Fleetwood Mac's 'Rumours': Everything You Didn't Know

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Too Much Information is a production of I Heart Radio.

(00:09):
Hello everyone, and welcome to Too Much Information, the show
that gives you the secret history and little known fascinating
facts about your favorite movies, music, TV shows and more.
My name is Jordan Runt Tuck and on Alex Hegel
and what are we talking about today? Today we are
talking about Rumors, one of the best selling albums, most

(00:29):
memed albums, most over possibly over discussed albums, and we're
here to continue to discuss it. I know, you know,
I was reluctant to tackle this, but you know, I
know it's so well trod territory, but so much of
the focus of the discussion before has been about the
relationships and all the in personal drama in the band,
and there's so much more that went into the making
of this great album. But give me a taste, Give

(00:52):
me a taste. What do you what do you got? Well,
we're gonna get in't it. We can't give it all
the way up front, but we got I mean, we've
got so many things. For example, the balls on the
cover of the album, Mick Fleetwood's balls. There's a story there. Yeah,
that's what I wanted. That was literally you read my mind.
That was what I wanted you to talk about was
Mick Fleetwoods Balls. So if you want to know more
about Fleetwoods Balls, stay tuned. We'll be right there. But no,

(01:13):
I mean it, make sure to tweet at us, make
sure between at as using the hashtag Mick Fleetwood's Balls
presented by Tide. It really is. I mean, you know,
despite all the soap opera that when you know that,
when in the discussion of it, it really is a
perfectly produced pop album. I mean it's pretty, you know,
unimpeachably great. How do you feel about this record? I
can see you'd be more of a Tusk fan. I'm

(01:34):
definitely more of a Tusk fan because Tusk is weirder.
But this album is also, despite having being so overexposed
at this point, it is also very weird. I mean,
it's a record by what three quarters of like a
blues rock band who imported a couple of Americans, one
of whom doesn't play guitar with a pick. Uh. It's

(01:55):
like just a bizarre formula for a record that became
so ubiquitous. Yeah, I think a lot of that go
away when people talk about the everybody's having sex with
each other and all the cocaine. But you know, the
music still holds up. As one dude skateboarding on TikTok
reminded us all this past magical year, isn't that great?
Fleetwood Mac continuing to bring us all together even in

(02:15):
times of great crisis. Except for the actual band, they
are very much not still together. Was fired summarily. Sorry, well,
we've got a lot to tackle. So without further ado,
here's everything you don't know about Fleetwood Max. So Jordan's

(02:35):
I know that Fleetwood Mac, maybe more than any other
rock band with the exception of Maybe the Fall, has
a lengthy membership list and a history that rivals some
of the smaller Russian novels. So if you could give
us just a top down view of the world of
Fleetwood Mac, I guess the starting point is ninety seven,

(02:56):
when it was founded as a vehicle for the great
Peter Green, who really was sort of the only serious
challenger to Eric Clapton as the greatest British blues guitarists
in the sixties. I think BB King once said that
Peter Green was the only guitarist who ever gave him
the cold sweats, which is obviously incredible praise coming from

(03:16):
from BB King, You're gonna get a lot of angry
people tweeting you about Jeff Beck and uh, probably Jimmy Page.
But I do think I do agree with you. I
think Peter Green is consistently one of the great and
I don't mean this pejoratively, but blues formalists. He was like,
I want to play traditional blues, you know, I mean
for anyone who has never heard the Peter Green ara

(03:39):
Fleet with mag and we definitely check it out. Songs
like Man of the World Albatross is this gorgeous instrumental song.
It's really amazing to get an idea for like what
they're The sound originally sounded like, you know, pre Lindsey
Buckingham and Stevie they did the original version of Black
Magic Woman later popularized by Santana, So if you can
kind of imagine that that's what Fleet with Mac used

(03:59):
to sound like in the pre Stevie Lindsay pop days.
Peter Green an absolute genius, but a troubled one. As
a genius is off and our fame really didn't sit
well with him, and he kind of uh he he
dabbled in LSD is one dabble in LSD. I think
that's the accepted word. But he did not dabble. He

(04:20):
went for basically exacerbated his underlying anxiety with with fame
and kind of what was happening to him. He began
to exhibit I guess what could best be described as
paranoid behaviors. He grew a beard and donned robes and
large crucifixes, and began to talk at length about giving
his money away. His mental health deteriorated even further when

(04:41):
when Fleetwood Mac played in Germany and they visited a
German hippie commune and his drink was spiked with a
heroic dose of LSD and untold other psychedelics. And according
to band insiders, I cannot believe people used to do
that to each other, Like the dead Um I was
reading the other night about least thing about John Bonham

(05:03):
used to give people bumps of heroin while like cocaine
was going on. He'd be like and then they'd be like, oh,
I feel like I'm going to die, and he'd be like,
ha ha, that was heroin. What a funny prank I
played on you. People were this, These musicians were savages
back it was. It did not help his his underlying

(05:25):
I guess what I'll call anxiety, and he quit the
band soon after and drifted into um professional obscurity and
a lot of you know, dealt with the whole array
of mental health crisis. Is He ended up getting help
and made music again in the eighties and nineties, and
he eventually died sadly in the summer of But he
is an absolutely amazing guitarist. His work is beautiful. I

(05:47):
definitely recommend checking it out. But he's sort of the
godfather of Fleetwood Mac, and it's really setting the tone
for what is sort of quite obviously i'd say, a
cursed enterprise. Yeah, at least the guitar chair. Yeah, the
guitar chair. You know, if you've ever seen Spinal Tap,
there's a joke about the band not being able to
keep a drummer. Well, it's kind of the case with
guitarists and Fleetwood Mac guitar let's guitarists lightning round. So

(06:10):
after Peter Green, who did a bunch of acid and quit?
Who who comes in after Peter Green? We have Jeremy Spencer,
who what kind of drugs did Jeremy Spencer do? Um,
I don't know what drugs he did, but he left
the group shortly before and we're talking like hours before
a gig in Los Angeles when he was approached on
the street by a member of an organization called the
Children of God, which is a religious also organization, and

(06:34):
not coult to avoid getting sued. Uh. So that was one. Uh.
There were a number of other guitarists, a guy by
the name of Danny Kerwin who also suffered from severe
mental issues. He was a show that he was playing
where he smashed his head against the wall at a
show until he began to bleed, and then he refused
to play on stage that night at the show, and

(06:54):
his steady sat in the audience and just jeered at
his bandmates the whole time. Uh. It's a powerful move.
Is a powerful energy to that move. I cannot think
of another person who quit the band on stage and
joined the audience to boo the band that they had
just quit. Yeah, that that is. It's quite a power move. Yeah.
Um yeah. Danny Kerman's replacement, Bob Weston and Dirt a

(07:16):
really brief, unhappy tenure before leaving the group in four.
That's three. What are we on four were I think
we're on four. And then there's Bob Welch, who was
in there. I I think less than two years he was.
There are so many people who cycled through this guitar
chair that I almost corrected you on Bob Weston by saying, oh, no,
that was Bob Welch, just a different guy with the

(07:37):
Bob departed Fleetwood Mac guitarists category w E. There's just
so many uh. And so by the end of the
seventy four amid this parade of brilliant yet unstable guitarists,
really the only constant were the rhythm sections. Was drummer
Mick Fleetwood and basist John mcviegeh the Fleetwood Mac from
which the band take their name. And John McBee was

