The song that made Fleetwood Mac realise they had found “extreme magic” with Stevie Nicks
When Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham first met with the other members of Fleetwood Mac for initial introductions, they likely didn’t know they were subjected to the ultimate test of chemistry. However, like most job interviews, that’s exactly what it was. And if it worked, which it did, the pair would be the missing piece that pushed them from nice little folk group to absolute rock powerhouse.
Funnily enough, it’s Buckingham who approached the whole situation half-heartedly, having sort of made up his mind about whether this was the right move for them or not. In his mind, they already had a good thing going, which made Fleetwood Mac something of a nice-to-have rather than anything particularly career-altering. Of course, he couldn’t have been more off the mark, but the point is: Nicks knew all along that what they stumbled across was the answering flame to their dimming light.
Suppose some of this enthusiasm also came from how easily she instantly got along with Christine McVie. But, then again, that was all a part of the “test” too: if Nicks and McVie liked each other, that was the main criterion for letting them in the band. If they didn’t, it would have never worked. So, while they sat there as though they’d known each other for years, the others watched on, no doubt sipping on drinks and revelling in the satisfaction of having gotten the whole thing absolutely on the money.
Needless to say, McVie was so taken with “cute and tiny” Nicks that at the end of the night she whispered to Mick Fleetwood, “Let’s do this.” Obviously, though, the first real test would be when they actually got together to play for the first time. After all, how many of your mates can you honestly say you’d be able to work with in a professional setting and actually be productive? Well, the first time the new Mac lineup got together, collaborating for a performance of McVie’s song ‘Say You Love Me’, everything fell into place.
How one jam session sealed the future of Fleetwood Mac
That might seem an odd thing to say, considering the band’s own version of harmony, which, as we know, feels far less harmonious than productive friction. But Rumours was a version of the group that had ventured too close to the sun, while the beginning felt more like friends and established musicians who had yet to experience the peak of each other’s fires. For instance, that first ‘Say You Love Me’ run-through felt like pure “magic”. Completely organic and entirely unexpected, according to McVie.
Mostly, this was because, when McVie went into the chorus, Buckingham and Nicks joined in with a harmony that signalled the birth of their signature vocal blend, like the kind of eye-opening moment in a biopic when the band plays for the first time and everything just seems to work, rejuvinating the room like an energy waiting to burst out like some big hidden secret. Only, Fleetwood Mac wasn’t a new band, so the stakes were even higher.
“It just shot off like firecrackers,” McVie recalled in the documentary Songbird. She continued, “When the chorus came, they came in with this incredible three-part harmony. We all got enormous goose bumps. From there we went straight into making [Fleetwood Mac], and the whole experience was this wonderful giant discovery.”
In his book, Fleetwood also described the moment as “extreme magic,” saying that hearing everyone sing together for the first time is “the reason we’re still talking about the album after all this time.”
Fleetwood Mac’s transformation is one of the most unique in music history, but it just goes to show how much the right lineup can change everything: in all fairness, Nicks and Buckingham could have continued without joining the others and still seen some of the same levels of success, but, in that moment, it’s hard to ignore when something just feels right, not just musically but instinctively when looking at the potential of something new, even if it almost destroyed some of them along the way.
