About a month ago, on Oct. 12, Stevie Nicks was the musical guest on Saturday Night Live, where she performed songs she released as a solo artist, including “The Lighthouse” and “Edge of Seventeen.” The performance was, unsurprisingly, great — the dominant stage presence, the vibrant vocals, the unrelenting eye contact; it was all there. Despite all that, in my eyes, there is no Stevie Nicks performance that will ever measure up to her rendition of “Silver Springs” off the deluxe version of Rumours with the rest of Fleetwood Mac at Warner Bros. Studios in May of 1997. Clips from this performance have been heavily circulating on social media in recent years, with people pointing out her withering stare towards the band’s guitarist and Nicks’ ex Lindsey Buckingham, and I can’t help but think of it whenever I hear any Fleetwood Mac song. Although the band released many outstanding songs prior to 1977 (“Emerald Eyes” off the 1973 record Mystery to Me is a favorite of mine), they really hit their stride with Rumours — the album that famously documented a tumultuous time for the members of Fleetwood Mac. During the development of Rumours, Nicks and Buckingham were in the process of breaking up, John and Christine McVie were getting divorced and Mick Fleetwood was preparing to divorce his wife, who was having an affair with a close friend … and to top it off, Nicks and Fleetwood would go on to have a brief affair later that year. Needless to say, those tensions within the group made Rumours what it is, and made the group’s subsequent performances of the album (including that 1997 performance of “Silver Springs”) oh-so-fiery. Thus, I felt compelled to revisit Nicks’ days as part of Fleetwood Mac and give Rumours another listen.
“Second Hand News” sees Buckingham on main vocals and Nicks on backup. This song thematically sets the tone for the album and focuses on Buckingham’s process of moving on from Nicks with other women. Sonically, this song has clearly detectable Scottish and Irish influences and actually features a chair as its percussion instrument. “Second Hand News” is followed by “Dreams,” one of Fleetwood Mac’s most well-known songs. It tells the story of Nicks’ and Buckingham’s breakup from Nicks’ perspective and puts Nicks’ songwriting skills on full display. The turmoil Nicks was experiencing during this time is made obvious through the pure emotion in Nicks’ voice and the beautiful lyrics, as she sings, “Like a heartbeat drives you mad / In the stillness of remembering / What you had and what you lost.” The song was a response to Buckingham’s “Go Your Own Way,” which comes later in the record. Nicks said of the dynamic between the two songs, “Even though ‘Go Your Own Way’ was a little angry, it was honest. So then I wrote ‘Dreams,’ and because I’m the chiffon chick who believes in fairies and angels, and Lindsey is a hardcore guy, it comes out differently. Lindsey is saying go ahead and date other men and go live your crappy life, and [I’m] singing about the rain washing you clean. We were coming at it from opposite angles, but we were really saying the same exact thing.”
“Never Going Back Again” is light on the lyrics, but is a softer turn for the album and involves some intricate guitar to add to Rumours’s technical side. Next is “Don’t Stop,” written by Christine McVie about her divorce from John. McVie said of the song, “‘Don’t Stop’ was just a feeling. It just seemed to be a pleasant revelation to have that ‘yesterday’s gone.’” The instrumentals are a bit redundant at the beginning of the song, but McVie shines here lyrically and vocally.
Finally, we reach “Go Your Own Way,” the flip side to “Dreams.” Buckingham’s uncharacteristically aggressive guitar is undoubtedly a highlight here. Buckingham and Nicks sing the chorus together in an almost painful irony, and the lyrics poked at Nicks too: “I very much resented him telling the world that ‘packing up, shacking up’ with different men was all I wanted to do,” she explained. “Songbird,” is Rumours’s only ballad and features pristine vocals from McVie and a lovely piano backing. Nicks and Buckingham may be the bigger names in Fleetwood Mac, but this song proves that Christine McVie was just as much of a powerhouse as the two of them.
“The Chain,” another iconic track from this record, has a fittingly iconic intro that always reminds me of the soundtrack to a standoff in a western movie. It’s my favorite song on the first edition of this album, with the combined vocal power of Buckingham and Nicks, a killer guitar break and an extremely effective call-and-response style. “You Make Loving Fun” is fun, poppy and almost mystical, gifting listeners with the sound of the gorgeous depth to McVie’s voice, and centers around McVie’s relationship with Fleetwood Mac’s lighting director Curry Grant following the end of her marriage to John. “I Don’t Want to Know” was written by Nicks when she and Buckingham were a duo before their time as members of Fleetwood Mac. Without Nicks’ knowledge at the time, it was chosen to be on the first edition of the album over “Silver Springs” due to its length and was originally recorded without her, with her vocals being added in later.
“Oh Daddy” is very somber and pensive, with McVie singing lyrics like “You know you make me cry / How can you love me / I don’t understand why.” She was the perfect selection for vocals here; her voice sounds positively haunting — perfect for a song like this. “Gold Dust Woman” concludes the album and has one of the album’s strongest choruses, with Nicks, Buckingham and McVie coming together to sing “Well did she make you cry? / Make you break down? / Shatter your illusions of love? / And is it over now? Do you know how? / Pick up the pieces and go home.” Nicks’ vocals are a little throatier than usual and particularly incredible here. I would argue that “Gold Dust Woman” is by far the most underrated song on the album, and listening to it last especially punctuated that for me, as it was left lingering in my head.
All of that to say, the storm brewing within the band during Rumours’s construction is actually what made its success possible. And while I can only imagine what a strain it was for the members of Fleetwood Mac to be thrown together to make such an emotionally vulnerable record with the very people causing their pain, I would be remiss not to thank them; for the pain mixed into this album not only makes for a deliciously angsty listening experience, but also for spectacular performances like that of “Silver Springs.”
Test Spins is a fortnightly throwback column reviewing and recommending classic and underrated albums from the past. It runs every other Friday.
Sydney Levinton is a sophomore in the College of Arts and Sciences. She can be reached at [email protected].