He created the impression that there’s a thread running through the whole thing.” Buckingham’s efforts seem somewhat incongruous, as Dreams’ metaphor-laden words are aimed squarely at him. Christine McVie later explained to Q: “The Lindsey genius came into play and he fashioned three sections out of identical chords, making each section sound completely different. One day, she came back with the (essentially three-chord) song, Dreams. “It became a ‘my way or the highway’ thing with him, which he perfected on the Tusk album.” Part of the rhythm track is Buckingham banging out ‘drums’ on a faux-leather studio chair.Īt Sausalito’s Record Plant there was a converted office/studio room known as ‘Sly Stone’s Pit’ – decorated with plush maroon carpet on the floors, walls and ceiling, a semi-circular black- velvet bed, and Victorian drapes – where Nicks would disappear to tinker on her electric piano. “This was the start of really calling the shots,” Caillat recalled. He wanted a groove that echoed the Bee Gees’ Jive Talkin’. Caillat also said John McVie originally had an “amazing, flowing and melodic bass part”, but the pop-focused Buckingham insisted it was changed for a much simpler quarter-note pattern.
Which makes its birth even more incredible.Įarly on, it was simply known as Strummer (although producer Ken Caillat has suggested Buckingham was at first just keeping the lyrics a secret from Nicks). And rightly so, as Rumours is an adult record. There were certainly few anarchy-chasing UK teens who’d countenance this California slickness by a bunch of ageing, drug-addled hippies.
#FLEETWOOD MAC LIVE 1977 RUMOURS WORLD TOUR FULL#
It came out at the vanguard of punk: The Damned’s Damned Damned Damned, the first full album by a UK punk band, was also released in February 1977. Rumours was dreadfully uncool at the time, of course. The reward for this stoicism, amid such a “classic intergalactic mess” (Fleetwood again), is an estimated 40 million albums sold. “We refused to let our feelings derail our commitment to the music, no matter how complicated or intertwined they became.It was hard to do, but no matter what, we played through the hurt.” – Mick Fleetwood It’s melodically masterful: equal parts dream-pop, concise rock and pristine folk, all produced beautifully. And for that recreation, Rumours is perfect. Yes, there is disharmony – venom even – in its lyrical underbelly, but such things don’t always translate to a sunny-afternoon cruise in a convertible with a car radio blaring. However, their relationship started to grow at the Rolling Stone cover shoot soon after, when all five were shot in bed together by Annie Leibovitz.īut here’s the thing…Rumours doesn’t sound like a troubled record. Stevie Nicks was still dealing with the decline of her relationship with Lindsey Buckingham. But not much had got better on a personal level. When they came out of the studio with Rumours under-arms, they were going to get even bigger. When the members of Fleetwood Mac literally forced themselves to make Rumours under a grim cloud of infighting and powder-snorting, they were already a No. But we didn’t quite realise that until all the songs were strung together.” The album was going to be called Yesterday’s Gone, an apt enough description of crumbling relationships, but it was John McVie who coined the final title, said Christine: “We were all writing journals and diaries about each other. Trau-ma.” That’s how Christine McVie described the making of Fleetwood Mac’s 11th album to Rolling Stone just after its release in 1977, forewarning the world of the one thing that everyone now knows about Rumours – that it’s an album born out of intense strife. Now a 40-million seller that has transcended genre and fanbase, this album’s legend is half-based on the fractious relationships and excess that surrounded its very making… “Art is only a way of expressing pain,” reckoned John Lennon – and with Rumours, Fleetwood Mac took massive hurt and polished it into a tour de force of pop-rock that helped define the 1970s.
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