We all know and love Fleetwood Mac’s 1977 album “Rumours”. Ranked as the 7th best album of all time by Rolling Stone, the 20x multi-Platinum album still remains as one of the most revered pieces of music of all time. However, the creative process that fueled this album is one filled with hardships. Although there have been over a dozen musicians in the band since its conception (see above), this album was created by the five core members we associate with Fleetwood Mac - Stevie Nicks, Lindsey Buckingham, John McVie, Christine McVie, and Mick Fleetwood (highlighted in orange). The band was simultaneously experiencing their relationship troubles in the late 1970s, mostly with the other members. These messy loves and love affairs eventually morphed into “Rumours”, an album that is effortlessly timeless, and still remains as one of the most impactful albums of all time.
The most famous relationship in the band was between Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham. The pair met in high school and formed their own duo Buckingham Nicks, and only afterwards did they fall in love. They joined Fleetwood Mac as a unit, as Buckingham refused to join without Nicks in 1974. At that time, their relationship was rocky, but by the time recording for "Rumours" came around in 1976, they had broken up. Nicks and Buckingham were suffering at the hands of personal differences, the pressures of fame, and the creative differences. They constantly fought with each other, further straining their romantic relationship and the band's relationship as a whole. While Nicks and Buckingham were dealing with their own issues, John and Christine McVie were having their own marriage problems. Christine began an affair with the band’s sound engineer, Martin Birch, in 1973, who also happened to be married. She also had an affair with Curry Grant, Fleetwood Mac’s lighting director, in 1976 as well. John was dealing with the marriage issues with alcohol, and while the entire band were pretty heavy drug and alcohol users, he became especially belligerent. Although the two were legally married when recording started, they refused to speak to each other unless it was about music. To add to the drama, Mick Fleetwood was dealing with his own relationship issues. His then-wife Jenny Boyd had cheated on him with Bob Weston, an earlier member of the band, and he never truly recovered from the betrayal, despite Weston being fired from the band in 1973. Fleetwood and Body divorced in 1976 after six years of marriage (but go t temporarily married in 1977 to help their children immigrate to the UK),
I want to go track-by-track to discuss each song’s writers, who the song was about, and the brief discussion of the song.
Second Hand News - written by Buckingham about Nicks. This is him basically accepting the fact that Nicks is seeing other men, but he’s doing just fine. He declares to her that “I ain’t gonna miss you when you go”, and they both sing together “When times go bad, when times go rough//Won’t you lay me down in the tall grass/And let me do my stuff?” The chorus consists of only “bow-bow-bows”, a shockingly ironic scat melody. Sonically, the song is uplifting and lighthearted in nature, and Buckingham was allegedly inspired by Bee Gee’s “Jive Talkin’” while writing the guitar, bass, and drum lines.
Dreams - written by Nicks about Buckingham. One of the most notable tracks on the album (mostly because of a viral TikTok in 2020 using the song that landed the track at the number 1 spot on the iTunes charts), it was written in response to Buckingham’s “Go Your Own Way”, which she had a strong dislike for. The song discusses her perspective of the breakup, and in comparison to Buckingham, she tries to make peace with it. With lyrics like “In the stillness of remembering what you had, oh, what you lost” shows that she didn’t want to leave because she lost feelings for him, but rather because she didn’t feel valued anymore.
Never Going Back Again - written by Buckingham about Nicks. Lyrically, the song is simple with few lyrics, but Buckingham’s guitar skills are put on display. He’s talking about finding new love after the breakup and comes to a realization, singing, "Been down one time/Been down two times/I'm never going back again".
Don’t Stop - written about Christine McVie about John McVie. It was written amidst their divorce, but it has a general theme of trying to move forward in a relationship in tough times. Lyrics like “Don’t stop thinkin’ about tomorrow” and “It’ll be here better than before/Yesterday’s gone, yesterday’s gone” suggest that things will get better in the future if they keep moving. John admitted in an interview that he never thought it was about him, and only realized it when someone told him.
Go Your Own Way - written by Buckingham about Nicks. This track is the most aggressive on the album, with the notorious lyrics, “packing up, shacking up’s all you want to do.” Nicks revealed in an interview with Rolling Stone that, “Every time those words would come onstage, I wanted to go over and kill him.” Buckingham was angry, and a large portion of the song is just insults, ranging in severity.
Songbird - written by Christine McVie, but she never wrote the song with anyone or anything in mind. The vagueness in her writing about the selflessness of love has made it universally applicable. She sings, "To you, I will give you 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.” But after some reflection, she realizes that she deserves to be loved as much as she is willing to love someone/something else.
The Chain - this is the only song on the album that all five members are credited for. Rather the song being about a relationship deteriorating, it’s about the whole band. This invisible chain is holding the band together, and despite all their troubles, they're still together. After the breakdown, they repeatedly sing "Chain keep us together (running in the shadow)", which changes the meaning of that invisible chain - in most of the song, it represents the bond that the band has, but now, it represents their dependency on each other.
You Make Loving Fun - written by Christine McVie about Curry Grant. Simply put, love was not fun when Christine and John were together. This is one of the lighter moments on the album, both sonically and lyrically. Her affair with Grant provided her with a breath of fresh air: she sings “I never did believe in miracles/But I’ve a feeling it’s time to try.” To avoid conflict with John, she claimed she wrote the song about her dog.
I Don’t Want to Know - written by Nicks (before joining Fleetwood Mac) about Buckingham. The track was originally intended for her duo Buckingham Nicks, and it details her hopes that her and her lover can find what they want in a relationship, regardless if they’re together or not. Nicks and Buckingham both sing in the chorus, “I don’t want to stand between you and love, honey/I just want you to feel fine.” This song replaced Silver Springs on the original release of the album, much to Nicks’ chagrin. Silver Springs was released on the B side of Go Your Own Way.
Oh Daddy - written by Christine McVie for Mick Fleetwood. She revealed that Fleetwood, because he was a father in real life, acted as a father or parental figure in the band. McVie reveals her innermost insecurities, asking her “daddy”, “How can you love me/I don’t understand why.” He’s the only one who can calm her down, and she praises him heavily.
Gold Dust Woman - written by Nicks about women that she claims are the “groupie type”. Nicks truly taps into her haunted, witchy aesthetic with this closer, fusing themes of a lost love with excessive drug use. The “gold dust” is cocaine, but the song is a take on someone going through a bad relationship, coping in less than healthy ways. She sings “Lousy loves pick their prey/But they never cry out loud, cry out”, alluding to the fact that she was always the one left crying in her previous relationship.
"Rumours" is truly a masterpiece that beautifully and intricately delves into all the aspects of love and heartbreak. It’s unfortunate that such an amazing album came from a place of such pain amongst all the members, but it did truly pay off for Fleetwood Mac. This album cemented the band as one of the greatest of all time, and has forever impacted music and pop culture as a whole.
Written By Lauren DiGiovanni
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