Presumed heartless

Highland Park parade shooting suspect declines to spare the community the ordeal of a trial

6-27-2024 (issue No. 147)

This week:

• Another disgusting act of cruelty by Robert E. Crimo III

• Last week’s winning tweet

• News and Views — Hot takes, fully baked on the bribery ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court and a drop in support for gay marriage among Republicans

• Land of Linkin’ — Where I tell readers where to go and, this week, what to watch

• Squaring up the news — Where Charlie Meyerson tells readers where to go

• Nerding on wording — Arguably the best item in this week’s issue, but don’t pin me down!

• Mary Schmich —Remembering an act of kindness by Ann Lurie

• A transcript of Republican Adam Kinzinger’s robust endorsement of Democrat Joe Biden

• What’s on “The Mincing Rascals” podcast this week

• Quotables — A collection of compelling, sometimes appalling passages I’ve encountered lately

• Re:Tweets — The winning visual tweet and this week’s contest finalists

• Good Sports — Tracking the White Sox’ bid for history

• Tune of the Week — Is there a better bitter break-up song than “Silver Springs” by Stevie Nicks?

Eric Zorn is a former opinion columnist for the Chicago Tribune. Find a longer bio and contact information here. This issue exceeds in size the maximum length for a standard email. To read the entire issue in your browser, click on the headline link above. Paid subscribers receive each Picayune Plus in their email inbox each Tuesday, are part of our civil and productive commenting community and enjoy the sublime satisfaction of supporting this enterprise.

Another disgusting act of cruelty by Robert E. Crimo III

OK, alleged act of cruelty.

Our system presumes Crimo III innocent of killing seven and injuring dozens in the July 4, 2022, Highland Park parade shooting, and media convention is to honor that presumption.

But for the sake of argument today, I will presume him guilty, not only for the slaughter but also, now, for heartlessly protracting these legal proceedings in a way that will sprinkle just a little extra salt in the emotional wounds of survivors and witnesses.

Numerous news reports said Crimo III was prepared Wednesday morning to plead guilty to seven counts of murder and 48 counts of aggravated battery on charges that he opened fire with a semi-automatic rifle from a store rooftop along the parade route. That plea would have resulted in a life sentence without the possibility of parole.

It looked like a small act of redemptive mercy that would have spared the victims, their families and the shattered community from having to relive that ghastly day in extended trial proceedings, now set for next February, and then, no doubt, in numerous appeals.

After all, Crimo III has nothing to lose by going to trial, even though there appears to be substantial and compelling evidence against him. There is no death penalty in Illinois.

Maybe he’s hoping that a jury buys the far-fetched plea he and his mother made in a legal filing —that he “was employed by the federal government” and that “a conspiracy by jail staff, the prosecution, public defenders, the judge presiding over his criminal case, the United States Attorney, federal immigration authorities, various other local, state, and federal officials, as well as private citizens … are responsible for the crimes for which” he is being prosecuted.

Or maybe he still wants to inflict the maximum possible pain before he disappears forever into the bowels of an Illinois prison.

Last week’s winning tweet

I wish there were a complement to the MacArthur genius grants where a foundation would come and take away your money for being an idiot. — @baconmeteor

Here are this week’s nominees and the winner of the Tuesday visual-tweets poll. Here is the direct link to the new poll.

News & Views

News: A 6-3 U.S. Supreme Court OKs the payment of “gratuities” after the fact to politicians for official acts.

View: Down crashes an important barrier against obvious corruption.

Quoting from the dissent authored by Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson on behalf of the three liberal members of the courts:

We took this case to resolve “[w]hether (federal law) criminalizes gratuities, i.e., payments in recognition of actions the official has already taken or committed to take, without any quid pro quo agreement to take those actions.” The majority today answers no, when the answer to that question should be an unequivocal yes. …

(The prohibitions in the law were) not designed to apply to teachers accepting fruit baskets, soccer coaches getting gift cards, or newspaper delivery guys who get a tip at Christmas. ... Rather, the real cases in which the Government has invoked this law involve exactly the type of palm greasing that the statute plainly covers and that one might reasonably expect Congress to care about when targeting graft in state, local, and tribal governments. After today, however, the ability of the federal government to prosecute such obviously wrongful conduct is left in doubt. …

Because reading (federal law) to prohibit gratuities — just as it always has — poses no genuine threat to common gift giving, but does honor Congress’s intent to punish rewards corruptly accepted by government officials in ways that are functionally indistinguishable from taking a bribe, I respectfully dissent.

