My Gen X Playlist: Songbird – Fleetwood Mac

When I think of missions, I think of…

Star Trek’s five year mission to boldly go where no man has gone before. William Shatner was one cool dude back then.

The original Mission Impossible TV series from the 1970’s. Should you choose to accept this mission…

In the 80’s, I found a used paperback of Robert Ludlum’s Bourne Identity. I was immediately hooked on espionage stories and read the rest of the Bourne series in high school. Who doesn’t love a good spy mission?

Mission to Mars was a movie that I saw, yet have no recollection of any of it. It’s about Mars, right?

Me, I don’t have a personal mission. At least not right now. I can’t come up with one on the fly and try to make it stick. Instead, I’d rather think about a more interesting mission.

When I was a kid, we took a field trip to Mission San Juan Capistrano. Swallows have been returning to the mission for centuries. Back then, I was too young to appreciate how incredible this is.

The Swallow celebration began centuries ago when Mission padres observed that the birds returned each year on or about St. Joseph’s Day on the church calendar, March 19. Thousands of orange-tailed migrants fly in to reclaim their old nests in the ancient arches and walls of the Mission, and to raise their young in the valley.

. . . the swallows are Capistrano’s most famous citizens. The birds are not only well known, but well loved and protected here. The city is by law a bird sanctuary.

Every year around the Day of San Juan (October 23), the famous cliff swallows of San Juan Capistrano swirl into the sky and head back to their wintering grounds in Argentina, 6,000 miles south. And they faithfully return every spring in mid March.

– Journeynorth

There is something pure and beautiful about the swallows returning year after year. What a special place. It only seemed appropriate to pair the swallows with a beautiful song. Fleetwood Mac released Songbird in 1977. Little did I know that the song was inspired and written in the middle of the night.

“I woke up in the middle of the night and the song just came into my head,” said McVie of Fleetwood Mac’s classic Rumours ballad. “I got out of bed, played it on the little piano I have in my room, and sang it with no tape recorder. I sang it from beginning to end: everything.” She added, “I can’t tell you quite how I felt. It was as if I’d been visited. It was a very spiritual thing. I was frightened to play it again in case I’d forgotten it.”

– americansongwriter

There is just as much beauty in a song inspired in the middle of the night than in a reoccurring flight that’s continued for hundreds of years. Google maps tells me the mission is only 30 minutes away. I think I’ll mark my calendar this year to see San Juan Capistrano’s most famous citizens.

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For a complete playlist, please click here.

For the Spotify playlist, please click here.

For you, there'll be no more crying
For you, the sun will be shining
And I feel that when I'm with you
It's alright, I know it's right

To you, I'll give the world
To you, I'll never be cold
'Cause I feel that when I'm with you
It's alright, I know it's right

And the songbirds are singing
Like they know the score
And I love you, I love you, I love you
Like never before

And I wish you all the love in the world
But most of all, I wish it from myself

And the songbirds keep singing
Like they know the score
And I love you, I love you, I love you
Like never before
Like never before
Like never before