[4] The original 1972 version of the song as heard on Fleetwood Mac's Bare Trees album clocked in at 4 minutes 34 seconds, with background vocals by Christine McVie.
The re-recording of it featured Christine McVie and Lindsey Buckingham as backing singers and producers (with Buckingham additionally doing the arrangement as well as serving on guitar), but unlike the original which had two verses, Welch's solo version only had one verse to cut it down to less than three minutes for the final radio cut.
[6] Donald Brackett, in his 2007 book, Fleetwood Mac, 40 Years of Creative Chaos has discussed Welch's poetic romantic lyrics in "Sentimental Lady" and writing and performing style.
He describes the featuring of the song on the 1972 album Bare Trees as the best example of the group's move towards a new, softer and highly commercial style in the early 1970s.
Brackett suggests that the essence of the lyrics and nature of the song are "almost too gentle", but describes Welch's voice as like "crushed velvet", in that he believes the voice is simultaneously gentle and threatening in tone, a symbolic balance between the emotions of hope and despair.