Corrupt pols everywhere now have license to make sure it’s well understood that the pro comes before the quid. And convicted pols, as well as those now facing trial for brazenly greasy deals, are doing touchdown dances today.

News: Gallup reports a 9-percentage point drop in support for gay marriage among Republicans. It now stands at 46%.

View: I will never understand or respect opposition to same-sex unions or to gay relationships in general. When two people find love, support, comfort and fulfillment in one another, what the hell skin is it off anyone’s nose what their gender identity is?

Our national experiment with same-sex marriage turned 9 on Wednesday — the anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Obergefell v. Hodges — and has been a success as far as I can tell.

Land of Linkin’

• My take on the sentencing of former 14th Ward Ald. Ed Burke put reader Michael M. in mind of “The Rules Kept Changing; Dan Rostenkowski Didn't,” Mike Royko’s sympathetic view of the 1996 sentencing of convicted Democratic U.S. Rep. Dan Rostenkowski of Chicago.

• Political savant Steve Chapman tries his hand at travel writing in “Cincinnati Open: Watch top-tier tennis without traveling abroad or breaking the bank.”

• “When Online Content Disappears: 38% of webpages that existed in 2013 are no longer accessible a decade later” from the Pew Research Center dovetails with my concern that bylines have been stripped off many stories — including lots of my old columns — in the online archives at chicagotribune.com. I wrote to publisher Par Ridder and editor Mitch Pugh asking what was going on with that and —you’ll never guess! — they did not respond. I doubt it’s anything nefarious. Things happen when platform and software changes port over content.

• Clarence Page introduced me Wednesday to a new term: “In the ‘Omnicause’, colliding causes can defeat each other’s purposes” discusses the phenomenon of protesting seemingly for the sake of protest.

• If Rex Huppke of USA Today is right in his Tuesday column, “Will Trump chicken out of the presidential debate? Probably. He's a Grade-A coward,” I will be sorely disappointed but will doff my press fedora to his predictive powers.

• In Tuesday’s Picayune Plus, I posted my reflections on the three years since I took a buyout and left the Tribune. Included is a list of 38 others who jumped ship at about the same time.

• As “Ask Amy” wraps up this month, advice maven Amy Dickinson is reminding us how very good she could be. In this column, she deftly doles out sound counsel to a couple of plainly horrible people. Enjoy!

  Must viewing

Depressing, terrifying yet also funny, this recent commentary by HBO’s “John Oliver” about the agenda Trump plans to pursue if he’s reelected:

I laughed out loud many times during this Jiminy Glick interview of Bill Maher last Friday. Glick is a character created by Martin Short.

A classic fake commercial from Woody Allen’s 1971 movie“Bananas”

Squaring up the news

This is a bonus supplement to the Land of Linkin’ from veteran radio, internet and newspaper journalist Charlie Meyerson. Each week, he offers a selection of intriguing links from his daily email news briefing Chicago Public Square:

■ Wired: If earthlings return to the moon, governments need to figure out the legal, ethical, and practical implications of … poop.

■ A Republican politician’s suggestion that Biden’s debate handlers might “jack him up on Mountain Dew” sent media critic Mark Jacob down a rabbit hole researching that drink’s troubled history.

■ Press watchdog Dan Froomkin says the network’s declaration that it won’t fact-check the debate in real time signals Trump that “he can lie without the threat of consequences”—and means Biden will have to burn up his own time to refute Trump’s malarkey.

■ Wonkette’s Evan Hurst scrutinizes another of Trump’s incoherent campaign rants.

■ Columbus out, RBG in: Chicago’s rebranding three more schools with problematic names.

■ Chicago historian Cate Plys looks back to celebrated columnist Michael Royko’s evolution into Mike Royko—and his long-running feud with TV anchor Walter Jacobson.

■ How well do you know Chicago TV history? Axios Chicago’s Justin Kaufmann has assembled a quiz—on which your Square columnist scored a mediocre 7/10. (Note, your Picayune Sentinel publisher scored 8/10, with some lucky guesses.)

■ A groundbreaking Illinois law that would forbid banks and credit card companies from slapping their upcharges on sales taxes and tips has financial institutions in a tizzy, running panicked ads like this.

■ ProPublica: “The world is drowning in plastic. … The plastics industry is peddling a ‘solution’ that works like magic. Don’t be fooled.”

