After a brief exploration that included dwelling into their 4 CD The Chain series and listening to isolated tracks from "Tusk" and their self titled debut album, I finally hit upon "Rumours" - my personal favorite Fleetwood Mac album. Rumours, I found out later, is ranked on #25 by Rolling Stones on its list of 500 Greatest albums of all time.
Now Rumours isn't as phenomenal as say, Sgt. Peppers for The Beatles, or The Dark Side of the Moon for Pink Floyd. There is no sonic exploration as in the case of Floyd, or mind teasing lyrical journeys as was the case with Sgt. Peppers. It was instead, as music critic Patrick Donovan said, one of the great lost blues band - either the quintessence of California Soft Rock and L.A. excess or one of the greatest pop groups of all times.
To understand why, it is necessary to get into the psyche and pain of its band members - the drummer Mick Fleetwood (and the Band's namesake) aching under the separation from his wife, or the love gone bad tale between the lady singer-songwriter Stevie Nicks and the lead guitarist Lindsey Buckingham. Concurrently, there was also the divorce between the Bass guitarist John McVie and singer Christine Perfect.
With so much aching between the five band members - and a world of awkwardness between them, they sat down to write and compose this momentous album and feelings came pouring out. Before long, they realized that each was writing about the other - although the lyrics never seemed to be too specific or clear. Hence, they did what they could and called the album "Rumours". But before long, they realized that they had created such a beautiful album which drew them out of their misery.
The album begins with Lyndsey Buckingham's peppy track Second Hand News - a track that sounds more high spirited than its lyrics seem to be, where he seems to be directing a message to Stevie when he says,
"When times go bad
When times go rough
Wont you lay me down in tall grass
And let me do my stuff"
Stevie replies in her second track Dreams - possibly Fleetwood Mac's best composition till date, when she sings in melancholy and tells Lindsey-
"Now here you go again,
You say you want your freedom..."
And in a haunting tune that flows through the song like a wave, she tells him about women that will come and go, and how in the end he must -
"Listen carefully to the sound of your loneliness,
Like a heart beat - drives you mad,
In the stillness of remembering what you had,
And what you lost..."
And then, there is the haunting guitarwork of "Never Going back again" by Lindsey where he revisits the grievances of his previous number. This song with its acoustic guitar ring is very reminiscent of Going to California by Led Zeppelin, another song that talks about the woes of a woman unkind.
The next track on the album composed by Christine called "Don't Stop" , which appears to be an attempt to look ahead and think about tomorrow since Yesterday's being gone, moves on with a classic riff that spreads through half the song. There is advice that is seemed to be dealt to a scorned lover here - asking him to continue to seek happiness elsewhere, and done nonchalantly and a little too happily as if, in an attempt to mask your own pain.
The sixth track in the album is "Go your own way", which talks about Lindsey's acknowledgment of -
"Loving you, isn't the right thing to do,
But how can I change the way I feel?"
Again, with a fantastic riff, and an effort to get lost in excessive rock and roll to forget the aching of the heart brings us this fantastic number by the band.
Go you own way follows up by a track called "Songbird" a soft number in which Christine sings the ache of her heart and reinstates that she will love like never before.
My second most favorite track from the Rumours album (Dreams being the first), is The Chain. This song has everything a good song ought to have. Beautiful guitar work, a good chorus and voice, good beats - and of course, the slightly accusatory lyrics where Stevie Nicks and Lindsey sing together-
"And if you don't love me now,
You will never love me again."
So let's just break the chain shall we? And see where life takes us. Let us instead dwell on other things and be happy, like that accelerating riff that comes in past three minutes into the song and gives us the enthusiasm to run headlong into life.
"Oh Daddy", is most probably a tribute to Mick Fleetwood, the caretaker of the band, and the strength that held them together while they faced their biggest crisis of their relationship as a group. The album ends with Gold Dust woman, in which Stevie speaks about Lindsey's downward spiral into Cocaine abuse when she tells him to
"Take a silver spoon,
And dig your grave."
Rumours went on to be come the 10th best selling album of all time, and Fleetwood Mac became a commercial success with this album, although none of the band members ever got back together with each other. They went on lead different lives, and meet different people.
And yet, the strange thing was they stuck on together as a band. And they continue to play till this day at live concerts. They all have different lives now - but each time, any of these songs are sung, Stevie says, it is like visiting old memories - and we love each other in ways that wouldn't have been possible if we had been together.
And the intensity behind their relationships gives me all the more reasons to love this album.
