The song Lindsey Buckingham thought Mick Fleetwood “had nothing to do with”
Songwriting royalties can often be the reason why so many bands end up calling it quits. It might be fun trying to put together a song with your bandmates, but when it comes time to get the checks for your hard work, it can become a bit of an issue when you start arguing about how much of a cut you think you deserve over someone who just wrote a handful of lines. While it was normally clear which member of Fleetwood Mac wrote every track, Lindsey Buckingham didn’t really think Mick Fleetwood did enough work to be given credit for ‘The Chain’.
At the same time, it’s kind of a hard argument when the person who got credit is literally on the marquee before people even walk into the venue. Fleetwood was the only member of Fleetwood Mac to be part of every iteration of the group, and the fact that he was the de facto leader of the band meant that he had the final say in any of the bigger decisions.
When shopping around demos for Rumours, though, ‘The Chain’ was barely even a song. There was a demo of something called ‘Keep Me There’ with Christine McVie singing and it did contain John McVie’s iconic bassline, but something was missing. After Buckingham began adding his signature fingerpicking licks and Stevie Nicks wrote lyrics for the verse, the track went from a mid-tempo ballad into one of the most kickass pieces of their career.
While it might have been meant as a joke, ‘The Chain’ is actually one of the greatest cases of band democracy in the group’s career. Everyone was giving it their all. The fact that they put together a chain of different ideas and managed to make it work was impressive enough but not conducive to a drummer’s credit.
According to Buckingham, Fleetwood was the one person who didn’t really deserve a writing credit, saying, “There was some case to be made for it to be a valid enough contribution as to deserve songwriting credit. I can’t honestly say that Mick had anything to do with writing the song. But we did give credit to all members of the band.”
Then again, Fleetwood should be given his just due as an overseer of what the group had been doing. Since drums don’t lend themselves to any composition unless there’s a piano or guitar in front of it, Fleetwood’s main contribution to the band was always about working as the boss behind songs, usually trying to find ways to twist the piece so that it sounded terrific rather than stuck in demo purgatory.
Let’s just look at another “songwriting” drummer over the years: Lars Ulrich. Ulrich may not known how to play a guitar to save his life, so why does he get credit for Metallica songs? Well, because of his knowledge of how hooks work. Even though he might not know the mechanics behind a guitar riff like ‘Enter Sandman’, he knew restructuring Kirk Hammett’s original riff of the track made it sound a lot more beefy.
The same applies here with Fleetwood. He may not have much to do with the actual composition, but the way he arranges the tracks is a form of songwriting on its own. You can try to compete with everyone when they’re playing their own instruments, but if you don’t know how to keep your eyes on the big picture, you’re lost in the woods.