■ The FDA’s announced a nationwide recall of 13 brands of ice cream—including Hershey’s and Friendly’s—potentially contaminated with the bacterium that causes listeria infections. You can scroll down this news release to see photos of the affected products.

You can (and should) subscribe to Chicago Public Square free here.

Nerding on wording

Hedge fun

I was struck by this sentence in a news story prior to Monday’s sentencing hearing of former 14th Ward Ald. Ed Burke, comparing him to other area pols who have been convicted of wrongdoing: “But perhaps none wielded so much power for so long as Burke, the head of the vaunted Finance Committee.”

I’m not going to say who wrote this story or where it appeared because I myself have made use many times of the equivocal “perhaps,” an adverb that insulates the writer from error or debate. In this case, it preempts any debate over, whether, say, Chicago’s Dan Rostenkowski, who served six years in the Illinois General Assembly and 36 years in Congress before being sentenced to 17 months for mail fraud — was a bigger fish than Burke, who served 54 years on the Chicago City Council.

Arguably, yes. Though “arguably” is another one of my go-to temporizing words, along with “probably” and “might,” as in “If Burke does choose to speak (at his sentencing hearing), the notably loquacious parliamentarian might be forced to walk a fine line, apologizing but … stopping short of admitting guilt,” from the same story. Italics mine.

Experts say these words, along with vague citations to unnamed experts and insiders, should maybe jump out at the reader.

Twah? Nah.

A new viral meme is from the video of an on-the-street interview in Nashville earlier this month in which a young woman with a Southern accent enthusiastically describes the act of spitting as part of sex play. She’s become known as “The Hawk Tuah Girl,” and the New York post is reporting that Hollywood already has an eye on her.

I must raise a point of order. Though she does seem to say “hawk too-ah,” the proper onomatopoetic way of describing spitting is “ach-tui!” as in the old joke about conjugating the Latin verb for expectoration, “spitto, spittere, ach tui, splattus.” (See “So Much Unfairness of Things” by C.D.B. Bryan in the 1964 book “Ten Top Stories.” )

See also the resultant parody of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah”

Mary Schmich: Remembering an act of kindness by Ann Lurie

My former colleague Mary Schmich posts occasional column-like entries on Facebook. Here, reprinted with permission, is a recent offering:

You may have seen that Ann Lurie, the former nurse who became one of Chicago's great philanthropists, died this week. Back in 2003, one of my yoga students, a friend of Ann's, told me a story about her that made me reply, "Would she let me write a column about that?"

"Probably not," this person said. Ann didn't like publicity.

"Will you ask her?" I said.

This person asked and Ann said yes and I wrote the column pasted below. Here is Rick Kogan's excellent Tribune obit.

Headline: Act of kindness stretches from African to Chicago

For many years, John Nabea has dreamed of a freedom so simple that most of us wouldn’t recognize it as freedom. He wants to wear T-shirts.

Instead, for more than a decade he had hidden his arms and neck. Even on the hottest Kenyan days, he had shrouded himself in long-sleeved turtlenecks or a jacket zipped snug against his chin. He was trying to hide when he met Ann Lurie.

That’s Lurie as in the Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center at Northwestern Memorial Hospital, named for Ann Lurie’s late husband, Robert. He was an investment titan whose 1990 death at age 48 left her in charge of six children and a whole lot of money, a lot of which she gives away.

In 1999, Ann Lurie went on safari in the plains, bush and hills of southeastern Kenya. It’s a land roamed by elephants, lions and zebras, as well as by the nomadic Maasai and their grazing goats and cattle. She quickly grew infatuated with the place and, as a former nurse, was concerned for its people, who lived without running water, electricity, medicine or pencils.

She visited again. And again and again. She helped finance a nursery school. Outfitted an Airstream trailer as a state-of-the-art clinic. Shipped it over. Hired a Kenyan doctor to run it. Decided to construct herself a house.

The carpenter who came to build Lurie’s Kenyan home was a compact man with five children, a broad, glistening face, no power tools but a gas-fueled chain saw, decent English skills and a ubiquitous turtleneck. John Nabea.

And so it came to pass that on a recent summer day Nabea was hanging out with Lurie at Lincoln Park Zoo, his neck in a bandage.

He recalled how the first time he’d met her — a slight, blond, girlish-looking woman with no fancy grooming — he reflexively shielded his throat with a forearm.

