "Fleetwood Mac – 'Fleetwood Mac', 'Rumours' + 'Tusk' (1975 -1979): Reissues". Something Else!. Retrieved February 7, 2016.
  4. ↑ Weingarten, Christopher; et al. (2 May 2022). "Fleetwood Mac's 50 Greatest Songs". Rolling Stone. Retrieved 9 November 2023.
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 Caillat, Ken; Rojas, Hernan (2019). Get Tusked: The Inside Story of Fleetwood Mac's Most Anticipated Album. Guilford, Connecticut: Backbeat Books. pp. 178–179, 183–184, 248–249. ISBN   978-1-4930-5983-6.
  6. ↑ Reed, Ryan (11 October 2019). "Fleetwood Mac's 'Tusk': 10 Things You Didn't Know". Rolling Stone. Retrieved 12 October 2019.
  7. ↑ Irvin, Jim (2016). Tusk (2015 Remastered Deluxe Edition) (Liner Notes). Fleetwood Mac. Los Angeles: Warner Bros. Records Inc. p. 15. Publisher Warner Bros #2HS-3350.
  8. 1 2 Strong, Martin Charles (1995). The Great Rock Discography. Canongate Press. p. 296. ISBN   9780862415419.
  9. ↑ "Fleetwood Mac Not That Funny Single". Offizielle Deutsche Charts (in German). Retrieved 16 February 2025.
  10. 1 2 Unterberger, Richie (2017). Fleetwood Mac: The Complete Illustrated History. Voyageur Press. p. 198. ISBN   978-1627889759.
  11. ↑ Kreps, Daniel (30 October 2015). "Fleetwood Mac Prep Massive 'Tusk' Reissue". Rolling Stone. Retrieved 16 February 2025.
  12. ↑ Caulfield, Keith (30 November 2022). "Christine McVie's Top 10 Biggest Hot 100 Hits". Billboard. Retrieved 16 February 2025.
  13. 1 2 "Music Week" (PDF). 15 March 1980. p. 22.
  14. 1 2 Blake, Mark (2024). The Many Lives of Fleetwood Mac. New York: Pegasus Books. pp. 255–256. ISBN   978-1-63936-732-0.
  15. ↑ Evans, Mike (2011). Fleetwood Mac: The Definitive History. New York: Sterling. p. 179. ISBN   978-1-4027-8630-3.
  16. ↑ Jopling, Norman (30 January 1981). "Fleetwood Mac's Lindsey Buckingham Turns Another Corner" . In Egan, Sean (ed.). Fleetwood Mac on Fleetwood Mac: Interviews and Encounters. Chicago Review Press (published 2016). p. 76. ISBN   978-161373-234-2.
  17. ↑ Doerschuk, Bob. "Fleetwood Mac's Christine McVie". Contemporary Keyboard . Archived from the original on 10 July 2015. Retrieved 1 December 2023– via The Blue Letter Archives.
  18. ↑ Jonze, Tim (15 December 2016). "Fleetwood Mac: Mirage box set review – high-calibre songs that outshine the imitators". The Guardian. ISSN   0261-3077 . Retrieved 14 January 2024.
  19. 1 2 Young, John (26 January 1997). "Revived Mac makes sad songs fun". Pittsburgh Post-Gazette . Retrieved 16 February 2025– via Google Books.
  20. ↑ Mountain, Lexie (10 April 2013). "Armed with hits, Fleetwood Mac plays with crowd's emotions at Verizon Center". The Baltimore Sun. Retrieved 14 March 2016.
  21. ↑ Holden, Stephen (13 December 1979). "Fleetwood Mac Tusk Album Review". Rolling Stone. Retrieved August 20, 2015.
  22. ↑ Connelly, Christopher (August 30, 1984). "Lindsey Buckingham's Tuneful Triumph". The Blue Letter Archives. Archived from the original on 30 December 2015. Retrieved 31 December 2023.
  23. ↑ Hernandez, Raoul. "Live Shots – Music – Fleetwood Mac". The Austin Chronicle. Retrieved July 8, 2015.
  24. ↑ Kent, Nick (20 October 1979). "Fleetwood Mac: Tusk (Warner Brothers)". New Musical Express. Retrieved 8 August 2023.
  25. ↑ Ward, Ed; Stokes, Geoffrey; Tucker, Ken (1986). Rock of Ages: The Rolling Stone History of Rock & Roll. New York: Rolling Stone Press. p. 578. ISBN   0-671-63068-7.
  26. ↑ Harrison, Ed (27 October 1979). "Closeup: Fleetwood Mac Tusk Does Wonders" (PDF). Rolling Stone. Retrieved 1 January 2025– via World Radio History.
  27. ↑ Carlin, Marcello (1 April 2004). "Cocaine Heights". Uncut. Archived from the original on 16 May 2022. Retrieved 8 August 2023.
  28. ↑ Simon Reynolds (1995), FLEETWOOD MAC, Tusk from Unknown Pleasures: Great Lost Albums Rediscovered booklet, free with Melody Maker, 1995 [director's cut version]
  29. ↑ Bennun, David (13 February 2017). "How Fleetwood Mac Invented Goth, By David Bennun". The Quietus. Retrieved 8 August 2023.
  30. ↑ Zaleski, Annie (27 September 2022). "Joni Mitchell's 80s: how the Canadian songwriter became a fearless, futurist auteur". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 29 July 2023.
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