Johnson

Chelsey Johnson
Mr. Reynolds
MGRP
Jan. 6, 2013
Fleetwood Mac: Nothing but Rumours
Fleetwood Mac is a British and American rock band that was formed by
previous John Mayalls Bluesbreakers, Peter Green, John Mcvie, and Mick
Fleetwood, and Jeremy Spencer. The name Fleetwood Mac came from two of
the members names put together, Mick Fleetwood, and John Mcvie. Jeremy
Spencer did not want to have his name contributed to the name of the band
as if to be considered, Spencer is God. Ironically, Spencer and Green had
the most impact on the group with their gutsy blues sound, with Fleetwood
and Mcvie having less of an impact. McVie had been a charter member of
the Bluesbreakers in 1963, Fleetwood had joined in 1965, and Green had
replaced Eric Clapton in 1966. With its repertoire of blues classics and
Green's blues-style originals, the group's debut at the British Jazz and Blues
Festival in August 1967 netted it a record contract. Fleetwood Mac was
popular in Britain immediately, and its debut album stayed near the top of
the British chart for 13 months. The quartet had hits in the U.K. through
1970, including "Black Magic Woman" and the instrumental "Albatross"
(which was Number One in 1968 and reached Number Four when re released
in 1973). (Serpick). For awhile the band was equal with sales as the Rolling
Stones and the Beatles, but then Green took LSD for the first time and

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started putting all of his money into it. In 1970, Green took LSD for the first
time and beginning a catalog of events that would lead him to attempting to
give all of his money away and culminating him as a schizophrenic, (Brown).
Peter Green had begun to wear crucifixes and long, flowing robes on
stage. Green then told the band that they had too much money and that
they should donate most of it to charity. The band disagreed, saying that
they were hardly scraping by and thought it was just his mind tripping out.
John Mcvie said he initially went along with this plan because "there was no
reason not to." He soon came to his senses when he realized that the
proposition was coming from "a guy who'd just been given lots of
acid,"(Adelson). After his bandmates turned him down he wrote the song,
The Green Manalishi, which is about the evils of money. In May 1970
Green abruptly left the group to follow his ascetic religious beliefs. He stayed
out of the music business until the mid-Seventies, when he made two solo
LPs. His departure put an end to Fleetwood Mac's blues leanings. Danny
Kirwan and Christine Perfect moved the band toward leaner, more melodic
rock. Perfect, who had sung with Spencer Davis in folk and jazz outfits before
joining British blues-rockers Chicken Shack in 1968, had performed
uncredited on parts of Then Play On, but contractual obligations to Chicken
Shack kept her from joining Fleetwood Mac officially until 1971. By then she
had married McVie. (Serpick).
In Early 1971, Jeremy Spencer left the group and joined a religious cult,
The Children of God. Bob Welch joined in, and then Kirwin had a weird

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episode while the band was tuning up. [H]e went flipped out while the band
was tuning up, ran into a bathroom, and smashed his head against a wall
before destroying his guitar, (Perpetua). Kirwin was replaced with Bob
Weston and Dave Walker. Both did not last long. Bob Weston, was fired after
conducting an affair with Mick Fleetwoods wife, (Brown). In 1974, the
group relocated to California and after all of this, this is when Fleetwood Mac
found its greatest line-up. Producer Keith Olsen played an album he
engineered, Buckingham-Nicks, and the Fleetwood Mac hired not only Olsen,
but Lindsey Buckingham, and Stevie Nicks. Olsen played Frozen Love from
the album Buckingham Nicks to show Fleetwood how the room would sound.
Fleetwood not only liked the way the room sounded but loved how the
guitarist sounded, Lindsey Buckingham, and he had to have him. So, on New
Years Eve, 1974, Fleetwood called up Buckingham and asked if he wanted to
join into the band. He said yes, but he would have to take his girlfriend,
Stevie with too. Together they racked up five million in sales.
In 1976, Fleetwood Mac members were variously losing their minds to
LSD, joining religious cults, and a casual affair with a bandmates wife. With
the five left that survived the mess, Rumours was their last chance for a
success, and all of them were in a heartbroken agony over each other.
Bassist John Mcvie and singer Christine Mcvie came into the studio at the
point of a divorce, and when Christine started dating one of the lighting
directors did not help any of that out. They handled that situation in silence,
except Christine wrote the song, Dont Stop, stating over repeatedly,

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yesterdays gone, yesterdays gone. She also wrote the song You make
loving fun, about her new relationship. Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie
Nicks with their relationship no longer intact, would constantly yell at each
other, and the only time they would stop, was in the recording studio. But,
Buckinghams song, Go your own way, stung even harder.