(07:57):
married to a great British blues singer with the credible
name of Christine Perfect. And when she married John, she
became Christine mcvige. And she used to always joke, you know,
I used to be perfect and then I met John,
and then you like you do it, you do a
smash cut over to John mcviege and his eyes are
just rolling so far back in his head that only
the whites show. I you know, Lindsay and Stevie are

(08:19):
like the golden couple of Fleetwood Mac. But whenever I
am looking at old footage of them, I always go
right to John mcvigh because he's completely over it. Attitude
is so perfect. He I don't know, I love him.
He's my spirit animal. He's just seems dour and it's
just like a bass So he's a great basis, but

(08:40):
it's just, you know, seems like a grave digger. He's
just like the punch punch the cloak today. Anyway, I
love if. If in all, in all archival footage Ifleetwood Mac,
you gotta go back and see what John McVeigh is
doing in the background, because it's probably grimacing. I don't know,

(09:00):
like mc fleetwood is also a pretty big grimace or
too well, he's insane. He's just he always a sea
footage of him, like making a cartoon werewolf faces. I mean,
but we'll get into the cocaine later. But good lord,
so this is this is prior. I just I feel
like it's important to note that all this drama and
interpersonal strife and drugs and cults and witchcraft, it was

(09:26):
all pre dates Lindsay and Stevie, So again a slightly
cursed enterprise. So at the end of the nineteen seventy
four they're looking for a new guitarists to replace Bob
Welsh and they find Lindsey Buckingham. Mick Fleetwood invites him
to join the band and Lindsay says, well, you're gonna
have to take my girlfriend too, and that was Stevie Nicks.
Should we get into Yeah, also an extremely powerful move,

(09:48):
I mean everything, maybe a heartbringer of what of what's
to come with, like how how it is to deal
with Lindsey Buckingham of not being in a position of
power but assuming and negotiating as though he is a
talk about fake until you make it. Man, this band
who's like already a million seller comes to you and
they're like, oh, we'd like to offer you. He's like, cool,
you gotta take my old lady too. I don't know

(10:10):
why I think he talks about they were they weren't
a millions, They weren't a million because Lindsay, well, there's
famously the history. Well are we getting into their their record? Yeah,
tell us a little bit about Stevie and Lindsay. Well,
Stevie Nicks was just a teenager. When she and Lindsay
got together and started making music in nineteen sixty six,
she was a senior and he was a junior, so

(10:31):
there was nothing kind of untoward going on there. But
if you have a keen memory, a Proustian sense memory
of your high school year relationships, her being a senior
in him being a junior will color their entire relationship
in a certain ways. Um, they met at a young
Life meeting, which seems sort of bizarre when you consider

(10:53):
the cocaine and the and the kimonos. And they got
around a piano and they played California Dreaming, which is
the most California. You're already in California and you have
to get it's the most theater kid California ever. Sorry.
Interview with the Source, Stevie would actually say of Lindsay,
I thought he was a darling. Let's save for this

(11:13):
for a moment. Yeah, I just hold that in your head.
I need you to hold that energy because it'll go awry.
So around the same time, it's just like getting Yeah,
he's not yet a voting age. Bucking him starts performing
in a group initially called the Fritz Rabine memorial band.
I don't know what that's a reference to. What is
that a reference to? Have no idea, I don't know what.

(11:35):
Maybe I might be nothing. Californians are weird, later shortened
to just Fritz thankfully. They played talent shows. Yeah, Fritz
is good. They played talent shows at their alma motto,
which was menlo Atherton High School, as well as student
dances and family parties across suburban San Jose. When their
lead singer dropped out, bucking him actually flashes back in

(11:57):
another I'm gonna keep referencing Proust because I give this
little I low culture juxtaposition. In a moment of Prustian
sense memory, he flashes back to that young life theater
kid piano duet from years earlier, and at the wise
and old age of nineteen or whatever. He says, I'm
gonna call Stevie back and we're gonna just make this,

(12:17):
make that duo our thing, And they actually got pretty far.
They opened for Santana the second time Santana pops up
in the Fleetwood Mac story. They opened up for Steve
Miller Band, They opened up for the Icon Tina to
turn a review, and they opened up for Chicago, which
is just fine. I feel like everyone opened up for
Chicago around this time period. But then so we get

(12:38):
to Buckingham Knicks, of one of the most famous album covers.
The two were platonic mostly throughout this Fritz era, the
Fritz era of bucking Him Knicks, but they both decided
they wanted something a little more out of music, and
they also start to, you know, make a different kind
of music together. I'm so sorry I said that, but
we're keeping it um. And then they may the relatively

(13:01):
big decision to jump ship to l A to try
and make it as a name as Buckingham Knicks. And
to hear Stevie tell it, it sounds like she was
kind of the one who actually was like, oh, I
guess I'll go out and like get a job. And
I think she was like cleaning studio producer and engineers
like homes for for money and working as a waitress

(13:22):
and stuff and basically to allow Lindsay the time to
just sort of sit at home and pontificate. And she why,
she tells it, she would like come home from a
long day at work and he was like sprawled out
on the floor smoking a joint, like dreaming on melodies
and stuff. Um, so maybe when I get a job
this week, honey, No, So I babe got this idea

(13:43):
for a fingerpick and pattern. So they're recording with with
this engineering producer called Keith Olsen at a famed Sound
City studios in in Los Angeles and they completed their
debut Buckingham Knicks Loved now ignored at the time, but
it features in the story because Mick fleetwould stop by
the same studio to scope it out for potential use

(14:06):
for Fleetwood Mac and Um. The engineer, Keith Olsen was
showing him around and basically wanted to demonstrate what the
room sounded like on record, and he played this tape
he was working on, which was bucking m Nicks, and
he played it and Nick Fleetwood has really taken with
the guitar work on it, Lindsey Buckeyhames guitar work, and
so he asked to be in touch. He asked the
engineer to put him in touch with his guitarist, Lindsey Buckingham,

(14:28):
and that's how Fleetwood Mac finds Lindsay Buckingham for the
first time. And then that's when Lindsay says, you know
what I'll join you if you let me bring Stevie too.
And Stevie really, I mean we're talking to a matter
of weeks here was thinking about giving up on music.
I mean, she was ready to throw in the towel
and just go back to school. And she was kids.
She told she would say years later that when she
showed up to her Fleetwood Mac auditions, she came in

(14:50):
her waitress outfit because she came right from her day job.
I mean, the reversal of fortunes was you know, this
was December nineteen seventy four. I think they all met
up for the first time in a Mexican restaurant and
then by mid nineteen five, they're they're touring and the
album the White Albums what everyone calls it, but the
Fleetwood macaponymous album Rhannon and Say They Love Me and

(15:13):
all those great songs entered the charts. Really their life changed,
and you know, Overnights kind of a cliche, but it
wasn't far off. Yeah, and uh, you know seventy six
we're talking. They're like, they're enormously popular, but the same
thing that always happens happens, which is like a band
that gets enormously popular and has to tour bunch together.

