The 1982 Fleetwood Mac song Christie McVie adored most: “A very beautiful record”
At the start of the 1980s, Fleetwood Mac found themselves in a relatively good place by their standards, even if it would have been chaos for most other bands.
After the Tusk experiment, it was clear to everyone involved that the band needed a break. Therefore, they had a year away, which allowed Stevie Nicks, Lindsey Buckingham, and Mick Fleetwood to release solo albums, using their creative juices for projects outside of the Fleetwood Mac bubble for the first time in years.
This pause meant that each of them got ideas out of their system that didn’t necessarily align with where they wanted Fleetwood Mac to go. They now had these other vessels by their side for when they wanted to explore their adventurous side, while Fleetwood Mac could return to making the brand of music that made them the biggest band in the world.
With Mirage, they did play it safe compared to Tusk, but it did result in a string of classic tracks, even if it’s not many people’s favourite overall Fleetwood Mac album.
For the recording process, they convened at Château d’Hérouville in France and started a bright, new chapter in their career as they moved past the problems which had previously held a dark cloud over them. As they were isolated from the real world during this time, the band needed to enjoy each other’s company for entertainment, and the experience helped bring the group back together.
As much as it wasn’t all smiles and non-stop laughs, the French countryside proved to be a far cry from the madness and mayhem of Los Angeles, which is precisely what they needed at that moment in time.
From a personal perspective, for McVie, her contribution ‘Hold Me’ was a stand-out, but it wasn’t her favourite from Mirage. Instead, that honour belongs to ‘Gypsy’, written by Nicks and chosen as the follow-up single to ‘Hold Me’. The track was initially planned to be a solo song on her debut album, 1980’s Bella Donna, but didn’t make the cut before eventually finding a suitable home on Mirage.
When Nicks wrote the song, she was a vital part of one of the biggest bands in the world, selling millions of records and playing in arenas. Yet, part of her yearned for her previous life before the success and admiration that she romanticised about on ‘Gypsy’.
Explaining the inspiration behind the song, Nicks told EW in 2009: “In the old days, before Fleetwood Mac, Lindsey [Buckingham] and I had no money, so we had a king-size mattress, but we just had it on the floor. I had old vintage coverlets on it, and even though we had no money, it was still really pretty… Just that and a lamp on the floor, and that was it—there was a certain calmness about it.”
She concluded: “To this day, when I’m feeling cluttered, I will take my mattress off of my beautiful bed, wherever that may be, and put it outside my bedroom, with a table and a little lamp.”
With the help of Fleetwood Mac, Nicks turned the deeply personal ‘Gypsy’ into a classic that connected with the masses on a universal scale. For McVie, it undoubtedly represented the high point of Mirage, with the singer telling Rolling Stone in 2016: “I think ‘Gypsy’ stands out clearly as the best track on the album. Without a doubt.”
McVie continued: “I just think the whole song came together in a very cohesive way. It’s very musical. Very melodic. All the parts are right. It’s just a very beautiful record. And, of course, that video – I know the record company spent a lot of money on it.”
While McVie didn’t personally write ‘Gypsy’, she, along with the rest of Fleetwood Mac, transformed a demo deemed too weak to earn a place on Bella Donna into a classic, which sits among the pantheon of the band’s best work. It’s utterly catchy and a constant hit. Whether you’re into the old era or the new, it somehow captures the spirit of the band.
As much as each member of Fleetwood Mac was accomplished when they stepped out in their own right, ‘Gypsy’ is proof that they were more than the sum of their parts when they came together.
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