“I was sometimes feeling shy,” Nabea said. “I could go somewhere and people would say, `What’s that?”

“That” was an aggressive form of scarring called a keloid, the legacy of chicken pox, which he’d had 11 years ago at age 28. Itching and burning, it had spread across his throat until it was as big as a cauliflower. Smaller keloids pocked the rest of his body.

Lurie took a picture of Nabea to Dr. Julius Few, a Northwestern plastic surgeon who happens to be an African-American with a rare specialty: keloids. Could Few help?

“She was very low-key,” Few said. “But there are certain points of human suffering that grab us, and she was taken aback by this gentleman’s situation.”

What grabbed her grabbed Few too, and at the end of May,

Nabea, who never had been more than 200 miles from home, stepped onto Lurie’s private jet. Less than a day later, he stepped into the alien planet of Chicago.

How different his Lincoln Park apartment, with its indoor kitchen, was from the Maasai huts made of cow dung and grass. Northwestern was nothing like a Kenyan hospital, where strangers share beds.

Every day brought unusual experiences. Baseball. Fireworks. Iced drinks in paper cups.

“The very long buildings,” he said, “which I have never seen.”

And there were the painkillers that helped him through weeks of treatment.

“The pills they have given me are very, very powerful,” he said, though it wasn’t just the pills that were strong.

“He is a very, very proud and stoic man,” Few said. “He never complained once, though at times it had to be painful.”

I heard about Nabea and Lurie, in passing, from someone I know. Neither was seeking publicity, which is one reason their story deserves it. One woman had a vision and the wherewithal to help one man. One man had the courage to accept. Both of them realized that making this one strong man stronger could strengthen his community back home.

When Nabea left Chicago Friday, he was changed, and not only because his surgery went well. He left thinking about the fact that Kenyans who move to town “develop” differently from those who never leave the bush. He knows he’ll develop differently because he left both bush and town.

“If I got some money, the house I would build would be different now because I have seen some things,” he said. “And I will be free dressing. Now I will live in T-shirts.” — Mary Schmich

Transcript of former Illinois Republican U.S. Rep. Adam Kinzinger’s endorsement of Joe Biden

I'm Adam Kinzinger, and I'm a proud conservative. I always have been. As a proud conservative, I've always put democracy in our constitution above all else. And it's because of my unwavering support for democracy that today, as a proud conservative, I'm endorsing Joe Biden for reelection.

My entire life has been guided by the conviction that America is a beacon of freedom, liberty and democracy. So while I certainly don't agree with President Biden on everything — and I never thought I'd be endorsing a Democrat for president — I know that he will always protect the very thing that makes America the best country in the world, our democracy.

Donald Trump poses a direct threat to every fundamental American value. He doesn't care about our country. He doesn't care about you. He only cares about himself, and he'll hurt anyone or anything in pursuit of power.

We saw that when he tried to overturn an election that he knew he lost in 2020. He attacked the foundation of this nation, encouraging a violent mob of his supporters to march on the Capitol to prevent the peaceful transition of power.

Now he's become even more dangerous. He's called for termination of the Constitution. He wants to be a dictator on day one — he actually said that — and he's continuing to stoke the flames of political violence. There's too much at stake to sit on the sidelines.

So to every American of every political party and those of none, I say now is not the time to watch quietly as Donald Trump threatens the future of America. Now is the time to unite behind Joe Biden and show Donald Trump off the stage once and for all.

Link to the video that posted Wednesday

Minced Words

Cate Plys, Marj Halperin and I joined host John Williams for this week’s episode of “The Mincing Rascal” podcast. We previewed the presidential debate, discussed the sentencing of Ed Burke, debated the U.S. Supreme Court ruling pertaining to political corruption and offered some quick takes on proposed new taxes in Chicago.

Subscribe to us wherever you get your podcasts. Or bookmark this page. If you’re not a podcast listener, you can hear an edited version of the show at 8 p.m. most Saturday evenings on WGN-AM 720.

Read the background bios of some regular panelists here.