(15:34):
Stuff starts happening, and it's always worse when there's multiple
couples in the band. And this is when we start
getting into the juicy, non merit, non musical stuff. Almost
said non marital, but there's plenty of juicy non marital stuff.
So what's the first what's the first relationship that starts
to go? Jordan's okay, Well, the first relationships that starts
to go is John McGee and Christine McGee the White

(15:56):
Album tours. Really, I think what what finished them off?
I mean, they have been deteriorating for years, but they
they split up around the same time that Lindsay and
Stevie also started to Uh, Lindsay and Stevie started breaking
up a little bit later, because Christine would later say, yeah,
John and I just didn't talk during the sessions for rumors,

(16:17):
unless it was like something like what key is this
song in? They just didn't, whereas Stevie and Lindsay were
still in the like fighting screaming at each other in
the middle of it takes phase of the breakup. So
that was that, and also the interpersonal relationship that I
don't think it's discussed enough in the Rumors debacle. Is
Mick Fleetwood the only guy in Fleetwood Mac that isn't

(16:38):
dating somebody else in Fleetwood Mac at the moment, but
his marriage is disintegrating. His wife is Jenny Boyd, who
is the sister of Pattie Boyd, who is George Harrison's
wife who is having an affair with Eric Clapton. Pattie
Boyd inspired George Harrison's song Something inspired Layla inspired Wonderful Tonight,

(17:00):
and then Jenny Boyd inspired you know, some of the
feelings on Rumors. So the boy's sisters really are, you know,
two of the biggest muses in music history. I should say, yeah,
it's wild, such a such a wealth of music comes
from those two women. And the funny thing to me
about this whole album thing is that a lot of
times in bands with there's a couple in a band,

(17:22):
like the person who's not in a couple in the
band is kind of forced into like a child like
mom and dad are fighting again. But in this band,
it was just a different archetypes of angry mom and
dad divorcing that we're just in this whole thing. There's
the guy who's having a fair and that's bringing up
the marriage. There's the really demonstrative couple who's fighting all

(17:43):
the time. There's the like old waspy couple who just
isn't looking or speaking to each other, but still leaves
in the same car at the end of the night. Truly,
every archetype of unhappiness goes into making this band, but
not financially it isn't. Yeah, I mean, the record company
is basically saying, you know what, your album is really
starting to sell. The White album started selling a million
copies at this point, and over my head, Rhiannon and

(18:05):
say that You Love Me, we're all hit singles at
this point, and Warner Brothers the record label saying, you know,
stardom's yours for the taking, go and make the best
album you've ever made. So that's really what compels them
to put on a brave face and hold up in
the studio because they want to capitalize on everything that's
happening and again try to make the best album they've
ever made. And you know, I mean much has been

(18:26):
said about how you know the heartache is palpable on
the grooves of this record. I mean that turmoil just
surfaces in these brutally honest lyrics, and it's become this
like you know, musical soap opera. This he said, she said,
romantic confessional. And again, the thing that's so amazing that
this record is that these people are singing these songs

(18:46):
about each other to their faces. Also, it's not like
they're improv They're not improvising these songs for each other.
This isn't like, well, let's see what like you came
up with today, like the process of I mean you
I thought about this recently because of the get A
documentary where it does show like the actual craft that
goes into making a record, like these guys were sitting
down and singing really horrifying personal stuff in a very

(19:10):
dispassionate way. I mean, like, oh, well, how am I
supposed to sing the third on this note where you
accuse me of being a slut? Like they had to
sit down and tear apart all of these songs in
a really like workman like way, and that's probably where
her being just gacked out of their mind was really helpful. Yes,

(19:31):
So the band in February, they go up to Saslito, California,
to the record plant, to make this album, and Lindsey
Buckingham really is the one who took the lead on
the sessions because you know, as you said earlier, three
fifths of this group had a blues background, and that's
more about you know, live performance, and Lindsay really had

(19:51):
an ear towards making a good record like that was
kind of the name of the game with this was
was not just great songs and good performances, but they
wanted to make a record it sounded as perfect as
you could. Uh So he was kind of the one
who took the lead on this, and he enlisted the
help of Richard dash It and a guy named Ken
Calais who happens to be pop singer Colby Calai's father.

(20:14):
I know you remember Bubbly, Sure don't You don't know?
I don't I who is that? Why do I know that?
A pop singer? Like I don't know the name. I
know the name, but no, I don't remember that song.
You could, you could stick in the sound as sound,
a sound bite of it, and then I would continue
to not recognize it. I could, but I don't want

(20:35):
to be sued. So the band for this actually has
a basically a blank check from Warner Brothers. And this
is also the height of the record industry. I mean,
this is like I used Crosby, Stills and Nash is
my yardstick for all of music industry excess. But this
record is emblematic of that. Chris Stone, who was one

(20:55):
of the record plants owners, said in seven he called
the experience that Fleetwood Mac brought to the record plan excess.
At its most excessive, the band would come in at
seven at night, have a big feast party till one
in the morning, and then when they were so whacked
out they couldn't do anything, they'd start recording. Um, which

(21:19):
I don't know how old they all are. I guess
Lindsay and Stevie are pretty young, mixed on the older side,
but like like late twenties to early thirties. Yeah, I
still don't want to do anything on that schedule, like
eat a bunch and then have to work. One of
the most offensive part to you not just getting gacked
out two in the morning, but it's the big meal

(21:41):
before you record. Yeah, I mean, like imagine sitting down
and having to play drums after you eat like a
bunch of l a like, like, I don't know what
are they eating Mexican food, turkey legs, Like what is
what does make? What does make? I was thinking like hummus,
I don't know, California maybe tofu yeah. Um. Anyway, And
like a lot of things in l A around this

(22:02):
particular period of time, it's Don Henley's fault. Yeah. Stevie,
who later when she and uh Lindsay were done breaking up,
had had a brief relationship with Don Henley and she
later said that he was the one who taught her
how to spend money. And she said she was talking.
I did an interview with uncut and she said he
was responsible and I blame him every day. The Eagles

(22:24):
had spending money down They had lear jets and the
presidential suites long before we did. So I learned from
the best, and once you learned to live like that,
there's no going back. It's like, get me a lear jet.
I need to go to l A. I don't care
if it costs fifteen grand I need to go now.
That's bone chilling. The flip side of that is Joe

(22:44):
Walsh talking about waking up for one of his vendors
and being like, oh, why have a Why do I
have a hotel? Receipt from Paris in my pocket, like
I guess I was in Paris for the weekend. Like
I mean, God love him. Glad you guys had a
good time. The rest of us aren't speaking of spend
money in ridiculous amounts. This brings us to the cocaine

(23:04):
use during these sessions. It's while studying the recording of rumors,
it's impossible to avoid the topic of absolutely rampant cocaine use.
It's really a sixth member of the band, right. Mick
Fleetwood worked out once that if he laid all the
cocaine that he'd ever snorted into a single line, it
would stretch for seven miles, which kind of sounds low
to me. I want to check that. Well, there's a

(23:27):
there's also like didn't Bowie like have a recycled line
about snorting half of Columbia or something? So it's like,
all it might have been Elton John, any of them.
All of these guys just have like these easily at
hand comparisons quantifying their cocaine abuse. Apparently it was seven miles,
idn't thought longer, but um, good for him. They would
kind of justify in later years by saying, you know,

(23:49):
for the work schedule that they were on. It was
more of a necessity trying to just combat fatigue during
these you know, really grueling multi hour sessions. Not to
mention just archerous emotions that were flying around. I mean,
you know, Stevie said an interview with Mojo in you
felt so bad about what was happening that you just
did a line to cheer yourself up, which I mean,

(24:11):
you know, it's kind of given the fraud, pressure cooker
of an environment that they were in, it's sort of understandable.
It played such a major role cocaine did in the
production of Rumors that the bands seriously considered thanking their
drug dealer on the album credits, and apparently mcfleetwood says
in his ninety nine memoir Fleetwood My Life and Adventures

