The “naive” Fleetwood Mac song Lindsey Buckingham will always regret
If there were a guidebook for a band to follow if they wanted a fruitful and enjoyable career that shies away from controversy, it wouldn’t look anything like the path that Fleetwood Mac embarked upon.
Even before they rose to global prominence following the game-changing arrivals of Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks, Fleetwood Mac had already traversed through many road bumps that would have caused most bands to call it quits. They had lost their original leader, Peter Green, and for a number of years had a revolving door policy with band members.
Once the line-up became stable, the story of Fleetwood Mac still continued to play out like a soap opera, but this time on cocaine. The complicated relationships between Buckingham and Nicks, as well as John and Christine McVie, proved to be fertile ground for songwriting. However, it became easy to forget, including for those in the band, that real people could get hurt in their process.
It was a Catch-22 situation. On the one hand, the dynamics between the group, which the masses found beguiling, led to a portion of Fleetwood Mac’s most cherished work. Yet, on the other hand, there were words said, and gestures made that they’d later look back upon with a tinge of regret with the benefit of hindsight.
Buckingham and Nicks’ story dates back many years before they joined Fleetwood Mac. They became friendly in college, performing music together in the group Fritz before forming the duo Buckingham-Nicks. Together, they released one album, which went under the radar upon its release, leaving them in an uncomfortable predicament and unsure of their future.
Fortunately, the record, despite being a commercial failure, caught the attention of Mick Fleetwood, who called to invite them to join Fleetwood Mac. With nothing to lose, Buckingham and Nicks jumped at the opportunity to become part of a successful rock group. A few years later, they seemingly had everything they’d ever wanted from a professional standpoint, but their relationship had crashed and burned.
The breakdown of their relationship played out in song for everyone to hear, such as ‘Never Going Back Again,’ which Buckingham wrote for Rumours. At this stage, they were barely on speaking terms and had gone from lovers to estranged work colleagues.
They both used their relationship woes to fuel their creativity, with Buckingham also writing ‘Go Your Own Way’ and Nicks pouring her heartbreak into ‘Silver Springs’. Admittedly, writing about relationship problems is part and parcel of being an artist, but most people don’t have the subject of their creation playing on the composition.
Years later, while looking back on ‘Never Going Back Again’ with EW, Buckingham admitted that he could have concealed his feelings better on the song, stating: “Lyrically, it was a bit naive, because it was obviously about Stevie. By the time I wrote that, we’d had a few ups and downs, and she’d moved away from me more than once and come back.”
He elaborated on the song’s meaning, “It was about Stevie, and it was also about meeting somebody else. It seemed to reaffirm that there was life after that, and yet, you create this illusion of ‘I was down once or twice, but I’m never going back to that again.’ Which is not really the way it works.”
Buckingham had moved on with someone else, and on ‘Never Going Back Again’, he sang about his ambitions not to repeat the same mistakes he made with Nicks. While this is nothing out of the ordinary for song subjects, the fact that it was about a fellow Fleetwood Mac member did add bundles of extra spiciness and make it even more alluring for fans.
