Everything came together for Fleetwood Mac as they were falling apart during the recording of one of the biggest albums of all time. After the success of their first album together, Mick Fleetwood, John McVie, Christine McVie, Lindsey Buckingham, and Stevie Nicks went back into the studio to record; but they were not the same band. Every one of them was in the midst of a breakup, which fueled their songwriting as they put their personal pain into the music.
During the tour for 'Fleetwood Mac', Christine had separated from her husband John: "I broke up with John in the middle of a tour. I was aware of it being irresponsible. I had to do it for my sanity. It was either that or me ending up in a lunatic asylum. I still worry for him more than I would ever dare tell him. I still have a lot of love for John. Let's face it, as far as I'm concerned, it was him that stopped me loving him. He constantly tested what limits of endurance I would go to. He just went one step too far. If he knew that I cared and worried so much about him, I think he'd play on it." John explains the split thusly: "I drink too much, period, but when I've drunk too much, a personality comes out. It's not very pleasant to be around."
Mick was in the middle of divorce proceedings during the recording of the album and sought solace in the studio: "You go to the office every day and you don't think about it in the end, you just go. That's what we were doing. Being part of Fleetwood Mac, playing through the ups and downs."
Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks were also in the process of ending their romantic partnership. Lindsey says, "I'm not ashamed of my personal life. Just 'cause you're in the public eye doesn't mean you don't go through the same bullshit." Stevie considers: "I don't care that everybody knows me and Chris and John and Lindsey and Mick all broke up; because we did. So that's fact...On this album, all the songs that I wrote except maybe 'Gold Dust Woman' - and even that comes into it - are definitely about the people in the band... Chris' relationships, John's relationship, Mick's, Lindsey's and mine. They're all there and they're very honest and people will know exactly what I’m talking about... people will really enjoy listening to what happened since the last album".
The band produced the album with engineers Ken Caillat and Richard Dashut. The first sessions took place at the Record Plant in Sausalito, California over two intense months. Christine describes the sessions: "Trauma. Trau-ma. The sessions were like a cocktail party every night - people everywhere. We ended up staying in these weird hospital rooms... and of course John and me were not exactly the best of friends. Stevie and I spent a lot of time together. She was going through a bit of a hard time too because she was the one that axed it. Lindsey was pretty down about it for a while, then he just woke up one morning and said, Fuck this, I don't want to be unhappy, and started getting some girlfriends together."
From that trauma, the band produced their most personal and enduring work. The working title for the new album was 'Yesterday's Gone'. After a brief tour, recording resumed at various studios around Los Angeles. Because the original tapes were damaged, they had to cancel a sold-out tour in the Fall of 1976 to complete the album. With all of the drama and tension surrounding the sessions, they called the album 'Rumours'. It became an enormous success, the biggest album sales in history up to that time. 'Rumours' went to number one in Australia, Canada, the Netherlands, New Zealand, South Africa, the UK, and the US, won the Grammy Award for Album of the Year, and has gone on to sell over forty-two million copies worldwide.
"Never Going Back Again"
Christine McVie says, "'Don't Stop' was just a feeling. It just seemed to be a pleasant revelation to have that 'yesterday's gone'. It might have, I guess, been directed more toward John, but I'm just definitely not a pessimist." It was used by Bill Clinton as the theme song for his first presidential campaign. It went to number three in the US and peaked at number one in Canada.
"Go Your Own Way" went to number ten in the US and peaked at number one in the Netherlands.
"Songbird" was recorded during an all-night session at Zellerbach Auditorium in Berkeley.
"The Chain" is credited to the entire band. Buckingham remembers: "There's one track on the album that started out as a one song in Sausalito. We decided it needed a bridge, so we cut a bridge and edited it into the rest of the song. We didn't get a vocal and left it for a long time in a bunch of pieces. It almost went off the album. Then we listened back and decided we liked the bridge, but didn't like the rest of the song. So I wrote verses for that bridge, which was originally not in the song and edited those in. We saved the ending. The ending was the only thing left from the original track. We ended up calling it "The Chain," because it was a bunch of pieces."
"You Make Loving Fun" went to number nine in the US and number seven in Canada.
Nicks admits: "I don't really know what "Gold Dust Woman" is about. I know there was cocaine there and that I fancied it gold dust, somehow. I'm going to have to go back to my journals and see if I can pull something out about "Gold Dust Woman". Because I don't really know. It's weird that I'm not quite sure. It can't be all about cocaine."
'Rumours' full album:
Side one
1. "Second Hand News" Lindsey Buckingham 2:56
2. "Dreams" Stevie Nicks 4:14
3. "Never Going Back Again" Lindsey Buckingham 2:14
4. "Don't Stop" Christine McVie 3:13
5. "Go Your Own Way" Lindsey Buckingham 3:38
6. "Songbird" Christine McVie 3:20
Side two
7. "The Chain" Lindsey Buckingham, Mick Fleetwood, Christine McVie, John McVie, Stevie Nicks 4:30
8. "You Make Loving Fun" Christine McVie 3:31
9. "I Don't Want to Know" Stevie Nicks 3:15
10. "Oh Daddy" Christine McVie 3:56
11. "Gold Dust Woman" Stevie Nicks 4:56
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