(24:31):
and Fleetwood Mac said, unfortunately the dealer got snuffed executed
before the album came out, so they didn't end up.
I'm surprised they didn't like put a tribute. Well, Black
Sabbath did that around the same time. They Yeah, in
volume four, you can see them thank the great Coke Cola,

(24:54):
because that was their idea of a subtle joke. But yeah,
My favorite anecdote from this is that these guys kept
their coking like these little velvet baggies like probably not
on not similar to like a cram royal bag. And
they would have the engine the I guess it was
the engineers Ken Kelly who they would have Ken Klain
and Richard Dash were like co producers and engineers. They

(25:17):
treated them like interns. They were like bringing the bag
and um. So at one point ken clay Is decides
to mess with them a little bit and um on
one once he's when he's summoned, he brings it in
a bag that he has, unbeknownst to the band, replaced
all the cocaine with talcum powder and does this like
elaborate like given high and like you know, spills the

(25:40):
cocaine all over the room and just you watch the
blood drain out of the band's face and then um,
they realized they've been pranked and did not murder him
this day. But my god, it also Mike Fleetwood's like
a big dude. Can you imagine like all six four
of like an angry gang glee wild eyed British man,

(26:02):
like rising up from a drum set after holding two
sticks because he thinks you've spilled his cocaine braver men
than I am. As you meditate on that, we'll be
right back with more too much information after these messages.

(26:27):
But the famously happy go lucky atmosphere behind the recording
of Rumors didn't just extend to cocaine based humor. Christine
got a little in on the action at one point.
That's right, Christie mcfeeds hold their manager that they were
breaking up as an April Fool's Day prank. Now again,
this wasn't even this, This is not as quite as

(26:47):
lighthearted as it sounds. She called their attorney to tell
her that the band was breaking up and they would
not be finishing the album. And she she was running
through the speech she was going to give him all day,
really working it out, ringing every emotion, every tortured emotion
from every word. And so she called this attorney and
told him to call the head of Warner Brothers Records

(27:09):
to let them know that this was what was going down,
and then the band were done. So she hangs up,
and everyone in the group's trying to like figuring out
when to call their attorney back because they don't want
him to actually call the head of Warner Brothers, you know,
ten minutes, like just long enough for him to like
work out what he's gonna tell the head of Warner
Brothers that they're their new biggest stars. Is done. And

(27:31):
then um, she called him back and reminded him that
it was April for a staple Fool's Day, and they
all had a big laugh, which we're probably fairly rare
during these sessions. That's borderline sociopathic. I'm sorry, It's just
a mean thing to do to someone. It's not quite
George Clearney sending Julia Roberts twenty bucks and saying, I
hear you get twenty a picture now, and you're just

(27:52):
telling someone this their income stream is about to dry up,
and that whatever they seem fun, they looked like they
had a fun time. Everybody had a fun time making rumors.
If there's one thing to take away from this podcast,
it's that Rumors was a laugh a minute pill ride.
But that happy go lucky atmosphere doesn't just extend to
the pranks. It also extends to the songs such as

(28:14):
You Make Loving Fun, which is one of my least
least favorite song titles of all time. Imagine saying that
to someone you love, I mean, you're married. That's not
like that wasn't part of your vows or if I if,
I if if I now disregarding that my wife is
a Fleetwood macfan, if you were to say to that

(28:34):
to someone you were with like Darlin you make loving fun.
What I mean says that. It just says that a
whole era of like you know, calling someone you know,
you're my teddy bear, it was an all of us.
I don't know that there was whatever. It's a great song.
It's a great song. It's a great song. Dumb title.

(28:55):
It's a great song. But but Christie McVeigh wrote this
song about a new relationship that she was in with
Flutwood Max Lighting Tech, but in order to keep the
peace in the very small studio live room, she told
her now ex husband John that the song was about
her dog, which I gotta say. The lighting designer is
probably the guy who came out the best in all

(29:16):
of this, except for the band who got rich. But
like he's talking about punching out of your weight class
a lighting designer suddenly getting involved with the keyboardist vocalist
of the band, especially when that woman is like nineteen seventies,
like Christine mcvege, like that man, truly, Pete Davidson of
the l A seventies music industry, Good Lord. But according

(29:37):
to Ken Kelly's memoir, John eventually figured out the true
meaning of this song and boycotted the sessions for a
few days. At least that's his version. John himself told
a different story in an interview from with Mojo. He
claimed that it took him years to figure out that
this song was about his wife's rebound relationship. So yeah,
I don't know. We're getting into like the led Zeppelin problem,

(29:58):
which is that all these people were extremely picked up
and all of them are like low grade ego maniacal,
so they're all kind of unreliable narrators. Which do you
think it is? Which do you think it is? Do
you think he caught onto it or do you think
it took him years and follow up? Which one makes
him look worse. I think he must have caught on
because the lighting designer, his name is Curry Grant, he
was like around during the sessions, and in Ken Call's

(30:20):
memoir he's talking about these like, you know, almost like
a rom com style, like him sneaking in the back
door to like see Christine briefly and wall John's in
the control room or something. I mean, it was like
he was definitely around, So I've got a guess that.
But but then again, I mean this was a guess
at the same time that um that John apparently rigged
up basically like a wine bottle i V. I think

(30:43):
he had like a wine bottle upset down with like
a chord coming out of it that he could presumably
stick into his mouth. Um, I hope it wasn't intravenous.
Jesus God. I was gonna say, if there's one dude
who I like, don't trust, like self rigging up an ivy,
it's John McVie. I mean the wine bottle I V.
And the cocaine probably didn't help matters. So I mean,

(31:06):
I think the jury still out on whether or not
the clock that you make Loving Fun was not about
Christine mcvie's dog but about her new boyfriend. Yeah. Maybe
just like seven days later or seven years later, he
woke up and was like, wait, it's like the song
I've been doing on stage for seven years now. And
wait a minute, wait the guy on the spotlight, but

(31:29):
funny little side fact about You Make Loving Fun. Cyndi Lauper,
when she was first getting her start as a singer,
was commissioned in seven to record sound alike covers for
like budget releases and um, I guess. She later said
that she was paid twelve dollars to sound like someone else.
And the only session that she ever did during that

(31:49):
era that was actually released was a version of You
Make Loving Fun. And that's the first song she ever
released that Cyndy Lapper's first release, and it was so
rare that she actually didn't even have a copy of it.
I think a fan on that to give her a
copy of it, like years and years later. So there
is a fun little side fact about Cyndi Lauper and
You Make Loving Fun. Just when you think that this
band can't ensnare anyone else, they pull in Cyndi Lauper

(32:12):
like they're They're not even just pulling in people from
the West Coast of America. Now they've got their fingers
in New York too. Um. Lindsay and Stevie have a
pretty interesting moment in this. You know, Mick mixed breakup
is pretty unilateral. His wife just as like I'm going
to leave you and was for his best friend. By
the way, yea again for his best friend. And John

(32:34):
and Christine are just like not talking to each other,
but she has moved on. John is in a committed
relationship with alcohol, but Lindsay and Stevie are still in
the like high school junior senior having knocked down drag
out arguments in front of everyone else. And Ken Klay
has this recollection of them doing the background vocals to
You Make Loving Fun, and they're just on two stools

(32:55):
in front of a pair of microphones and during every
moment of playback while they were tracking that anytime they
weren't singing, they would just immediately go screaming at each other,
like them guys, all right, we got check levels. You
ask you can go to hell. H you were moving
out when we get back to l A. You just

(33:19):
I mean, it's truly get to like, you can't write
this stuff, you know. Um, And they nailed it. You're right,
they still nailed it. You're absolutely right. Consummate professionalism. But
let's get let's get away from let's get away from
the damn vocalists. Three vocalists for a band, too many vocalists.