Quotables

A collection of compelling, sometimes appalling passages I’ve encountered lately

The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists. — Hannah Arendt in “The Origins of Totalitarianism”

I am not a liberal snowflake. My feelings aren't fragile. My heart isn't bleeding. I am a badass believer in human rights. My toughness is in tenderness. My strength is in the service of others. There is nothing more fierce than formidable, unconditional love. There is not a thing more courageous than compassion. But if my belief in equity, empathy, goodness and love indeed makes me or people like me snowflakes, then you should know: Winter is coming — online adaptation of a poem by Randy McClave

No water in your faucets. You ever tried buying a new home and you turn it on? They have restrictors in there. You want to wash your hair. You want to wash your hands. You turn on the water and it goes drip, drip. The soap, you can't get it off your hand. So you keep it running for about ten times longer. You're trying. The worst is your hair. I have this beautiful, luxuriant hair, and I put stuff on. I put it in. Lather. I like lots of lather because I like it to come out extremely dry because it seems to be slightly thicker that way. And I lather up and then you turn on this crazy shower and the thing drip, drip, and you say, 'I'm gonna be here for 45 minutes. What?' They put restrictors, and they put them on in places like here where there's so much water you don't know what to do with it. You know, it's called rain. It rains a lot in certain places. But, no, their idea, you know, did you see the other day? They just, I opened it up and they closed it again. I opened it, they closed it, washing machines to wash your dishes. There is a problem. They don't want you to have any water. They want no water. — Donald Trump to a rally audience in Philadelphia last Saturday

(Donald Trump is) the dumbest, stupidest, most moronic, imbecilic, uneducated, slow, witless, half-baked, inane, dopey, uninformed, foolish, senseless, simple, dull, laughable, dense, idiotic, brainless, dim bulb, goob canoe to ever live ever in the history of all things to ever exist anywhere conceivable. — Ashlie Weeks, in response to a video of Trump saluting during the playing of “Amazing Grace.”

Sorry, conservative Christians, but spending eternity with you people is not the selling point you think it is — Unknown

Some religions feel they must try to dominate the world because the existence of others is a rebuke they can’t tolerate. Their own belief is so weak that anybody thinking differently anywhere is a temptation and insult. Jews are better than that. I know that’s smug. But I toss the thought out as a reminder: Other faiths are here and believe their own doctrines as strongly as you believe yours. Maybe more. This never was a Christian nation, and it becomes less so every day. — Neil Steinberg

(The new Steppenwolf production “Little Bear Ridge Road”) is fundamentally about the attempt to stick a plunger into a stopped-up human being. — Chris Jones

That's the way it is, was and will be. This is Robert Elgin for Channel One News, hoping that your news is good news. Good night, and have a pleasant tomorrow, no matter what the news may be this time, or any time, until next time, have a good time all the time. — Newscaster signoff in the 1974 comedy movie, “The Groove Tube”

A vote is not a valentine. You aren’t confessing your love for the candidate. It’s a chess move for the world you want to live in — Unknown

— The church, in St. Louis, attributes the quote to Zach Lambert

Re: Tweets

In Tuesday’s paid-subscriber editions, I present my favorite tweets that rely on visual humor. Subscribers vote for their favorite, and I post the winner here every Thursday:

The new nominees for Tweet of the Week:

1. When a coworker is leaving the company and the goodbye card gets passed around, I always sign it, "I am so sad to see you go. I've always had a huge crush on you," but without signing a name. — @RodLacroix

2. “Queso” is Spanish for cheese. “’K, so…” is  Southern for “here’s the plan, and y’all probably ain’t gonna like it.” — @_KimberleyAnna

3. Fine, keep one leg out of the covers while you sleep. Just don’t come hopping to me after a monster bites it off. — @JohnLyonTweets

4. Remember when you had to wait a few days or weeks to see how bad you looked in pictures? That was nice. — @kv8

5. Taylor Swift should write a song about trying to figure out how the shower works in your hotel room. — @KimmyMonte

6. Writer: What is the most Dalmatians you can imagine? Disney exec: I dunno. One hundred? Writer: Well get ready to have your fucking mind blown. — @TheAndrewNadeau

7. Me: Why is it so hard to build a bear-proof trash can? Park Ranger: Because there is considerable overlap between the smartest bears and the dumbest people. — unknown

8. This is my time before I procrastinate. I'm precrastinating. — @goofysouthpaw

9. I’ve once again reached an age where it’ll be a scandal if I get pregnant — @nikalamity

10. It’s June, and if you’re lighting off fireworks already, just know I hate you. — @sweetmomissa

Vote here and check the current results in the poll.

