Lindsey Buckingham’s favourite Fleetwood Mac guitar riffs: “It just all came out in the studio”
Fleetwood Mac’s place in rock and roll history books can be attributed to a number of reasons: diverse vocal talent, crafty songwriting, or even the compelling storylines that backdropped much of their career. But Lindsey Buckingham’s guitar playing gets largely overlooked. For the band’s rhythm section holds much of the discography’s instrumental prowess and Buckingham’s role as chief songwriter and experimenter overshadowed any isolated praise for his instrumental performances.
However, Buckingham’s guitar playing is an integral part of many of the band’s most recognisable and iconic songs. While their iconic album Rumours won praise for many of the aforementioned reasons, namely the songwriting craft that drew influence from real-life drama, there are tracks where Buckingham’s guitar playing would have stood out more in a different context.
In 2021, Buckingham released a self-titled solo album that foregrounded his much-loved finger-picking melodies in a more individual studio environment. However, the hallmarks of his career before are echoing right across the record, with celestial melodies that sound like the ghost of Stevie Nicks. Speaking of the album and, in particular, the track ‘On The Wrong Side’, Buckingham ruminated on the process of creating these songs individually. “You can make connections between ‘On the Wrong Side’ and ‘Go Your Own Way’ in terms of tone, vocals, and guitar solos. But working with the band is a more conscious, verbalised process.”
For Buckingham, the process of being in the band was always a tough one: “When I’m in the studio by myself, it’s like painting,” he said. “All of those touches in [this song] revealed themselves as time went by—the sense of what you can discover is more nuanced. You don’t have to have as clear a notion of what the song is. You have to know your melody and structure before you present it to another group of people, but if you go in with a general idea, things will reveal themselves incrementally to you.”
Perhaps, unfortunately for Buckingham, much of his commercial success as a musician came with the five other members of Fleetwood Mac, who fate decided he was inextricably artistically linked to. The warring ideals of the band are what made their sound so compelling, for the darkness in their otherwise dreamy sound was injected by Buckingham’s caustic approach to guitar playing.
Lindsey Buckingham’s favourite Fleetwood Mac riffs:
‘I’m So Afraid’
In his first studio record with Fleetwood Mac, their 1975 self-titled album, Buckingham was gaining an understanding as to how his finger-picking approach could tie into their pre-established blues rock identity. What resulted in this particular song is an exploration of open space, with Mick Fleetwood’s minimalist drum beat making way for brooding vocal and guitar parts that sound like two birds circling their prey.
After Buckingham artistically understands his place in the band, he descends into a transcendent solo that, if explored further, could have opened the door to a prog-rock Rumours in ’77. Speaking to Entertainment Weekly, Buckingham spoke about the performance as a direct mirroring of his experience joining the band: “It was an exploration into two things. One, into the use of a guitar as a very orchestral thing with a triad of melody going on. And then, the unleashing of the solo at the end, which grew into epic proportions over the years on stage…. It also addressed the yin-yang of having confidence and having faith that you have something to offer in a somewhat tenuous environment that is the entertainment industry, And yet, there’s always a fear underneath that.”
‘The Chain’
On what many argue is the record’s finest track, ‘The Chain’, Buckingham carries out the song on a climactic guitar solo that feels like an act of instrumental catharsis during an album that was bubbling at the surface up until that point. Buckingham confirmed the duality between real-life emotion and the end sonic result: “It just all came out in the studio when we were recording,” he said. “A lot of the emotion of those moments like that solo are very connected to what we were living.”
He continued, “The thing about ‘The Chain’ is, yes, it’s a signature piece of ours”.
He added, “But it’s also the spirit of the song, and the content lyrically is very much in keeping with the legacy we built over a long period of time of always being able to rise above the difficulties in order to fulfil a greater destiny, so there was always a chain.”
‘The Chain’s guitar part is traditionally head-turning; plugged in and reverberated; it crescendoes as all good solos do before inciting a head-banging flourish. But Buckingham shows his range elsewhere on the album, instrumentally leading it through its exploration of ever-changing emotions.
‘Never Going Back Again’
The record’s third track ‘Never Going Back Again’ is a well-crafted folk-rock song perfectly made for the flurrying vocal harmonies of both Buckingham and Stevie Nicks to live. With the rhythm section completely stripped away, it’s the album’s shining example of Buckingham’s guitar-playing ability.
Speaking about the track, he said, “I was getting back in touch with the finger-picking style I had used on the Buckingham-Nicks album”.
He continued, “Once the first wave of rock & roll started to ebb, folk music became a really big part of my style. It was another reason I never really got into using a pick. [This song] was a manifestation of that style where I wanted to bring the orchestral fullness and completeness of a single guitar to a song and have it carry the track in total.”
Ever the experimenter, the framework Buckingham set out in Fleetwood Mac’s seminal album was to be quickly abandoned in their following albums. While the overall composition of future tracks felt different, there was still a distinct sense of Buckingham that could be traced back to songs like ‘Never Going Back Again’.
‘Big Love’
On their 1987 record Tango In The Night, they open with a fast-paced finger-picking ballad that sees Buckingham charge a folkier sound deep into the more cosmic 1980s environment. It’s an accomplished performance from Buckingham and even more impressive when paired with the much slower vocal line he sings on top. Recorded, the track is an emphatic ensemble piece that balances rhythm, harmony and intricate guitar melodies. But live, it’s been altered and has since become a performance of isolation, with Buckingham standing alone on stage with nothing but his finger picking and vocals to carry the song.
“‘Big Love’ started off as a completely different song,” he says. “The track was still based around that finger-picking part, but it wasn’t focused in such a clear-cut and singular way…By the time we got back together in ’97 to do The Dance album, I had [emphasised] my fingerstyle, which is very orchestral and has the potential to be a complete statement on its own without any other instruments. I’ve made my fingers bleed on numerous occasions.”
At their best, Buckingham’s guitar parts often feel at war with the band’s broader sound. The idyllic harmonies often seem to be glaring at the guitar melodies from the side of their eye as they shock through the band’s sonic dream state. This tumultuous relationship ultimately ended in the split of Buckingham and Fleetwood Mac as a band.
‘Tusk’
It’s a record that splits opinion amongst Fleetwood Mac fans. A stark departure from the dream-pop of Rumours, the album and lead single saw Buckingham grab the torch with both hands and run into the darkness of big band production. As a visionary, it’s no wonder he holds the guitar performance in this track in high regard, for it’s less of a statement instrumental section and more an important sum of a wider part.
Fleetwood’s drumming arguably takes centre stage, while Buckingham’s riff keeps the song’s blood pumping, giving way to the energetic vocal and horn ad-libs. So it makes sense that the song’s genesis was from the guitar melody, which Buckingham was reportedly encouraged to pursue by Fleetwood:
“I expounded on that once we were in the studio,” he added. “The [USC Trojan] marching band was the completion of the song by a long shot. It made the whole thing come together as a unique piece.”
Perhaps the memory of the riff as oppose to the musicality is revered by Buckingham, who looks back fondly on the bands experimental endeavours in 1979.
“I was very interested in confounding external expectations, not bowing to those expectations and starting to paint ourselves into a corner creatively by continuing to try to make Rumours 2 or 3,”. He continued, “For that reason, not just the song ‘Tusk,’ but the album Tusk is probably my favourite album. Not necessarily for the music, but for why we did it—and it set me off on this alternative path that was a tightrope to walk between the big machine of Fleetwood Mac and the small machine of solo work that followed.”
