The Fleetwood Mac song inspired by the Bee Gees
Although they set out as a British blues rock group in the late 1960s under the guidance of guitarist Peter Green, Fleetwood Mac metamorphosised through the 1970s into a pop-rock sensation. Central to this transition was the induction of the American power couple, Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks, in 1974.
Deeply inspired by the soft rock stylings of Eagles, Nicks and Buckingham brought a highly accessible dimension to Fleetwood Mac’s material, beginning with the successful 1975 album Fleetwood Mac, which featured classics like ‘Rhiannon’ and ‘Landslide’. This unprecedented commercial success was superseded two years later with the arrival of Rumours.
Fraught with poetic signs of the band’s inner tensions, Rumours was a monumental release of ubiquitous praise, featuring a fine-tuned balance of mournful balladry and upbeat rock-outs. Palpable throughout the record was an air of sexual frustration and anger, which reached a head in telling cuts like ‘Go Your Own Way’, ‘The Chain’ and ‘Second Hand News’.
As the album’s upbeat opener, ‘Second Hand News’ was written by Buckingham as a response to his concurrent breakup with Nicks. At the time, drummer Mick Fleetwood was going through a divorce with his wife, as were John and Christine McVie.
In a 1977 interview with Creem, Nicks discussed the embittered lyrics. “We were all trying to break up, and when you break up with someone, you don’t want to see him,” she noted. “You especially don’t want to eat breakfast with him the next morning, see him all day and all night, and all day the day after…”
In the early stages of its genesis, ‘Second Hand News’ was titled ‘Strummer’. Buckingham’s first demo was a gentler acoustic configuration more akin to ‘Never Going Back Again’. However, when the guitarist, singer and songwriter heard the Bee Gees’ 1975 disco hit ‘Jive Talkin”, he decided to retitle, crank up the rhythm and add denser Celtic textures.
In his 2012 book Making of Rumours, producer Ken Caillat remembered the energetic session from which the song finally materialised. “It looked as if Lindsey was showing Mick how to kill a snake with his bare fists,” Caillat wrote. “He was screaming out the drumbeats with his voice while his arms flailed wildly in rhythm. It was a very young and aggressive drum part, much in keeping with the bass part he wanted to get from John.”
Listen to ‘Fleetwood Mac’s ‘Second Hand News’ and the Bee Gees’ ‘Jive Talkin” below.
