This is not just a record. This is a season-long prestige drama disguised as vinyl. Everyone involved was emotionally combusting. Couples splitting. Affairs happening. Resentments marinating. Cocaine doing parkour. And somehow out of that absolute carnage came one of the smoothest, catchiest, most devastating pop rock albums ever created.
That is what makes Rumours so deranged. You can dance to songs that are literally breakup letters addressed to the person singing backing vocals two feet away. You can hum along while listening to people air grievances in real time. Petty but poetic. Wounded but immaculate. Chaotic but clinically well-produced.
Every track is a different stage of romantic collapse. Defensive optimism. Prophetic calm. Furious ultimatums. Tender pleading. Jealous denial. Witchy paranoia. Loyalty through gritted teeth. Rebound joy with consequences.
Put this album on and suddenly you are eavesdropping on the most talented friend group argument in history.
Okay. Deep breath. Side one.
1. Second Hand News
Lindsey opens the album doing the musical equivalent of insisting he is absolutely fine while aggressively reorganising a bookshelf.
The track is sprightly. Acoustic guitar bouncing around like nervous energy. Tempo brisk. Mood deceptively sunny. Meanwhile the lyrics are quietly radioactive. Go be with someone else then. I am chill. Completely chill. Totally not devastated. Textbook breakup denial with a metronome.
I know there’s nothin’ to say
Fleetwood Mac, “Second Hand News”
Someone has taken my place
When times go bad
When times go rough
Won’t you lay me down in tall grass
And let me do my stuff
What makes it delicious is the contrast between sound and sentiment. The melody smiles while the words bristle. It feels like emotional damage delivered with jazz hands. The guitar part skitters forward like thoughts racing at 2 AM while you rehearse imaginary conversations in the shower.
As an opener, it is diabolical. It immediately establishes the album’s central tension. Everyone is hurt. Everyone is pretending otherwise. Everyone is using melody as armour.
2. Dreams
And then Stevie walks in, lowers her voice to a silk-wrapped whisper, and calmly destroys everyone.
This is not anger. This is inevitability. The drums move in slow, circular loops. The chords drift. Her vocal floats above it all like she has already emotionally checked out and is now narrating your regret from another postcode.
This song is a breakup prediction, not a breakup argument.
Oh, thunder only happens when it’s rainin’
Fleetwood Mac, “Dreams”
Players only love you when they’re playin’
Say women, they will come and they will go
When the rain washes you clean, you’ll know
The power is in its restraint. No yelling. No pleading. Just certainty. You will miss me when I am gone. Said so gently it lands harder. It feels like someone delivering devastating news while maintaining perfect posture.
The repetition is hypnotic, almost spell-like. By the time it ends, you feel slightly suspended, as though the floor has shifted under your feet without warning.
Cold. Elegant. Unbothered. Legendary behaviour.
3. Never Going Back Again
WHIPLASH but make it acoustic virtuosity.
This track is tiny in length but enormous in attitude. The fingerpicking is absurdly intricate, bouncing and skipping like liberation incarnate. It sounds like emotional luggage being wheeled straight out the door.
She broke down and let me in
Made me see where I’ve been…
You don’t know what it means to win
Fleetwood Mac, “Never Going Back Again”
Come down and see me again
Lyrically, it is blunt. I am not doing this again. I have learned. I am gone. No metaphors. No cushioning. Boundary-setting speedrun.
What makes it fascinating is how light it feels compared to the bitterness around it. This is the moment in a breakup where the sadness flips into adrenaline. When you realise staying hurts more than leaving and suddenly the future feels aerodynamic.
Two minutes of freedom fantasy. Blink and it is over. But psychologically? Massive.
4. Don’t Stop
Christine enters with the keyboard and the sunshine.
This is optimism, yes, but not in a generic poster-on-a-wall way. This is optimism with direction. Someone specific is being addressed here. Someone is being gently told to stop drowning in yesterday and look forward before they rot in nostalgia.
Don’t stop thinking about tomorrow
Fleetwood Mac, “Don’t Stop”
Don’t stop, it’ll soon be here
It’ll be better than before
Yesterday’s gone, yesterday’s gone
The chorus feels communal, like the whole band briefly called a ceasefire to manifest progress. Harmonies stack. The melody lifts. Encouragement that carries authority.
In the context of all this romantic carnage, the song feels radical. Hope as strategy. Forward motion as survival.
It is warm. It is firm. It is a motivational speech disguised as pop rock.
5. Go Your Own Way
AND NOW WE ARE FIGHTING IN THE PARKING LOT.
This is Lindsey going full chest voice with resentment while the drums gallop like they are trying to escape the relationship entirely. The verses simmer. The chorus detonates.
This is a breakup argument with stadium acoustics.
If I could
Fleetwood Mac, “Go Your Own Way”
Baby, I’d give you my world
How can I
When you won’t take it from me?
