That's Enough for Me
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{{Infobox song
| name = That’s Enough For Me
| cover =
| alt =
| type = single
| artist = Fleetwood Mac
| album = Tusk
| A-side = Sara
| released = 1979
| format =
| recorded = 1978–1979
| studio = The Village Recorder
| venue =
| genre = Psychobilly, bluegrass
| length = 1:51
| label = Warner Bros.
| writer = Lindsey Buckingham
| producer = Fleetwood Mac, Richard Dashut, Ken Caillat
| prev_title =
| prev_year =
| next_title =
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}}
"That's Enough For Me" is a song by Fleetwood Mac from the 1979 double LP Tusk, on which it is the shortest track. It was one of nine songs from the album composed and sung by Lindsey Buckingham, who also supplied all of the instrumentation. The song was released a B-side to "Sara" in December 1979.
Background
The working title for "That's Enough For Me" was "Out on the Road", which Buckingham recorded at his home on a MCI 16-track in 1978. The song carried the working title of "Out on the Road" through the month of December.{{Cite book |last=Caillat |first=Ken |title=Get Tusked: The Inside Story of Fleetwood Mac's Most Anticipated Album |last2=Rojas |first2=Hernan |publisher=Backbeat Books |year=2019 |isbn=978-1-4930-5983-6 |location=Guilford, Connecticut |pages=153–157}}
Buckingham described That's Enough For Me as "rockabilly on acid" and sought to pull from several reference points when developing the song.{{Cite AV media notes |title=Tusk (2015 Remastered) |title-link=Tusk_(album) |others=Fleetwood Mac |year=2016 |first=Jim |last=Irvin |page=16 |type=Liner Notes |publisher=Warner Bros. Records Inc. |id=Publisher Warner Bros #2HS-3350 |location=Los Angeles}} He drew some influence from New wave music and did not actively seek to emulate any particular artist when writing "That"s Enough For Me".
Musically, the song is built around a fast finger-picking technique that Buckingham originally learned in his youth while playing along to Kingston Trio records. It follows a I-IV-V-I chord progression and possesses a tempo of around 254 BPM. When performed live on the Tusk Tour, it was played at an even faster tempo. Buckingham originally considered giving the song a more relaxed feel by recording the song at a tape speed of 15 ips rather than 30 ips, but he instead settled on a faster tempo. Commenting on the final recording, Buckingham said that the song "couldn't be any faster."
The song's lyrics consist of one short verse and a largely wordless chorus consisting of "yeahs" and other vocalisations.{{Cite book |last=Roubin |first=Olivier |title=Fleetwood Mac: All The Songs |last2=Ollivier |first2=Romuald |date=1 April 2025 |publisher=Black Dog Leventhal Publishers |isbn=978-0-7624-8630-4 |location=New York |pages=172-173, 182}} In an interview with Paul Zollo, Buckingham said that the song may have been about his relationship with Nicks and believed that the lyrics were "heartfelt", "raucous" and "sad".
Recording
When Buckingham brought the demo to Studio D of The Village Recorder, he requested that Ken Caillat leave the studio so he could work on the song with Richard Dashut and Hernan Rojas, who engineered the Tusk sessions. Buckingham originally utilized other members of Fleetwood Mac during the song's early tracking, including Christine McVie, who played honky-tonk piano fills and glissandos. However, the final recording only features instrumental contributions from Buckingham.{{cite magazine |last=Forte |first=Dan |date=June 1981 |title=Lindsey Buckingham: Musician Magazine No.33|url=https://www.worldradiohistory.com/Archive-All-Music/Musician/1980/1981/Musician-1981-06.pdf|magazine=Musician |pages=37–40 |access-date=2 March 2025 |via=World Radio History}} Part of the song was recorded in Buckingham's bathroom.{{Cite web |last=Zollo |first=Paul |date=1997 |title=Songwriters On Songwriting, Expanded Edition (1997), (Book Excerpt) |url=http://bla.fleetwoodmac.net/index.php?page=index_v2&id=145&c=9 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151230161910/http://bla.fleetwoodmac.net/index.php?page=index_v2&id=145&c=9 |archive-date=30 December 2015 |access-date=10 March 2015 |website=The Blue Letter Archives}} A 5-watt Pignose 7-100 guitar amplifier was placed on an empty toilet for the fuzz guitars. On the multitrack recording, one of the tracks was labelled "Porcelain God", which provided the sound of a toilet flushing.
Buckingham recorded several tracks of electric guitars and normal speed through a Fuzz Face effects box. He also recorded an electric bass guitar, acoustic bass, kick drum, snare drum, and a lead vocal, which were all completed in the absence of Caillat. Overdub sessions continued for a few more weeks until Caillat returned to the studio. After recording a few more new takes of "That's Enough For Me", Buckingham reinforced the rhythms tracks by layering additional snare and kick drums through a M160 microphone that was situated in close proximity to the instruments and a ribbon M360 microphone placed at a distance.
Some acoustic, electric, and resonator guitars were recorded at low speed and later sped up to achieve a high-pitched "fingerpicked frenzy of sound". Buckingham tripled his vocals during the verses and layered additional voices for the chorus, which were recorded at different speeds to achieve different timbres. McVie and Stevie Nicks both contributed backing vocals to the song, although their additions were made barely audible in the final mix.
Critical reception
Nick Kent of NME wrote that the song was "a thrillingly dervish-fast blues rocker" with a "wicked bass drum mule kick and Buckingham's sawing electric rhythm guitar."{{cite magazine |last=Kent |first=Nick |author-link=Nick Kent |url=https://www.rocksbackpages.com/Library/Article/fleetwood-mac-tuski-warner-brothers |title=Fleetwood Mac: Tusk (Warner Brothers)|magazine=NME|date=20 October 1979|access-date=25 April 2025 |url-access=subscription |via=Rock's Backpages}} AllMusic's Stephen Thomas Erlewine described That's Enough For Me as a "rampaging" song that contrasted with the mellower compositions on Tusk.{{cite web|url=https://www.allmusic.com/album/tusk-mw0000190000|title=Tusk – Fleetwood Mac|website=AllMusic|access-date=10 March 2024|last=Erlewine|first=Stephen Thomas|author-link=Stephen Thomas Erlewine}} Rob Brunner of Entertainment Weekly identified "That's Enough For Me" as one of Tusk's many good songs, which in his opinion helped make up for the album's "lack of cohesion and consistency".{{Cite web |last=Brunner |first=Rob |date=18 April 2003 |title=Then Play On; Bare Trees; Fleetwood Mac; Rumours; Tusk; Time |url=https://ew.com/article/2003/04/18/then-play-bare-trees-fleetwood-mac-rumours-tusk-time/ |access-date=10 March 2024 |website=EW.com |language=en}} Kris Needs of Record Collector thought that the song reflected Buckingham desire to faithfully evoke the rawness of early rock and roll records, further adding that it along with Not That Funny and I Know I'm Not Wrong "reveal a coke-provoked creative psyche teetering towards the unhinged."{{cite magazine|url=https://recordcollectormag.com/reviews/album/tusk-deluxe-edition|title=Fleetwood Mac – Tusk (Deluxe Edition)|magazine=Record Collector|issue=449|date=January 2016|access-date=10 March 2024|last=Needs|first=Kris|author-link=Kris Needs}}
Personnel
- Lindsey Buckingham – electric guitars, acoustic guitars, electric and acoustic bass guitars, Dobro, drums, lead and backing vocals
- Christine McVie – backing vocals
- Stevie Nicks – backing vocals