This was written by Bob Welch, who was a guitarist and vocalist in Fleetwood Mac from 1971-1974. Welch, who died in 2012 at age 65, gave us the story behind the song. Welch wrote: "'Hypnotized' was first a 'shuffle-time blues rocker' for singer Dave Walker (ex-Savoy Brown lead singer) when Fleetwood Mac had Dave on board as a band member for a (very) short while. When we realized that Dave was not fitting in musically with what we were trying to do, I hurriedly re-wrote the lyrics in Christine McVie's upstairs living room at 'Benifolds,' the 'mansion' south of London where we all lived and recorded at the time - it was a 20 room house. The 'playing field' mentioned in one of the verses made a reference to the large grass tennis court which was part of the property... and kind of spooky at night.
I was (and still am) interested in the paranormal - UFO's, the Carlos Castaneda books about the Yaqui Indian 'sorcerer' Don Juan - so I incorporated a lot of these themes and references into the song. The 'place down in Mexico' refers to Castaneda's Yaqui sorcerer, Don Juan, who is presumably doing 'astral' travel ;-). The 'strange, strange pond' with 'sides like glass' refers to a strange anomalous depression in the North Carolina woods near Winston-Salem, North Carolina which a friend told me about, which, at the time, freaked him (and his dirt-biking buddies) out."
Released as the B-side to Fleetwood Mac's cover version of "For Your Love," "Hypnotized" proved to be the more popular song and endured on FM radio. It won an ASCAP award for 35 years on consecutive worldwide radio airplay.
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