'Loving you
Isn't the right thing to do
How can I ever change things
That I feel
If I could
Maybe I would give you my world
How can I
When you won't take it from me
You can go your own way'

The studio became a madhouse and time began to vanish, especially

after Fleetwood took all the clocks out, and the band became consumed by
alcohol, cocaine, and other drugs.
In 1977, the Mcvies, married for seven years, divorced, Buckingham
and Nicks separated, and Fleetwood was in the midst of divorce with his wife,
while conducting an on-off affair with Stevie Nicks. The tensions of the two

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years between albums helped shape the songs on Rumours (Number One,
1977), which would sell over 17 million copies, win the Grammy for Album of
the Year, and spawn the 1977 hits "Go Your Own Way" (Number 10),
"Dreams" (Number One), "Don't Stop" (Number Three), and "You Make Loving
Fun" (Number Nine), (Serpick). But what added immeasurably to its appeal
was the tangled and incestous mess that the album chronicled, (Brown).
The song Dreams, wrote by Stevie Nicks, was originally just three
chords. Christine thought the whole song was just boring. When Stevie first
played it for me on the piano, it was just three chords and one note in the left
hand, McVie told Q in 1997. I thought, This is really boring, but the
Lindsey genius came into play and he fashioned three sections out of
identical chords, making each section sound completely different. He created
the impression that theres a thread running through the whole thing,
(Perpetua). Dreams became one of their biggest hits.

Its Christmas Eve and we are opening presents over at the

Mattisons. Jake opens his present that I gave him to see two
tickets to Fleetwood Mac inside of an envelope. Fleetwood Mac is
one of his favorite bands of all time. As he sees the two tickets
inside, you can tell by the look on his face that he is excited.
Are these tickets for you and me? he asks in a rush.
Yes of course! My parents will bring us to the cities and
just me and you will go to the concert."

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Sweet, he says looking down at the tickets.

After Rumours, Lindsey Buckingham thought the band needed a

change up. They group worked in the studio for 13 months, Lindsey taking
the lead on things, trying to come up with a new sound, and not trying to be
beat out by the new upcoming bands. Mick Fleetwood suggests that the riff
that Buckingham always plays while doing soundcheck could be something,
then he added that they should maybe do it with a live brass band. Tusk,
which is featured prominently and often in the premiere of FXs The
Americans tonight, is a work of strange savagery, overlaid with jungle sounds
and a thudding, endlessly repetitive drum riff that drives everything that
happens in the song, (VanDerWerff). The studio suggested that they just do
another album like Rumours, because it was such a hit. The band was
furious, especially Lindsey Buckingham. They do otherwise, and go to the
USC marching band and record live there,makes it one of Fleetwood Macs
very best, yet also easily its strangest song to hit on the charts,
(VanDerWerff).
Mirage was released in 1982, it lacked the emotions like there were in
Rumours, and didnt have the ambition like in Tusk. The most disappointing
thing to me after Tusk was the politics in the band,Buckingham admits
today. They said, Were not going to do that again. I felt dead in the water
from that. On Mirage, I was treading water, saying, Okay, whatever, and

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taking a passive role. For me, none of the albums after Tusk quite had it. I
think we lost something after that.Christine McVie has no doubt what is
was they had mislaid. Mirage was an attempt to get back into the flow that
Rumours had. But we missed a vital ingredient. That was the passion, she
confesses bluntly,(Williamson).
Between their next album, Nicks was extremely addicted to cocaine.
Id never felt so tired in my life, she recalls. When I joined the band,
the rocknroll life was a shock to my system. Its so intense and so heavy
and being like Fleetwood Mac was like being in the Army. I was doing a lot of
drugs just to get me through to the next thing. I dont remember how much
we did. But we spent an awful lot of money on it, (Williamson). Nicks hit
rock bottom and decided to check herself into Betty Ford Clinic before she
wasted away. When I walked through those doors at Betty Ford and they
searched me and took away all my stuff, it was like, OK Im never doing
THAT again because Im never coming back to a place like this,
(Williamson). But, nobody believed that she had recovered and strongly
suggested she go and see a physiatrist. She went thinking that it was the
only way that her friends would believe that she was done with the cocaine.
He subscribed her Klonopin, a tranquilizer, two little blue pills. She soon
became addicted. He gave me two little blue pills. One at morning and one
at night. Within a couple of months that turned into four little blue pills. Then
it became 15 blue pills. He kept increasing my dose. I was in there every two
weeks for an hour and he watched me grow heavier and the light went out in

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my eyes. If I started to run out, I would start to shake so hard people would
stare at me. I thought I had Parkinsons disease. I was sick and high and
miserable and overweight. I knew I was going to die, (Williamson). Finally
one day Nicks realized she could not keep going now the way she was. She
called her manager and told him to bring her to the hospital, where she was
detoxed.
Meanwhile, through all of this, Fleetwood Mac was trying to record their
new album Tango in the Night in 1987. Nicks had already been addicted to
the tranquilizer for a year, and Mick Fleetwoods drug abuse, causing him to
always make him fall asleep, made it difficult for the band to record songs.
Buckingham was again at the lead and in charge, putting six of his songs
that were going to go on his own solo album to help out the band. With Nicks
only contributing two songs, and Christine Mcvie three. All of this directly
contributed to the showdown in August 1987 when Buckingham walked out
of the band, seemingly for good. When I was done with the record, I said,
Oh my God. That was the worst recording experience of my life. And
compared to making an album, in my experience, going on the road will
multiply the craziness by times five. I just wasnt up for that. I needed to pull
out of the machine and try to maintain a level of integrity for the work that
wasnt about the scale or the sales, (Williamson).
To replace Buckingham, the band recruited two guitarists to take his
spot, Rick Vito and Billy Burnette. Together they recorded the album Behind
the

