“Take a hike”: The 1977 Fleetwood Mac song Stevie Nicks was forced to record
The making of Fleetwood Mac‘s classic 1977 album Rumours was one of the most infamously tumultuous experiences in the history of pop music.
Faltering relationships, jealousy, territorial battles, and rampant drug use should have sunk the album before it even started. Still, thanks to the top-shelf material that was included, Rumours turned out to be a legendary piece of late-1970s pop rock. It now resides in the ten best-selling albums of all time list.
Stevie Nicks, like the rest of the group, had her fair share of difficulties during the recording process, but one slight was almost too much. Curiously, it is also viewed by many as an unnecessary slight, especially given that it was the straw that very nearly broke the back of Nick’s lauded involvement with the band.
Toward the end of the album’s recording, Nicks was told that her song ‘Silver Springs’ was going to be cut from the final track listing. The song was perhaps Nicks’ most emotional, personal and beloved track, chronicling her split from Lindsey Buckingham in excruciating detail.
But Mick Fleetwood informed her that at nearly five minutes, the song was too long to be included on the album. Instead, the golden-haired Californian singer was informed that one of her older duets with Buckingham, ‘I Don’t Want To Know’, would be included instead. She was immensely proud of ‘Silver Springs’ and this really stung.
“Before I started to get upset about ‘Silver Springs,’ I said, ‘What other song?’ And he said, ‘A song called ‘I Don’t Want To Know,'” Nicks told the BBC in 1991. “And I said, ‘But I don’t want that song on this record.’ And he said, ‘Well, then don’t sing it.’ And then I started to scream bloody murder and probably said every horribly mean thing that you could possibly say to another human being, and walked back in the studio completely flipped out.”
It’s worth noting that there was plenty of cocaine in the studio that no doubt added to the furore. But one thing seemed certain, Nicks would play no bloody part with this shoddy replacement track.
“I said, ‘Well, I’m not gonna sing ‘I Don’t Want To Know.’ I am one-fifth of this band.’ And they said, ‘’You can either (a) take a hike or (b) you better go out there and sing ‘I Don’t Want To Know’ or you’re only gonna have two songs on the record’.”
For a while, she remained uncertain. Well, uncertain or scorned and stubborn, depending on how you look at it. “So, basically,” Nicks continued, “with a gun to my head, I went out and sang ‘I Don’t Want To Know.’ And they put ‘Silver Springs’ on the back of ‘Go Your Own Way.'” Was it the right choice? Can you hear the strains of a singer who doesn’t want to be there on the album’s ninth track?
Well, we’d at least wager the Nicks’ heartbroken ballad is the better track. Yet, nearly 15 years later, ‘Silver Springs’ once again became a point of contention, so maybe it was always fated to attract controversy.
This time around, it became hotly debated when Nicks wanted to include the song on her 1991 compilation album Timespace. Fleetwood barred her from placing the song on the album since he was intending on putting ‘Silver Springs’ on Fleetwood Mac’s 1992 box set 25 Years – The Chain. Rather than acquiesce to Fleetwood’s choice a second time, Nicks decided to leave Fleetwood Mac.
When the Rumours lineup reunited for 1997’s The Dance, ‘Silver Springs’ found a spot on the band’s setlist. By that point, Nicks’ anger at ‘I Don’t Want To Know’ had dissipated, with the singer appreciating the song on its own merits, removed from the drama surrounding ‘I Don’t Want To Know’.
“I happen to really like that song, and I love singing that song with Lindsey because that was one of our Everly Brothers singing things that was really close and tight and really fun to sing,” Nicks later commented. “So if ‘Silver Springs’ was going to be replaced with anything, ‘I Don’t Want To Know’ was a good replacement.” You can say that again. It’s one of the best Nicks ever wrote. Still, can you really argue with Rumours?
Check out ‘I Don’t Want To Know’ down below.
