Some albums are so deeply ingrained in the consciousness of all music lovers that they transcend time. Fleetwood Mac’s 1977 album Rumours exemplifies this more than any other record. Its tension has had listeners hooked as long as it’s been released, between the highly publicized breakup of singer Stevie Nicks and guitarist/vocalist Lindsey Buckingham, the divorce of keyboardist/vocalist Christine McVie from bassist John McVie and an affair that transpired between Nicks and drummer Mick Fleetwood. Let’s take a deeper look at the Rumours tracklist to reflect on the revolutionary way that the band portrays heartbreak and infidelity.
The opening track titled “Secondhand News” is sung by Buckingham. Here he sings of his feelings after he and Nicks’ breakup. This segues brilliantly into track two titled “Dreams,” a song led by Nicks that has recently experienced a resurgence in popularity. Both songs discuss a need for freedom and to break away from an obsessive relationship.
The next few songs are led by Buckingham. He swears against going back to speedy post-breakup hookups in “Never Going Back Again” and provides a positive message about what tomorrow can bring with “Don’t Stop.” He sings track five, “Go Your Own Way,” to celebrate the difficult task of forgiveness, moving on and no longer imposing ill will on the people that you’ve broken away from.
In track six, “Songbird,” Christine McVie sings a slow piano ballad about being in love with someone who does not love you back, comparing herself to a caged bird who cannot escape the way she feels about this person. In “The Chain,” every bit of tension that the listener has felt between the band members throughout the album culminates and explodes. Buckingham and Nicks lead with backing vocals from the entire band. The ending guitar solo is fast and intense, and it feels as though the band members are all finally confronting one another, saying the things that they have all been thinking in the form of a song.
The McVie-led, disco-inspired “You Make Loving Fun” celebrates young love, while Buckingham and Nicks sing “I Don’t Want to Know” about not wanting to suppress a former lover’s ability to move on to someone else. McVie takes over again with the slow, dark number “Oh Daddy,” a haunting song about the band’s reliance on Fleetwood, the only member at the time who did not cut longtime ties with another member. This brooding tone carries to “Gold Dust Woman,” the penultimate track which exemplifies the drug-hazed conditions of the album’s recording. It ponders the life and experiences of the women who hung outside of rock shows in the 70s and how their self-destructive habits of drugs and infidelity likely mirrored those of the band’s members.
The 12th and final track of the album did not make the original cut and was only a B-side to “Go Your Own Way.” However, it was placed as the final track of the album in its 2004 remaster, and it comes as a surprise to many that the breathtaking “Silver Springs” could have been a forgotten song. With this song as my favorite to have been recorded by the band, I cannot imagine a world without it as the closing track to Rumours. Nicks ponders her time with Buckingham and whether the pain was worth it. She still loves him, and it shows in the pure agony in her voice in the last minute-and-a-half. There is no greater pain than hearing her cry out, “you will never get away from the sound of the woman that loves you.” It is a triumph in music and an underrated masterpiece.
The general public loves drama. Most people do. We see it in our obsession with reality TV or celebrity breakups. Drama can take these forms, but it can also take the form of one of the most iconic albums of the 70s. Few other bands are known for wearing their internal tension on their sleeve the way that Fleetwood Mac has. They wrote an album about sex, drugs, and rock and roll that does not pretend to be anything else but rather bluntly puts the members’ involvements with one another on public display. That is why just over 44 years since its release, music lovers still hail Rumours as the greatest breakup album ever produced.
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