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Mask. It was unsuccessful, and after that Christine and Stevie left the band.
Mcvie and Nicks were replaced with Bekka Bramlett, and Dave Mason, to
record the album Time. This album was even more unsuccessful than Behind
the Mask. But, after Bill Clinton was using Dont Stopas his presidential
campaign, the Rumours group got back together to perform at his inaugural
address.
Five years later in 1997, the Rumours group came back together again
to record The Dance, a live document of an MTV concert and four additional
new songs. They performed their songs from the album Rumours and
performed songs, My Little Demon, Bleed to Love Her, and played Tusk,
with a live set of trumpeters. The live casting went to cd and dvd.

Why dont you ask him if hes going to stay

Why dont you ask him if he is going away
Why dont you tell me whats going on
Why dont you tell me who is on the phone

Flash forward a couple months and we are driving down to to

the cities, the day after Prom. We leave at 5 in the morning
after being up until 2 that same day. Both of us are too excited
to sleep in the car and we listen to Fleetwood Macs cd Rumours
all the way there. When we get to the Xcel Energy Center, all we

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10

see are older people. I expected just that since the band is
pretty old, but we were the youngest ones there, and we certainly
looked out of place. Especially when we started walking down to
the floor seats.
Jake and I took our seats only to stand up a few moments
later to see Fleetwood Mac come out onto stage. The whole place
erupts into screams and applause and I look around.
Jake turns to me and says, The place has to be sold out. I
shake my head in agreement. All the seats on the floors, you
cant see a single seat open. Even the the nosebleeds way at the
top. I was surprised.
The band starts playing Second Hand News, and the whole
crowd seems to get louder with excitement. Everyone on the floor
is dancing and the whole place has to be singing. They somehow
sound better than they do now than they did on the cd. I dont
know if its just because it is live or if it is because they are
actually just performing better. And, I think to myself, this has
got to be the best concert I will ever go to.

'I know you're hoping to find

Someone who is going to give you a piece of mind
When times go bad
When times go rough

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Won't you lay down in the tall grass

And let me do my stuff
I'm just second hand news

They keep playing and playing, Fleetwood going crazy on the

drums, Buckingham with those vocals and guitar, and you cant
forget Stevie. She will always be my favorite. The way she sings
with such emotional and dances around with her black shawls. Her
voice so original, no one else can take her place. They play
their last encore song, Say Goodbye, after already having an
encore and coming out and playing two other songs.
I turn to Jake, What was your favorite song?
Probably The Chain, what was yours?
I smile, I honestly dont know. So how come thats your
favorite song?
Well the meaning behind it, and they all have a solo. I
dont know, its just kinda cool.

The song The Chain, is about the band's commitment to staying

together through all of their personal arguments. All five of the bandmates
had their own solo in the song and are credited to it with writing it. The song
was created by putting together three different songs.

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Damn your love

Damn your lies
Break the silence
Damn the dark
Damn the light
And if
You don't love me now
You will never love me again
I can still hear you saying
You would never break the chain

When the band marked its 20th year anniversary of Rumours, it went
on a world tour. Although Christine McVie didnt enjoy the touring rigmarole
and announced that she had come to the end of the road, the rest of the
band found that time had proved a great healer. Looking back, its like
listening to war stories, Mick Fleetwood jokes. But you have to remember
there were people yelling in pain with their legs shot away. Theres blood and
guts and disagreements still to this day. But thats what makes it mean a
shit,(Williamson). The band sold 25 million copies of Rumours, making it
one of the most popular rock bands in history.

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Works Cited
Adelson, Martin. Peter Green. N.p.: The Penguin, n.d. Web. 6 Jan. 2014.
Brown, Mick. Fleetwood Mac: Sex, Drugs, Fear and Loathing. N.p.: The
Telegraph, n.d.
N. pag. Web. 6 Jan. 2014.
Perpetua, Matthew. 19 Things You Did Not Know About Fleetwood Mac.
N.p.:
Buzzfeed, 2013. Web. 6 Jan. 2014.

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Serpick, Evan. Fleetwood Mac Biography. N.p.: Rolling Stones, n.d. Web. 6
Jan. 2014.
VanDerWerff, Todd. Fleetwood Macs strangely Savage Tusk was the Bands
Weirdest
Hit. N.p.: A.V. Club, 2013. Web. 6 Jan. 2014.
Williamson, Nigel. Fleetwood Mac: Everybody was Pretty Weirded Out-The
Story of
Rumours. N.p.: Uncut, 2003. Web. 6 Jan. 2014.