The album that made Christine McVie leave Fleetwood Mac: “I just bailed”
The entire atmosphere in Fleetwood Mac must have felt like pure hell for Christine McVie every single time she entered the studio.
There were many times where any one of the band members would have wanted to quit during the making of Rumours, but the fact that Christine managed to stay the course despite her husband John constantly drinking and getting out of hand was practically a small miracle, and that’s before even getting to Lindsey Buckingham’s behaviour. But even with all of that baggage going into that album, she did have her limits whenever it came to making new music.
Then again, you would have sworn that they were one of the greatest bands in the world when they first came together. ‘The Mac’ had been searching for the right sound for ages before they got everything right, but when Buckingham and Stevie Nicks first joined the group, Christine knew from the minute that ‘Say You Love Me’ started that they had hit on something much more magical than they had ever played before.
And even when things started to go sideways, there was always room for her to find her own voice. Tusk was always going to be a bit of a mess, but even when they stumbled their way into the 1980s, Christine was the one having the most success. Not everyone might have liked the new era of the band by any stretch, but even with all of the synthesised sounds, ‘Everywhere’ and ‘Little Lies’ are still some of the greatest songs that the band has ever made in any decade.
But once Buckingham left the fold, it was always going to be a little bit bumpy. He and Nicks had reached a boiling point, and although the band could still manage without him, it’s not like something wasn’t missing when working on Behind the Mask. Billy Burnette and Rick Vito didn’t have the same kind of magic that Buckingham did, and when Nicks left before they began work on Time, Christine had finally had enough.
Granted, can you really blame her when listening to the record? None of the songs are necessarily bad per se, but given how Bekka Bramlett was subbing in for Nicks at the time, the whole project felt like a facsimile of what Fleetwood Mac was supposed to be. It did have the same rhythm section as the original lineup, but even when she was turning in her songs, Christine figured that it was time for her to step away from the band for good.
And now with her and bandmate Dave Mason butting heads, there was no reason for Christine to stick around much longer, saying, “I just didn’t show up. I left Mick and John holding the baby. I couldn’t bear watching it all fall apart. And I couldn’t keep peace with Dave Mason, I’m afraid. It was very acrimonious with him and I just bailed. Mick and John were OK. Also, I was tired of living out of a suitcase, tired of travelling. I’d been doing it longer than Stevie and Lindsey and I’d just had enough.”
To her credit, though, her songs on Time are some of the best pieces of the album by a long shot. She had never lost her ear for hooks, but even on any other Fleetwood Mac project, her songs would have been considered a bit of filler in between the heavy hitters. But when all he had to compete with was a meagre attempt to sound like Fleetwood Mac and a song where Mick Fleetwood delivers spoken-word poetry, it’s not like they had much else to work with.
Say You Will may have brought back Buckingham and Nicks into the fold nicely, but it’s a shame to think that this was the final official album that Christine ever worked on with the band. She had so much more to offer, but on Time, the audience got to hear the sound of what a band is experiencing when they are officially out of ideas.
