Frustrated Love

In December 1963, Michelle Phillips of the Mamas and Papas who was married to John Phillips, but grew up viewing free love as perfectly normal fell in love with Russ Titelman.  In the 1960s and 1970s, free love came to imply a sexually active lifestyle with many casual sex partners and little or no commitment.  Free love did not start in the 1960s, but this idea or practice of having sexual relations with any partner you chose, without being restricted by marriage or long-term relationships was popular at the time.  The Summer of Love, the spring and summer of 1967 in San Francisco changed everything, by saying that both men and women have the right to sexual pleasure without social or legal restraints.  Hippies were promiscuous, so it was not uncommon to see bare-breasted flower children engaged in group sex, or communal sex.

Michelle viewed her marriage as being more flexible than John did, so she moved with Titelman from Los Angeles to New York, but it didn’t last long.  In frustration of Michelle sleeping around, John Phillips wrote the song ‘Go Where You Wanna Go’, which is about Michelle’s affair with Russ.  In this song John switches the genders around and writes as if the man let the girl to be with somebody else.  The listener hears this from the girl’s perspective who is heartbroken because her man is gone, and she is trying to be sarcastic when she tells him to go wherever he wants and be with whoever he desires.   The song references three thousand miles, which is considered to be the distance between Los Angeles and New York.

Lindsey Buckingham wrote the song ‘Go Your Own Way’ for the 1977 Rumors album, as a response to his breakup with fellow Fleetwood Mac vocalist Stevie Nicks, whom he had known since he was sixteen years old.  They were acquaintances till Lindsey asked Stevie to join his band and they started working together that band folded and they formed Buckingham Nicks in 1972.  Romance developed between them after spending so much time together and two years later, they would both become members of Fleetwood Mac.  Their music was great, but the Nicks Buckingham relationship has been described as being tempestuous (stormy like a tempest).

Lindsey and Stevie lived together and for all intents and purposes they were married, but their relationship began to deteriorate and their relationship completely unraveled after they broke up in 1976.  When they first lived together Stevie took care of the house doing necessary chores, while Lindsey continued in the music business.  It was said that Buckingham wanted her “all to himself” which is a common signal in abusive relationships and because of this he began to distrust where she’d been or who she had been with, another bad sign to elevate the tension between them.

Although there was a lot of tension going on between the group members of Fleetwood Mac at the time when they recorded their Rumors album, it certainly produced some great songs.  Stevie Nicks wrote ‘Dreams’ which was an upbeat song about breaking up.  It was a personal message referring to her bandmate and boyfriend of eight years, which included some very sad things that were happening to them.  Lindsey Buckingham answered Stevie back with a much angrier ‘Go Your Own Way’ and it contains a line which shows distain for his former partner with, “Shacking up is all you want to do.”

I am comparing these two songs today because they were both written as a response to an affair, or as a reaction to jealousy.  In their eyes, they each saw their woman as someone who just broke their heart by either actually cheating with another man, or suspicious thoughts that something funny was going on.  It could be that both of these songs were written by a man who needed to exert his control over a woman.  The gender switching concept used in ‘Go Where You Wanna Go’ made this song much less harsh.  In this song, fidelity is the option which the girl selected by saying, “A girl like me can love just one man”, and this makes this song sound more like love could be developing again, than ‘Go Your Own Way’, which only seems to show hatred brewing.

You gotta go where you wanna go
Do what you wanna do
With whoever you wanna do it with

Babe, you gotta go where you wanna go
Do what you wanna do
With whoever you wanna do it with

You don’t understand that a girl like me can love just one man
Three thousand miles, that’s how far you’ll go
And you said to me, “Please don’t follow”

So, you gotta go where you wanna go
Do what you wanna do
With whoever you wanna do it with

Babe, you gotta go where you wanna go
Do what you wanna do
With whoever you wanna do it with

You don’t understand that a girl like me can love just one man
You’ve been gone a week, and I tried so hard
Not to be the cryin’ kind, not to be the girl you left behind (left behind)

You gotta go where you wanna go
Do what you wanna do
With whoever you wanna do it with

Babe, you gotta go where you wanna go (go where you want)
Do what you wanna do (do what you want)
With whoever you want (go where you want, do what you want)

Babe, you gotta go where you wanna go (go where you want)
Do what you wanna do (do what you want)
With whoever you want (go where you want, do what you want)

 

Loving you
Isn’t the right thing to do
How can I ever change things
That I feel

If I could
Maybe I’d give you my world
How can I
When you won’t take it from me

You can go your own way
Go your own way
You can call it
Another lonely day
You can go your own way
Go your own way

Tell me why
Everything turned around
Packing up
Shacking up is all you want to do

If I could
Baby, I’d give you my world
Open up
Everything’s waiting for you

You can go your own way
Go your own way
You can call it
Another lonely day
You can go your own way
Go your own way

You can go your own way
Go your own way
You can call it
Another lonely day
Another lonely day
You can go your own way
Go your own way
You can call it
Another lonely day

You can go your own way
You can call it
Another lonely day
You can go your own way

Written for Song Lyric Sunday where the prompt is to select two different songs and compare and contrast them.