Song of the Day 11/1: Lindsey Buckingham, “Countdown”

The first time he left Rock’s Longest Running Soap Opera, in 1987, it took Lindsey Buckingham five years to put together a solo album. “Out of the Cradle” was actually his third solo album, but he had still been in Fleetwood Mac when he did the first two, and what was supposed to be his third turned into the band’s “Tango in the Night” LP. The resulting album is considered Buckingham’s best solo LP, and it’s solo in the true sense — he played almost all the instruments himself. It came out in 1992, the year grunge took over the airwaves, and sank like a cannonball.

This tune, like the rest of the album co-written and co-produced with Richard Dashut, captures the quintessential Buckingham sound — crisp, keening guitars surrounding a hummable hook, with a little finger-picking flash in the outro solo.