Usage note: To me, “tweet” has become a generic term for a short post on social media. And I will continue to call the platform Twitter if only to spite Elon Musk:

On this issue and perhaps this issue alone, I am with U.S. Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett:

For instructions and guidelines regarding the poll, click here.

Good Sports

The No-No Sox

As long as the race remains close — which it may not — I will offer you comparison standings of the 2024 White Sox with the 2003 Detroit Tigers and the 1962 New York Mets, teams that have defined futility for more than 80 years, and the 1916 Philadelphia Athletics, the worst team in baseball’s modern era (20th century on).

After 82 games:

The 1916 Philadelphia A’s played a 153-game season and finished 36-117. Out to another decimal place, that’s a winning percentage of .2353. The Sox play in a 162-game era. If they go 38-124, that will be a winning percentage of .2346. So the magic number of victories needed for the Sox to end up with a better winning percentage than the 1916 A’s is now 18, with the season just a shade more than half over. To go 18-62 means they will have to play .225 baseball, which is almost impossibly

I like their chances to win 39 games this year. The 1916 A’s lost 17 straight games after posting the 19-63 record above. As bad as the Sox are, I don’t see such a streak in their future.

Earlier this week in the Sun-Times, Daryl Van Schouwen wrote “White Sox reach halfway mark of season with records for futility in reach.”

The slide toward a history-making bad season is “‘not something we think about at all,’ outfielder/first baseman Gavin Sheets said.

‘‘‘I don’t think about it a whole lot, and I couldn’t tell you what the worst record of all time is,’ reliever Steven Wilson said. ‘‘It’s not something I’m focused on.’”

Gotta get these guys signed up to receive the Picayune Sentinel.

Van Schouwen added:

The Sox’ winning percentage entering play Tuesday was .263, and a better percentage will be needed in the second half to avoid the dubious distinction of being the worst team in franchise history. The 1932 Sox, who were 49-102 (.325), have the worst winning percentage in franchise history; the 1970 Sox (56-106) have the record for most losses.

Dealing some of their best players before the trade deadline July 30 won’t help their chances of avoiding infamy. The focus from outside will intensify, however, as the season tumbles and stumbles on.

The 1970 Sox record of 56-106 is a .346 winning percentage. To beat that, the 2024 Sox will have to go 36-44 (.450) from here on in. To beat the winning percentage of the 1932 Sox, the 2024 Sox will have to go 32-48 (.400) in the last 80 games to finish at 53-109 (.327)

If and when the Sox have at least a three-game lead over this field, I’ll discontinue this weekly feature.

Tune of the Week

I’ve been opening up Tune of the Week nominations in an effort to bring some newer sounds to the mix. I’m asking readers to use the comments area for paid subscribers oor to email me to leave nominations (post-2000 releases, please!) along with YouTube links and at least a few sentences explaining why the nominated song is meaningful or delightful to you.

Stevie Nicks’ joint concert with Billy Joel at Soldier Field last Friday surfaced for me the song “Silver Springs.” one of the greatest angry, poignant break-up songs ever.

Nicks, now 76, wrote the song to “haunt” fellow Fleetwood Mac bandmate Lindsey Buckingham after their breakup and has referred to it as “probably the best song I've ever written.”

At about 4:15 in this 1997 live performance video, you see Nicks turn from the crowd and begin singing directly to Buckingham for the better part of a minute, advancing on him as he gamely sings backup.

Time cast a spell on you, but you won't forget me
I know I could've loved you, but you would not let me
I'll follow you down til' the sound of my voice will haunt you
You'll never get away from the sound of the woman that loves you

Her ferocious repetition of “never get away!” is chilling. And that this performance took place some 20 years after they ended their romance and Nicks’ feelings were still so raw lends even more power to this extraordinary performance.

Daisy Jones of GQ wrote:

(“Silver Springs”) was intended to appear on “Rumours,” (Fleetwood Mac’s) seminal 1977 album. But the band vetoed it for being too long. “I was so genuinely devastated … because I loved the song and it was one of the ‘Rumours songs,’ Nicks told MTV in 1997. “So I never thought that ‘Silver Springs’ would ever be heard of again. My beautiful song just disappeared.” …

(The video) has an addictive quality; the layering of their voices, the pummelling drums, the electric stare-off, how Nicks weaves between vengefulness and vulnerability within the space of a line (“Give me just a chance”).

Though it didn’t make the cut for “Rumours,” “Silver Springs” ended up as the B side of “Go Your Own Way,” Buckingham’s take on the split.

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