(33:40):
Let's let's let's put this spotlight back on our dear
sweet mc fleetwood for a second. Yes, well, I guess
we got to talk a little bit about the vocalist
because no, so we're gonna talk about sweet mc fleetwood
and his drumming on Go Your Own Way, which written
by Lindsey Buckingham, one of the truly great Kissoff songs

(34:02):
of all time. It was written at a house that
the band rented in Florida, between legs number one, right,
it was between legs of their Fleetwood mac tor and
Mick Fleetwood. Remember that the house, and I'm quoting had
a distinctly bad vibe to it, as if it were haunted,
which did nothing to help matters. I don't want to

(34:23):
shame Mick Fleetwood more than life already has. But you know,
if you lose six guitarists and it's like that, you
might be a redneck. If you lose six guitarists in
a year and you're writing songs in a house that
you think is haunted, it might be you, Mick. Ten
years of bad luck and bad vibes in a van.
You look who the common denominator is. Oh I I

(34:45):
would not Mick Fleetwood is a ball of joyous energy.
I would not blame him for six guitars leaving. No,
it's John mcviege. We all know it's John McVie. Sorry,
but go your own way was uh, I think the
first song that was written for Rumors, first song Lindsey
Buckingham wrote for Rumors at least, and um, he picked

(35:06):
up an electric guitar and sort of chugging out this
chord progression. You know. He described it as a stream
of consciousness. In the first phrase that he hit was
loving you isn't the right thing to do, which, um,
you know, kind of quickly opens itself up to a
stream of bile about his his ex girlfriend Stevie Nicks.
So he's working out the song and he uh, he's

(35:29):
driving into the session to record it, and he hears
Street Fighting Man by the Rolling Stones and has a
really distinctive kind of rolling drum beat, and he goes
over to Mick Fleetwood and tells him he wants to
sound like Street Fighting Man. Mcfleetwood is dyslexic and we'd
describe it in later years. He couldn't nail it. He said.
His own ineptness contributed to the fact that he had

(35:50):
this like really disorienting, unsettled beat for this song that
Lindsay was working on, and it worked and they just
kind of went for it. It ended up being a
perfect fit for the track. Uh. He later said in
an interview, I never quite got to grips with what
he wanted, so the end result was my mutated interpretation.
It became a major part of the song, a complete
back to front approach that came I'm ashamed to say

(36:11):
from capitalizing on my own ineptness, but really, I mean,
to me, it makes the song. Yeah, I think he's
short selling himself there. I mean. The other thing too,
is that like Lindsay supposedly came in and was just
kind of like clumsily like bashing this out on the
drums and being like this is what I want. Like
we're like, I'm a living god, this is what I want,

(36:33):
and make Fleetwood's like, oh, well, uh, you know you're
not a drummer. But okay, so I'm just imagining like
full on Afro era Lindsey Buckingham in a kimono, high
on coke, standing over a drum set, like bashing out
a drumbeat and like yelling at Mike like, did you
get it yet? But that's not even the craziest thing
Lindsay did during the making of this album. He uh,

(36:55):
you know, it extended to the engineers and it was
unsurprisingly it was a guitar our solo that brought it
out of him. So why don't you tell us that story?
Jordan's yes, uh so. Perhaps the most extraordinary part of
this song, aside from just the pure venom of the lyrics,
is this searing guitar solo. Apparently it was the guitar
solo that finally won over the original Fleetwood mac guitar.

(37:17):
As Peter Green, I guess up at the lapt point
he wasn't all that sure about Lindsey Buckingham, which I
mean fair, But this fiery guitar solo had some real
heat behind it. According to Ken Kelly's memoir, making Rumors,
Lindsay was so high strung, strong out whatever version of
strong you want to call it, that he strangled him

(37:38):
during sessions for this guitar solo. I guess Lindsay laid
down a version they were tracking different versions of it.
He heard it back, said he didn't like it, told
Ken the record over it. Uh. He went back out there,
did another take on the solo, went back in and
listened to it back. Didn't like it, so let's go
with the last one. And everyone was like, well, you
told Kennon deleted. He it over it. And this is

(38:02):
when I'd like to go directly to uh, to Ken's book.
You did what, Lindsey demanded. His face turned bright red
and the veins in his neck began to throb. Then
he put his guitar down and charged in the control room,
approaching me from the front. While I was in my
control booth seat. Lindsey placed both hands around my neck.

(38:23):
You're an idiot, Lindsey screamed at me, his hands tightening
around my throat. Lindsey had pushed me all the way
back in my seat and his hands could have crushed
my windpipe. At that moment, time slowed down for me.
I didn't feel fear or anger. I just thought that
Lindsay was being a really stupid uh. And then I guess,

(38:44):
you know, everyone in the room although the bands look Lindsey,
what what the hell? And you know record scratch. He
looks up and realized that his bandmates are all looking
at him and you know, it's worth saying. These bandmates
have all done some pretty terrible things to each other,
like this is finally a too yeah, And I guess
they all demanded he apologized to Ken, and I guess

(39:06):
Lindsey like left the room and got him a beer
and tried to smooth things over, which you know, I
didn't quite do it in Ken's book. He continued and said,
of course Lindsey could have sent one of the road
crew to get me a beer, but he wanted to
get out of the studio, and I was happy to
see him leave. I didn't really believe that Lindsay was
sorry that he tried to choke me. Maybe he was

(39:27):
sorry he'd done it in front of other people, but
somehow I think he thought he had the right to
mistreat people. I just love that. I love that Ken,
that he talks about entering a state of like latest
Nirvana and and with like no thought for his own life.
But all he can think of is Lindsay, you idiot,

(39:48):
Keep stupid, idiot. That's so great. Good for King makes
me want to listen to his daughter's music. Um, but
Lindsay succeeded in choking that guitar solo out of Ken
KLA's throat. Yes, I mean Ken later assembled what was
the final guitar solo from six different lead guitar takes,

(40:11):
and I guess he had all the tapes up of
the control board and he fade them in and out
one at a time, which is kind of why it
all sounds like this kind of dream like, like one
melody line would come in and then another one would
come in after that. So Ken, despite the fact that
Lindsay tried to strangle him, worked his magic and uh
brought forth a really incredible guitar sound for him. Yeah,
which is you know, the job of every studio engineer

(40:33):
in the world is to each tack from the band
and then polish their turns into gold. Anyway, so how
did Stevie feel about this song? Not great? Uh, perhaps
unsurprisingly the line packing up shacking up is all you
want to do, you know, it's not just a lazy rhyme,
it's not just reductive, but it's me And Stevie asked

(40:54):
him to get rid of that, and of course he
did not, and she said rolling stone. She later said,
I very much resented him. He knew that it wasn't true.
It was just an angry thing that he said, and
every time those words would come on stage, I wanted
to go over and kill him. He knew it, so
he really pushed my buttons through that. It was like,
I'll make you suffer for leaving me and I did.

