The vicious songs Fleetwood Mac wrote about each other
The tempestuous streak that Fleetwood Mac experienced both inside and outside of the studio formed the core of their appeal. Real people experience real turbulence, but theirs occurred under the same roof, culminating in a somewhat tug-of-war situation where no one emerged victorious. Nonetheless, the music created was magic, even if it did stem from something resembling a comedic parody.
There are many songs under the hat of Fleetwood Mac that communicate love and longing as the band members grappled with the intensity of their own feelings toward one another. In the beginning, romance pervaded every corner, forging connections and bringing the band together in ways none of them probably deemed possible.
However, then came the volatility that threatened to ruin everything. John and Christine McVie navigated what seems to be a divorce drenched in self-destruction, while Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham escalated their profound love story into one filled with resentment and frustration in what could possibly be deemed the most notorious public break-up in all of history.
While personal relationship issues and breakups often result in musicians throwing in the towel, the members of Fleetwood Mac instead channelled their feelings into their music, for better or for worse. Nicks and Buckingham split just before they started recording Rumours, which, of course, provided the perfect groundwork for an album filled with musical hearsay.
After they broke up, ‘Go Your Own Way’ was Buckingham’s way of calling out Nicks’ promiscuous behaviour, which she of course refuted. In her view, it was nothing more than provocative fabrication, which irked her every time they performed it live. “I wanted to go over and kill him,” she said, understandably pushed to her limits by the accusatory words directed at her.
In response, Nicks hit back with ‘Dreams’. Although most of us view this song as nothing more than a poetic and heartfelt ode to love, it was actually Nicks’ way of telling Buckingham – and the public – her side of the story. The fact that it only took her ten minutes to write also says a lot about her mindset and her emotions, which readily and effortlessly split onto the page in a matter of minutes.
That said, Nick wasn’t offering anything in the way of amicability – ‘Dreams’ is actually pretty cut-throat, as evidenced by the lyrics: “listen to the sound of your loneliness” and “when the rain washes you clean, you’ll know.” It doesn’t necessarily take a wordsmith to translate Nicks’ poetic musings and realise that she was confidently yet respectfully telling Buckingham that the “stillness of remembering” what he once had will haunt him forever.
Transforming her bitterness into some form of empowerment continued on ‘Silver Springs’ as Nicks beautifully constructed a song based on Buckingham’s mishaps. Not only is Nicks grieving a lost fairytale, but she also vows to hex Buckingham with the eternal haunt of her lost love. “Time cast a spell on you, but you won’t forget me / I know I could’ve loved you, but you would not let me,” she sings, promising to “follow you down ’til the sound of my voice will haunt you,” ensuring that he will “never get away from the sound of the woman that loves you.” Chilling.
Going back to their 1979 album Tusk, Buckingham lashed out at Nicks on ‘What Makes You Think You’re the One’, choosing not only to overwhelm her with hurtful comments and questions but also playing up some of her biggest insecurities. The song asks her things like, “What makes you think I’m the one who will love you forever? Everything you do has been done and it won’t last forever.” At the same time, Buckingham’s delivery is vindictive and malicious as he mocks Nicks’ signature vocal style.
Although John and Christine McVie were really no better when it came to spilling secrets and inciting arguments in their songwriting, many of their compositions were more subtle in the way they addressed their relationship problems. This occurred in songs like ‘Oh Daddy’, which Christine penned as a way of acknowledging the calm she felt from Mick Fleetwood amid her divorce.
Christine threaded her personal challenges and musings into a lot of her songwriting, including ‘You Make Loving Fun’, which was inspired by her affair with Curry Grant. To save grace, she told John McVie at the time that the song was about her dog, knowing inside that what she was actually doing was laying all her cards on the table.
Nonetheless, this doesn’t compare to the fiery attacks Nicks and Buckingham directed at each other for all of the world to see. Moreover, Nicks’ angst and anguish was undeniably presented in a much more powerful way than Buckingham’s, mostly due to her occult-ish poeticism and ability to weave her struggles into beautiful ballads that most could resonate with.
