The Fleetwood Mac album Stevie Nicks never understood: “I wasn’t part of any of that”
In the eye of the storm of Fleetwood Mac, it was likely hard to see the wood for the trees. Especially during the years when Stevie Nicks, Lindsey Buckingham, Mick Fleetwood and the McVie’s made up the lineup, the band was not only affected by but was creatively fueled by emotional destruction. It was on their minds, hurting their hearts and finding its way into their songs, clouding everything, so it’s no wonder Nicks admitted to never truly understanding one release.
It goes along with the stages of grief or with any emotional response. When Nicks first joined the band, their 1975 self-titled album was born out of that early excitement and optimism that came when the new lineup came together. But by 1977, Rumours was about its destruction. Buckingham and Nicks’ long-term relationship was breaking apart. Having met as mere teenagers in high school, it was bigger than just a split. It was the end of a true partnership but an end that still demanded they go through it and grieve it in the same room. That difficult position led to tracks like ‘Dreams’ and ‘Go Your Own Way’ as the artists processed the situation in real time.
But the immediate blowup is understandable. Everyone, eventually, understands heartbreak. They understand sadness, anger, betrayal. The early reaction to a breakup has been turned into art again and again, but it was after that when Fleetwood Mac were forced to still work within an atmosphere that is pretty unique.
Normally, after a situation that dramatic where the band’s two foundational couples split, the group probably would have dissolved. In the grand history of breakup albums, rarely is there ever a follow-up where the artist and their ex-lover have to come back into the studio and work together again in the strange phase that comes next when they’re somewhat estranged but also tethered in a difficult, often volatile or painful, way.
That was Tusk, the group’s 1979 follow-up. However, the strangeness of Tusk isn’t just emotional, it’s musical too. After the enormous commercial success of Rumours, Buckingham, predominantly, was determined not to be a one-trick pony. “For me, being sort of the culprit behind that particular album, it was done in a way to undermine just sort of following the formula of doing Rumours 2 and Rumours 3, which is kind of the business model Warner Bros. would have liked us to follow,” he explained, instead setting out to make a mammoth double album that combines a whole host of different inspirations.
At the time, Buckingham was getting into post-punk and more left-field sounds. Meanwhile, Nicks wanted to stay on course writing her own brand of moving rock tunes. Add on top of that the fact that the band’s interpersonal relationships were still incredibly fragile and short-fused, and the result is an album and a creaton process that would have been confusing for anyone.
“I didn’t understand Tusk when we were recording it,” Nicks admitted. As Buckingham took the lead on the record, the singer didn’t really feel like getting into the weeds of it all with her ex. She added, “I didn’t really understand the concepts, like the dog biting the leg on the cover. Needless to say, I wasn’t part of any of that.”
But, in the very nature of Tusk being a complex release both musically and emotionally, perhaps that’s what makes it a perfectly odd step in the history of a complex band. “You got that sweetness [from Nicks and McVie] and me as the complete nutcase,” Buckingham said of the release, adding aptly, “That’s what makes us Fleetwood Mac.”