(41:17):
I think the thing that's really insidious about this is that,
like how much of this was really covered when they
were talking about it. You know, she wasn't able to
give her side of this story at the time, so
she just had to suffer through this song accusing her
of all of this stuff becoming one of their major hits.
I don't know, it's gross, man, It's sad, but a

(41:40):
nicer A nicer anecdote involves another person that that the
rumors Fleetwood Mac universe in the extended Universes, which is
kind of out of left field. Sly Stone Baby, Um,
that is right. Yeah. Stevie Nicks wrote her hit song
I Think the fleet Back's only number one song, Dreams

(42:00):
in sly Stones Bed. We'll talk more about in the second,
but first Dreams really was kind of her answer song
to go your Own Way. I mean she would call
Dreams and go your Own Way twins songs because they
kind of chronicle the struggle to untangle uh, their toxic relationship,
their toxic partnership from each other. And she would later
say and and uh in the liner notes to the

(42:23):
Rumors Deluxe reissue in even though Go Your Own Way
was a little angry, it was also honest. So then
I wrote Dreams, and because I'm the schifani chick who
believes in fairies and angels and Lindsay is a hardcore guy,
it comes out differently. Lindsay saying go ahead and day
other men, and go and live your crappy life, and
I'm singing about the rain washing you clean. We're coming

(42:44):
at it from opposite angles, but really saying the exact
same thing. It's true both songs about moving on. One
of them is bitter and resentful and mud slinging, and
the other is a little more zen about it one
way I'm putting it. But but sessions at the record
Plan and Saclito, we're usually pretty tedious. I mean, it's
a famous story about the engineers taking like five days

(43:05):
they get a good drum sound, And that really wasn't
Stevie's thing at all. I mean, she wasn't really into
the technical side of things, and so there wasn't a
lot for her to do. She's, like, you know, foremost
a singer songwriter. So when all the studio technical stuff
was going on, uh, she was pretty bored. And to
keep the boredom at bay, she went into a room nearby.

(43:27):
It was an unused studio that had been built for
Sly Stone, who was a you know northern California guy. Um,
you know, in addition to sly and the family Stone
who's a big, big time producer as well, Um sent
the stage set the stage for what they called Slies Pit.
Yes it was. It was a sort of It was

(43:48):
a black and red room with a sunken pit in
the middle, and there was a big black velvet bed
with Victorian drapes, and I guess there was like a
Fender Rhodes in there too. And so she was just
sitting there, bring her her knitting, I think she would say,
and then crotchet and writing her journals and sketch out
song lyrics and sketch pictures and stuff. And she would

(44:09):
just kind of hanging there and and it was kind
of her little hotaway when um, you know, when they
were doing all the technical stuff in in the studio room. Uh,
and it was in there that she she wrote Dreams.
She would later say on an interview with Blender, I
sat down on the bed with my keyboard in front
of me, I found the drum pattern, switched my little
cassette player on and wrote Dreams in about ten minutes.

(44:31):
And it's got this really simple like when she first
presented it to the band, it was this three chord
riff that you know, it was kind of like, kind
of hypnotic in a way. Um. Stevie would later say
that the band weren't all that crazy about it when
she first heard it because it was it was almost boring.
It was really just three chords, and um, I think
Christine mcbeel later said that she did think it was boring,

(44:53):
but Lindsay right. Lindsay worked with Stevie on it, which
you mean again, there is something to be said about
how much they worked on each other's songs, even when
they were, you know, about each other. Stevie would later
say in an interview with with The Daily Mail that
she played him the cassette demo of Dreams, and even
though Lindsay was mad at me at the time, he

(45:14):
played it and looked up at me and smiled. What
was going on between us was sad. We were couples
who couldn't make it through, but as musicians we still
respected each other, and I think that that is the
main point. Lindsay fashioned these three separate sections out of
identical chords, but he made every section sound different, and
like I was saying earlier, it's really kind of a

(45:34):
boring song on like a skeletal level, because it's just
a couple of chords in there that repeat over and over.
He made it so that each section sounded sonically very
different and kept your attention and kept it interesting. To me.
It's interesting that the band's nickname for it was Spinners
because they when she first played it for them, it
reminded them of a song by the R and B
group soul group the Spinners, and I guess people have

(45:56):
sort of over the years tried to figure out which
Spinners song that it is, and I was just on
a message board and people think it's I'll be around
because the chord progressions are not They're not entirely the same,
but the tempos are a little bit closer and the
melodies are both kind of moved around the pentatonic scale,
so apparently if you're interested, maybe uh, you can make

(46:20):
a judgment on it. In the same way that the
rest of Fleetwood Mac did about whether or not Dreams
is I'll be around by the Spinners. I didn't realize
that the drum sound on Dreams was like an eight
bar loop that they just had, so it almost sounds
like a proto like techno kind of thing. That's why
it sounds so like hypnotic is. It's just the same
thing over and over again. I didn't realize that until

(46:41):
researching for this, and it's six part vocals. It's I mean,
it is really I think more than go your own way.
This is like the Stevie's revenge against Lindsay was ultimately
having better songs um which is again a hot take,
but like I think it probably kills Lindsay him a
little bit that Dreams is what people think of when

(47:03):
they think of rumors and not go your own way,
especially after this song blew up on TikTok, you know,
and like it was just memed to death. I mean,
I'm sure Lindsay, yeah, I don't know. I would venture
guess that part of that bites at him. That her
song became like iconic, not to Go your Own Way,
He's an iconic, but hers popped back into the psychgeist
more recently. I don't know, maybe I'm projecting well also

(47:25):
at the time, I mean Dreams was I think Mac's
only number one song and Go your Own Way and
hit number ten, but I'm sure that must have ten.
Ain't one baby, that was the god This is a
NASCAR if you ate first your Last, that's hilarious, that's
a bit. I want to see Stevie Nicks parading or

(47:45):
number one for Dreams in front of Lindsey Bucking. I'm
going if you ain't first your Last? Whoa dude donuts
on his front lawn? Oh man, We're gonna a quick break,
but we'll be right back with more too much information
in just a moment. Well, while we're on on Stevie's

(48:19):
greatest song, Oh yeah, did you know that gold Dust
Woman features the sound of Mick Fleetwood's shattering glass like
on his own or just no one told him to
do it. He just that's just kind of no people,
they did tell him to do it. So this is
the genesis of the song. It's you know, Stevie's other big,

(48:41):
you know, standout moment on rumors. The song title comes
from gold Dust Lane in the town of Wickenburg, Arizona,
where Stevie spent time as a child. Yeah. Well, I
don't know any place with a road called gold dust
Land can't be that depressing. The other thing about this
song that will not surprise you is, uh, the rather
paper thin metaphor behind the title. Yeah. I mean you

(49:04):
were used the word dust around Fleetwood Mac and the
assumption would be that cocaine if somehow involved um. And
in an interview that Stevie gave, I guess she was
doing an interview with Courtney Love for Spin and she
confirmed that gold dust was a metaphor for cocaine. She said,
everybody was doing a little bit, you know. We never

(49:24):
bought it or anything. It was just around And I
think I had a real serious flash of what the
stuff could be or what it could do to you.
And I really imagine that it could overtake everything, never
thinking a million a million years that it would overtake me.
I must have met a couple of people that I
thought did too much coke, and I must have been
impressed by that because it made it into the whole story.

