The 1987 songs Mick Fleetwood called Christine McVie at her best: “Huge hit singles”
There was nothing that was going to stop Mick Fleetwood from becoming one of the biggest names in rock and roll.
Fleetwood Mac had some of the biggest casualties in the music industry, and yet, looking at the way that Fleetwood handled everything, you would have sworn that he had an ace up his sleeve every single time that he was working on one of their many setbacks. No one was going to get in the way of him making the best tunes that he could, and even when the classic lineup started to falter, there were some songs that came out of the woodwork to become iconic.
If you look at how everyone was behaving in the post-Tusk era, though, it wasn’t like everyone was happy. The wounds that they had from working on their double album never seemed to fully dissolve, and even though they were still able to make nice and have a few decent songs on some of their records, the thought of leaving everything behind for a solo career was starting to look a lot more entertaining for Stevie Nicks.
She had already become the breakout star of the band, and even when working on some of their later works together, it’s not like she and Lindsey Buckingham had the greatest rapport anymore. They weren’t gelling like they used to, but even when the band was at their weakest back in the day, you could always count on Christine McVie to come through with a couple of great songs.
She had been slogging it out for far longer than Buckingham or Nicks had, and when you listen back to those classic records, her songs are the ones that stand out a lot more. ‘Over My Head’ was already helping them gain a following before Rumours even came out, and when you look past all of the relationship drama of their magnum opus, hearing ‘You Make Loving Fun’ really makes you wonder how the hell she isn’t celebrated as much among her musical peers all the time.
That kind of power wasn’t lost on Fleetwood, but he didn’t expect the band to come up with their greatest album when they worked on Tango in the Night. They had spent the past few years going through their own hangups, and while the album cycle did end with Buckingham getting into a fight with Nicks before they went on tour, Christine was right there making tunes like ‘Little Lies’.
And compared to what everyone had been used to, Fleetwood felt that Christine had come through with the greatest songs she had ever made, saying, “It was fine once we all settled in, but it took the rest of us a while to adjust. John, for one, had barely played in the past two years, so it took him a short while to get his chops back. Christine gave us some of the best work she’s ever done, ‘Everywhere’ and ‘Little Lies’, which became huge hit singles.”
There’s a certain magic to those songs, and the fact that ‘Little Lies’ managed to showcase every member of the band was an extra bonus as well. No one could have been able to plan that while they were writing, but when it came to all of Christine’s songs, she was both literally and metaphorically the glue that was holding the rest of the band together at every single opportunity.
Every member brought something new to the table, but Christine was the kind of artist that no one realised Fleetwood Mac needed until she was gone. She had retired years after the album came out, and while Say You Will is a decent foot forward, there were still more than a few times where you’re wondering when someone would have made a song as good as what Christine did.