Accusatory lines slice through euphoric melody, which is honestly the most dangerous combination possible. You are screaming along to bitterness with your windows down like this is not one of the pettiest singles ever to top charts.
It is furious. It is catchy. It is cathartic. It is emotionally irresponsible in the best way.
6. Songbird
Everyone hush. Candles lit. Windows fogged.
Christine at the piano, stripped of sarcasm, stripped of bravado, offering devotion so softly it feels sacred. No grand production. No dramatic flourishes. Just voice and keys and vulnerability.
This feels like love spoken in a whisper so it does not break.
For you, there’ll be no more crying
Fleetwood Mac, “Songbird”
For you, the sun will be shining
Because I feel that when I’m with you
It’s alright, I know it’s right
After all the tension of the previous tracks, this lands like a confession made at midnight while the rest of the world sleeps. It is tender without being naive. Earnest without being desperate.
Ending side one with this is cruel and brilliant. After all that combat, we get pure sincerity. Emotional whiplash executed flawlessly.
7. The Chain
Side two opens with the thesis statement.
The only song written by all five members and it sounds like five people negotiating loyalty while absolutely fuming internally. The verses creep with tension. Harmonies lock together too tightly. The rhythm stalks.
And if you don’t love me now
Fleetwood Mac, “Songbird”
You will never love me again
I can still hear you saying
You would never break the chain
And then that bass line drops.
Suddenly the whole thing explodes into a declaration of unity that feels less romantic and more contractual. We may hate each other. But we are still bound.
It is dramatic. It is defiant. It is terrifyingly powerful. The sonic embodiment of staying together through clenched teeth and shared history.
8. You Make Loving Fun
Christine again, floating in with sunshine and quietly causing structural damage to the group dynamic.
This is flirtation incarnate. Sparkling synths. Warm groove. Vocals smiling through every syllable. Lyrics about discovering joy with someone new while everyone else is still emotionally bleeding.
I never did believe in miracles,
Fleetwood Mac, “You Make Loving Fun”
But I’ve a feeling it’s time to try.
I never did believe in the ways of magic,
But I’m beginning to wonder why.
Radiant. Dangerous. Impeccably messy.
It feels like rebirth set to disco-adjacent bounce. Sonically, pure glow. Narratively, absolute carnage.
Classic Rumours behaviour.
9. I Don’t Want to Know
Fast tempo. Jangly guitars. Harmonies popping.
And lyrically? Panic.
This is the sound of begging not to hear about your ex’s new situation because you are one stray detail away from emotional collapse. Denial in a major key.
I don’t want to know the reasons why
Fleetwood Mac, “I Don’t Want to Know”
Love keeps right on walking on down the line
I don’t want to stand between you and love
Honey, I just want you to feel fine
It is cheerful anxiety. Smiling while spiralling. The type of song you dance to while internally drafting a thirty-page rant you will never send.
Bright. Frantic. Devastating.
10. Oh Daddy
Everything slows into a fog.
Christine sounds patient but bruised here, singing about imbalance, devotion that is not being reciprocated, longing that keeps stretching and stretching without relief.
Why are you right when I’m so wrong
Fleetwood Mac, “Oh Daddy”
I’m so weak but you’re so strong
Everything you do is just alright
And I can’t walk away from you
The production feels thick, almost suffocating, like walking through unresolved feelings you refuse to confront directly. Wanting reassurance from someone who cannot quite give it.
It is not explosive heartbreak. It is quieter. Heavier. The sort that settles into the walls of a room.
11. Gold Dust Woman
Stevie closes the album by ascending into gothic prophecy mode.
This is paranoia, glamour, addiction, Hollywood rot, power games, witchcraft aesthetics, and late-night dread stirred into one smoky cauldron. Percussion rattles like nerves. Her voice glides and snarls.
Well, did she make you cry
Fleetwood Mac, “Gold Dust Woman”
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
This is the glittering nightmare. Fame as erosion. Beauty as decay. Excess as something that eats you alive while looking fabulous.
Perfect closer. Sinister. Spellbound. Exhausting.
Rumours works because it does not hide its wounds.
It parades them in harmony. Every track is a different angle on love falling apart and reforming and falling apart again. Accusations, tenderness, jealousy, rebound joy, resignation, loyalty, bitterness, devotion, prophecy.
It is not just an album. It is a group chat argument preserved forever in pristine audio quality.
And the fact that it sounds this flawless while documenting such chaos is what makes it legendary. No filler. No weak moments. Just immaculate production and emotional carnage dancing hand in hand.
Everyone talks about how dramatic the making of this record was, but honestly. You can hear it. Every harmony is charged. Every lyric is pointed. Every melody carries history.
Put simply.
They were breaking up.
And they made pop perfection.
Insane behaviour.
Ten out of ten.
For more such takes on love, loss, and the music in between, visit Her Campus at MUJ. And for a tour in my corner, visit Niamat Dhillon at HCMUJ.