(49:44):
She met them at work, So according to Stevie, this
is basically about cocaine abusers before she really got heavily
into it herself. Um. The take that was chosen for
release on Rumors was apparently recorded at four in the
morning after just a long night of attempting it in
the studio, and in the final takes, Stevie, I guess
wrapped a black scarf around her head to kind of

(50:08):
like really veil her senses to the you know, the
world around her and really inhabit this character and get
inside this song. And to acentuate Stevie's lyrics, Uh, Mick
Fleetwood broke panes of glass, Um, I guess. Uh. Ken
call A later said that Mick was wearing goggles and

(50:28):
coveralls and he just he said, he was just went nuts.
It was just bashing glass with like a big hammer.
And he tried to do it on QE like on
rhythm and the song, but I guess he was just
getting a little too over zealous and wasn't quite hitting it.
So finally Kim was like, you know what, just just
just break the damn glass. We'll fit it in the song.
We'll do it in post we'll do it in post.
Here's another fun fact for you. The sheet of glass

(50:50):
that Mick Fleetwood broke in the master take of this
song actually went on to be the same sheet of
glass that gets broken as the intro for Stone called
Steve Austin's Walking music and then wub you have. I
really hope you're not kidding right now now, of course
I'm making that up. It's the same sheet of glass,
like I was on this message board and this glass

(51:12):
message board that would know that's that's on the Steve
Hoffman forums for sure. You know, I think the man,
there's so much. Every time you start learning about the
making this album, it just becomes like they were just
it's like inter enhanced interrogation techniques, like being in a
place where you don't know whether it's day or night,
being flipped to like a completely nocturnal schedule. I mean,
it's like there, it's like they were in Vegas. How

(51:34):
deranged are you after months of being like completely nocturnal
under like emotion. I mean, I'm surprised they weren't like
confessing to kidnapping the Lindbird baby. Just make it stop.
I'll sign whatever, I'll do whatever. Let me go back
to the light. Well, the whole Vegas thing about you know,
no windows, no clocks, now anything. I mean that was

(51:55):
kind of a selling point in the seventies of like,
you know, all musicians kind of kept those hours anyway,
and it was kind of you know, it made it easier.
It would be depressing to see the sun coming up
and knowing that, you know, you still had hours to
go to get the take or whatever and you still
needed to do it. I mean, I kind of understand
it in the way. Um. I mean, I I tell

(52:17):
you you mentioned earlier that they spent five days getting
drum sounds, which sounds about accurate. But if we do
an episode on Tusk, we'll get into this. But also,
as legends of Lindsay being a whacka do on during
the making of Tusk, the seeds were sowned during the
making of this record. So yeah, let's talk a little
bit about what Lindsay put the good people of the
Record Plant through. Yes, apparently the band required four days,

(52:43):
nine pianos, and three tuners to find a suitable instrument
for Christine McVie. And we mentioned the the five days
on drum sounds, But I think my favorite story about
Lindsay's maddening pursuit of sonic perfection was for the song
never Going Back Again. That song began under the working
title Brushes and it was just really simple acoustic guitar

(53:04):
tune that he played with snare roles by Mick Fleetwood,
which is kind of where it got its working title.
He's using brushes on the snare and the band added
vocals and further instrumentation and it got more layered and
got more developed, and um, I guess it was one
of the last songs that Lindsey wrote for the album.
The first song that he wrote was Going Your Own
Way about breaking up with Stevie. This was the last

(53:26):
one he wrote, which is kind of more about a
rebound relationship and moving on. Said later it was a
you know, a suite if naive song. But Ken Kelly,
the same guy who spent five days getting a drum
sound and it was also strangled by Lindsey Buckingham for
a guitar solo. Man deserved a purple heart for making
this album. He was asked to change Lindsey Buckingham's guitar

(53:49):
strings every twenty minutes. When he asked, he asked them
to do it because what he supposedly says and never
And you understand this because like, if you listen to
that song, it's so bright the sound of the guitar,
and that's like fresh string sounds, but you know it's
all fingerpicking, so you're getting more like oil and and uh,

(54:10):
every string is getting touched more by Lindsey Buckingham's disgusting hands,
so you lose brightness really quickly from that. So apparently
he started saying Buckingham's darkness infects the brightness of That's
the main takeaway here. So Kela says, you know, I
noticed that anytime he played there was a big difference
in how bright the strings sounded after like twenty minutes.

(54:31):
So he said, can we start just restringing your guitar
every twenty minutes? And he put he drafted the studio
text into doing this and says, I'm sure the roadies
wanted to kill me. Restringing the guitar three times every
hour was a bit, but Lindsay had lots of parts
on the song and each one sounded magnificent. But then
there was a oh, the coda to this when Lindsay

(54:52):
goes to sing because the song is capod uh. And
so when Lindsay goes to sing, he realized he played
all of his guitar parts in the wrong key. So
after a whole day of tracking three guitar parts per
song with string changes three times on the hour, they
wiped all of it to do the whole thing the
next day over again in the right key. What a

(55:13):
cost three studio tags a day? Whatever the day rate
for is it? I mean you could buy a car
for that much money. It's like Steely Dan being like,
we bought this studio for a week to audition guitarists
to play one solo, and none of them got it right.
So we're starting over next week. You know, Like I
love this phase of the music industry because man, these

(55:34):
people were just burning money. Yeah. But now let's talk
about one of the well, the more more low budget
Oh yeah, okay, yeah, well crank the studio budget dial
to the absolute other end to talk about secondhand News. Yes,
second hand News one of my all time favorite tracks
on the album. Did you know that the percussion sound
on that song is a leather chair or a pleather chair,

(55:57):
I should say, in the studio. That's what that sound is.
Secondhand news. I mean, man, what a classic opener. I mean,
you know, the the opening lines, I know there's nothing
to say, someone has taken my place. What a perfect
way to just set the mood for the entire album,
and such a great song rom the perspective of everyone involved. Yeah,

(56:18):
it was inspired by another of Lindsay's sort of rebound
relationships after attempting to move on from Stevie Nicks. He
will never move on from Stevie Nicks, who were kidding
not after Silver Springs Baby, But actually those words were
not there at the start of the sessions for this,
I guess he kept the songs instrumental at this early stage,

(56:41):
probably not wanting to antagonize Stevie, so in the early
phase he kept the lyrics to himself and started as
this like kind of almost like a Celtic March kind
of thing. And they were thinking that the song sounded
a little too folky, and they wanted to add kind
of a dancy R and B groove to it, and
they were inspired by the Bigs jive talking that, which

(57:03):
actually was inspired by the Bigs driving over a bridge
in Miami on the way to the studio. You know,
when the tires kind of go. It was like metal.
You can kind of hear that, and that's what inspired
jive talking. That's what inspired the kind of like rolling
percussive effect, almost like a proto disco groove. So, if
you're keeping track on your beautiful mind style collage of

(57:24):
rumors at home, we have now pulled the b GS
and the city of Miami into this web. Continue as
you were. So to get this kind of percussive groove,
they pounded the seat of a Nauga Hide chair. Nauga
Hide is like cheap faked leather and uh ken kel
A later said Lindsay was the accent king, which is

(57:45):
very generous considering this man once try to strangle him.
He could accent with guitars, he could accent with Tom
Tom drums, and he could accent with Nauga Hide chairs.
So it just goes to show you, I mean, how
far the band would go to get the ound that
Lindsay hurt in his head, from change guitar strings every
twenty minutes, to playing on a chair that happened to

(58:06):
be nearby, and sometimes they would even venture outside of
the studio, isn't that right, Higel? Yeah, absolutely, When we
progress onto Songbird, they actually at some point decided they
wanted to see the Daylight, which seems like it came
out of nowhere. But when it comes to Songbird, Kelly says,

