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The best Fleetwood Mac songs of all time: Critic’s picks
Fleetwood Mac is back, firing on all cylinders again with the return of Christine McVie after 17 years of retirement from the road. With the “On With the Show” tour rolling through the area again, the timing seemed right to recall what makes The Mac so big. Here’s a look at their best songs.
17. “Oh Well” (1969): This blues-rock classic driven by Peter Green is a potent reminder that Fleetwood Mac was once on the same path as Led Zeppelin in its initial incarnation.
16. “Steal Your Heart Away” (2003): What started as a song for a Lindsey Buckingham solo album, with Christine McVie on backing vocals, turned into a full-band affair that shows his tender side and the band’s delicate harmonies.
15. “Silver Springs (Live)” (1997): Originally written for “Rumours,” but cut because the album was too long, it became a Grammy-winning hit as part of the live album “The Dance.” Its hopefulness at the end of a relationship sounds even more poignant 20 more years down the road.
14. “Songbird” (1977): Before there was Adele’s bittersweet breakup ballad “Someone Like You,” there was Christine McVie’s gorgeous piano-and-guitar statement on the importance of letting go for all involved.
13. “Sara” (1979): There’s that moment halfway through that’s perfectly Fleetwood Mac — with Mick Fleetwood and John McVie’s world beat rhythms, the otherworldly moaning/harmonizing of Lindsey Buckingham and Christine McVie floating in the background and Stevie Nicks’ sultrily accepting her collapse. He was singing ... and undoing ... places.
12. “Hold Me” (1982): This is passive-aggressiveness come to life. The music is dainty and Lindsey Buckingham and Christine McVie’s intricate harmonies are sweetly buttoned-up with an inviting chorus, but the verses are icy and accusatory. “I don’t want no damage, but how am I gonna manage you?” they ask. “You want a percentage, but I’m the fool paying the dues.” And then, the rage subsides again.
11. “Everywhere” (1987): This may be as loose as Fleetwood Mac gets, with Christine McVie’s reggae-ish approach on the verses matching the island-tinged bass lines of John McVie. It gets smoothed out in the chorus — it was the ’80s — but the sweet, synthy ad libs at the end confirm it.
10. “Think About Me” (1979): Fleetwood Mac love songs are never easy. Oh, sure, “All it took was a special look,” they sing straightforwardly enough at the start, in an undeniable pop melody. By the end, the questions grow insurmountable. “If I’m the one you love,” Lindsey Buckingham, Christine McVie and Stevie Nicks sing in an uneasy harmony to match the uneasy reminder, “think about me.”
9. “Second Hand News” (1977): It’s remarkable how a kiss-off can be so self-pitying, but the real charm of the “Rumours” opener is in how it fuses country and rock in such an enduring way. So much 21st-century country and Americana can trace its sound to this classic that it sounds like it could be a hit today.
8. “Rhiannon” (1975): This was the point that the “new” Fleetwood Mac — with the addition of Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks following the exit of Bob Welch — arrived. The blues-rock base of previous Mac hits had been replaced by something much lusher. Instead of the standard blues inspirations, Nicks was singing about Celtic goddesses and women taken by the wind.
7. “Gypsy” (1982): There was a moment after the MTV music video revolution when people wondered if Fleetwood Mac would survive in the new era. “Gypsy” put all fears to rest. Not only did the video — the most expensive ever made at the time — magnify Stevie Nicks’ memories of her days as a struggling musician, it cemented her stage persona.
6. “The Chain” (1977): The only song from “Rumours” written by the entire band has become the theme for its tumultuous history, with so many exits and re-entries. But its brilliance still lies in how they sing the chorus as a round, seemingly content to move on, then have a change of heart during Lindsey Buckingham’s memorable guitar solo.
5. “Dreams” (1977): The stillness of remembering what you had. And what you lost. And what you had. And what you lost.
4. “Tusk” (1979): How do you follow “Rumours,” which was, at the time, the biggest-selling pop album in history? Well, if you’re Fleetwood Mac, you trot out a drum-driven experiment with a one-word chorus, a minimalist melody and the USC marching band as back-up. Then, you marvel at how well it holds up 35 years later.
3. “Don’t Stop” (1977): This sunny bit of optimism was much-needed on “Rumours.” It reached new heights when Bill Clinton adopted it as the anthem for his 1992 presidential bid, which certainly needed the “yesterday’s gone” reminder. When he won, Fleetwood Mac, disbanded at the time, reunited to perform the song at his inauguration.
2. “Landslide” (1975): Stevie Nicks’ ode to evolving relationships is so well-crafted that it has evolved as well. In the original, which features an intricate acoustic guitar web that conjures up the changing ocean tides, she seems certain the landslide will bring him down. Over the years, Lindsey Buckingham’s guitar parts have grown simpler to allow Nicks’ delivery to shine and she has added the word “maybe” to make the song open-ended, which is more effective.
1. “Go Your Own Way” (1977): There’s a reason this is one of rock’s most enduring classics: Lindsey Buckingham has cleverly capsulized the spirit of rock and roll in less than four minutes. “Loving you isn’t the right thing to do,” he admits right off the bat. He will, though, because, you know, Stevie Nicks. It’s a lose-lose proposition but Buckingham dives right in since in the end a rocking guitar solo heals all wounds. And he proves it.
— Glenn Gamboa, McClatchy Newspapers