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WEBMISTRESS speculates:
This is short but sweet. I guess Lindsey liked the tune and so he used it as an introduction to Races Are Run. An interesting choice - not much to it, though.
DOUG speculates:
Well, here I am up late again (contemplating my recent breakup) and stumbled upon this web site. I've always respected Lindsey Buckingham's playing having grown-up with FM, but I had no idea he was into Django. Here's the story: "Django" is a jazz standard that was written by John Lewis, pianist with the Modern Jazz Quartet, as a tribute to the great gypsy guitarist Django Reinhart. The song is not easy to play, and the way Lindsey plays it is harder still, with counter lines going along with the melody (he obviously studied classical guitar). The fact that he chose this song is a testament to the depth of his musicianship. Of course, one listen to his self-accompaniment on his solo performance of "Big Love" on "The Dance" is enough to send any guitarist back to the practice room! Well there you have the story, probably too much information, from a true guitar geek.
ANANIAH speculates:
Every time Lindsey plays anything (Django, Go Insane, Don't Look Down, and Big Love) with nylon strings, he tends to play it ponticello. Ponticello is a way to play the classical guitar by the bridge and it gives the guitar a harsher tone. He never plays anything closer to the neck, which gives gentler tones. Other classical guitarists at the time such as Jose Feliciano and Mason Williams (who taught me a great deal and I just wrote the music for his recent wedding) also played everything ponticello, even though they do not play that way now. As a result of this, Lindsey's harmonics (the light notes played by gently touching a string 12 frets above the note you are playing and plucking) suffer. I think rather than Django Reinhardt being a major influence, I think the actual influence here was Mason Williams, who did Classical Gas just a couple of years before. Who can hear Big Love and Classical Gas next to each other and think that Big Love was not influenced by it? A solo recording of Classical Gas was done in 1971, just two years before the recording of Buckingham Nicks, and the throbbing bass line in that version of Classical Gas, along with the counter melodies in the hook definitely sound like they were the derivative for Lindsey's counterpoint in Django and the self-accompanyment in Classical Gas was a definate influence. Everything Mason Williams does has a similar self-accompanyment to what Lindsey tries to accomplish. The solo guitar version of Go Insane even has almost the same chord progression to a Mason Williams piece called Largo De Luxe.