The Fleetwood Mac classic Lindsey Buckingham waited until the last minute to sing: “There were some other words”
When it comes to messy band dynamics, there are few that top the chaotic relationships between the five members of Fleetwood Mac circa the release of Rumours in 1977. With two sets of romantic relationships on the rocks and those involved in said breakups moving swiftly onto forming relationships with other band members, the entire fabric of the band was poised to tear apart at any moment, and it’s a miracle that they managed to even release Rumours at all, let alone release an album of such a high calibre.
To break down everything that was going on in the confusing Fleetwood Mac love pentagon, the eight-year marriage of Christine and John McVie broke down, with Christine having an affair with the band’s lighting technician, while recently-appointed members Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks were having relationship issues between themselves, which drummer Mick Fleetwood managed to squeeze himself into by having a fling with Nicks, although this didn’t take place until after the recording of Rumours.
Regardless of when this carousel of romance took place, it can’t have been a particularly healthy work environment to be in. John McVie supposedly named the album Rumours because of the fact that there was plenty of gossip in the news about the band’s inner turmoil, with the band’s bassist going as far to say the behind-the-scenes of the album’s creation was “like a fucking soap opera.”
As mentioned, Rumours turned out to be a masterpiece and quickly became their most successful album despite all of the trouble that surrounded it. However, in the studio, things were subject to change at the drop of a hat due to the band’s inability or refusal to communicate with one another, or indeed be present in the same room as each other.
Because each of the members was writing songs about their failing relationships and marriages, a number of the lyrics on the record are incredibly personal and wouldn’t have sounded right if sung by another member of the band. One particular last-minute change that Fleetwood divulged in a 2021 interview with Classic Rock was that ‘Go Your Own Way’ didn’t originally have any lyrics, and that Buckingham was instead singing the notes of the melody as a placeholder.
When penning the lyrics directly referencing the breakup between Buckingham and Nicks, he opted for a stream-of-consciousness approach where he laid all of his feelings bare on the song. Fleetwood told the magazine: “I don’t think Lindsey sang the vocal to ‘Go Your Own Way’ in the studio until just before the album came out. There were some other words or something.”
Things were evidently so fractured that it was even a struggle to get the right words written for songs that precisely conveyed the emotional struggles of the individual band members, but Buckingham’s eventual approach of singing whatever came to him in the moment made for a much more emotionally weighty set of lyrics. Nobody has ever questioned the lyrical content of ‘Go Your Own Way’ for being rushed, and the way things fortuitously fell together is indicative of how it all seemed to be the best approach for the song.