(58:28):
I'm gonna try something different with this one, and he
had actually recorded an now with Joni Mitchell at the
Berkeley Community Theater. He explained this to Music Radar in
an interview at one point, and he says, I thought
about doing something similar to a kind of concert recital recording,
and perhaps maybe they just exhausted by this point, but

(58:49):
the band said, Okay, let's try that. But the Berkeley
Community Theater was unavailable. So Colle goes to the university
and says, I'd like to book the auditorium, complete with
an orchestra shell and a nine foot Steinway, and he really,
you know, set and setting for this, he really goes
the extra mile. Um when she shows up to record,

(59:09):
he requested that a bouquet roses be placed on her
piano and three colored spotlights shining down on them from above. Which, Yeah,
after you're trapped in this cocaine hell with all of
your exes and their exes, to come into like an auditorium,
that's like lit in this beautiful tableau, and he says
when she first saw it that she nearly broke into tears,

(59:31):
and I can easily understand that. Then, of course things
went insane, and they spent eighteen hours to record this
song in this auditorium. They stayed until seven o'clock the
next morning, because they can do nothing easily. That's the thing.
They can take Fleetwood Mac and take something as relaxed
and beautiful as a solo piano recording and turned it

(59:53):
into a death march. And she's but she did it
in one take. That's that's the really incredible thing about
this song is that that's the take. Well, I think
that's why it took so many hours. She was like,
I was like, it was supposed to be a complete take.
And I guess Lindsey Buckingham was playing acoustic guitar, I think,
on the same stage, and maybe it was just a
combination getting them both to do it, you know, to
get the same take at once. Apparently, the live performance

(01:00:16):
was captured by fifteen microphones placed around the empty auditorium,
which nearly one for every hour. I don't know much
about audio engineering, but that sounds excessive to me. Is
that it's like a lot. I mean, I'm sure they
had like two or three on the piano, two or
three on the guitar, but that's still a lot of
damn microphones for for what is three elements of a song? Anyway,

(01:00:40):
But we haven't even gotten to the weirdest weird is
weird the word I want to use. I don't know.
Just having it called oh Daddy's makes it feel weird
to me. But yeah, Oh Daddy's maybe my least favorite
song on the album. But one little talk about this, Yeah,
I enjoyed this. Apparently at the very end of the song,

(01:01:00):
you can hear Christine McBee pounding the keyboard in frustration
if you listen closely. But first, the really pressing question
is mc Fleetwood the big Daddy? Let's get into this
there There are mixed stories about who inspired Oh Daddy,
and it's widely believed to be about Mick Fleetwood, who
at the time was the only father in the band.
And he's just sort of the big daddy of Fleetwood Mac.

(01:01:23):
You know, he's he's the Fleetwood of Fleetwood back. He's
like nine ft tall. He's just like he was kind
of the de facto manager. He was just you know,
he's he's the big Daddy Fleetwood Mac. It makes sense.
But apparently both Lindsey Buckingham's former girlfriend Carol Anne Harris
and Stevie Nix's biographer have written that the song was
originally written about Christine mcvie's new boyfriend, Curry Grant, the

(01:01:44):
band's lighting designer, who spent all of the sessions trying
not to be killed by John McVie, um just putting
on different hats and like coming in and disguises Peter
Seller's routines. So that that's the two different theories about
who is the big Daddy of Oh Daddy. But apparently
when they were recording the song, poor Ken kel a uh,

(01:02:06):
there was a problem with the tape machine and the
tape snapped and right when she was singing oh Daddy
on the tape, so all you heard was oh Addy.
So for months they called the song oh Addy just
as kind of an in joke to rib poor Ken.
And then they go back in and I think they
did just do puncheons for that part when they dropped
the d um, and then she later tried to strangle him,

(01:02:31):
but anyway, went on the on the track that made
it on the album. Near the end of the song, Christine,
I guess thought that she made a mistake and they
get the band to stop. Just to get their attention,
she started hitting just random notes on her keyboard and
you can hear it around I think the three minute
and second mark on the song, she's just like kind
of hitting, you know, elbowing the keyboard. Um, but I

(01:02:51):
guess nobody noticed and they kept right on playing, and uh,
ken Kela would say, you know that we finished the
take and that one had the magic that we were
looking for, so we went with it. But you can
hear Christine McVeigh patting her keyboard and frustration, which is
probably something I imagined she would like to have done
more often during these sessions. Yeah, now we're getting into
my favorite bit of rumors minutia, which is Silver Springs.

(01:03:14):
And you know, again, this goes back to the Russian
novel thing because you kind of have to know about
Fleetwood Maclure to explain this, and apparently it's sort of
an open joke in Fleetwood Mac that Stevie can kind
of run at the mouth that her stories are a
little long winded. And if this even has continued because

(01:03:34):
there's an event, the Music Cares event where she's kind
of going on and talking a lot, and at one
point Lindsay rolls his eyes and that was like the
straw that broke the Camels back during this particular decade,
and so he got kicked out of the band subsequently.
But you know, as opposed to writing these very can

(01:03:55):
you see it with dreams like as opposed to writing
these can say speech boys style pop songs like Stevie,
and this is going to sound very cliche cast spells.
You know, these songs are more meditative and they kind
of their dreaming, and Ken file A later says, Stevie
is so prolific. All of her songs were initially about
fourteen minutes long, you know, so she would just go

(01:04:16):
on and on and there were stories about her mother
and her grandmother and stories about her dog. And so
he says it was my job to sit with her
and cut them down to three or four minutes, which
would drive her to tears. But so she has this
song that is explicitly about Lindsay called Silver Springs. They
were in Maryland and they were driving in her freeway
sign that says silver Spring Maryland, and she loves that name,

(01:04:37):
and she says she would later say, it sounded like
a pretty fabulous place to me. You know, you could
be my Silver Springs. That's just a whole symbolic thing
of what you could have been with me. But one
of the things that she wanted to do with this
song was signed away her publishing for it to her
mom as like a present. She was like, you know,
I'm kind of getting more money, and I'm like, set,

(01:04:59):
I want the publishing for this song to go directly
to my mom, as like her gift to her mother.
So by the time they get to sequencing rumors and
they have all of these songs, Rhino Records still only
hold twenty two minutes aside. So Kela says, you know,
we were concerned that we might have too slow of

(01:05:19):
a record. We didn't want to put the needle down
on side one and have all slow songs. So they
started sequencing test runs and found that they couldn't make
a sequence that worked that didn't feel too slow that
included Silver Springs. So they act Silver Springs and they bungle,

(01:05:40):
they fumble the touchdown like it's bad enough. They cut
this song, but then the way that they go about
telling her is so much worse. Take it away, Joy,
It's pretty brutal. So they think, oh jeez, Stevie is
gonna be really bummed that she's not getting her allotment
of songs on this album. So they decide maybe she'll
be it'll soften the blow if we do another one

(01:06:01):
of her songs, maybe a quicker song, maybe a shorter song.
So the band minus Stevie recorded the instrumental backing too
I Don't want to know, which was a song from
the Buckingham Knicks era that was just kind of left
over and they'd had it for a long time. And
so they break the news to Stevie. I think Mick
Fleetwood takes her out into the studio parking lot and says,

(01:06:24):
you know, he's taking her out to shoot her, like like,
we gotta go out behind the building for this one, Stevie, Like, God,
these people so mix us. You know, we can't have
this song. I'm sorry that the records too long. It
doesn't fit. I'm sorry, Stevie later said, Needless to say,
I didn't react well to that. Eventually, I said, well,

(01:06:45):
what song you're gonna put on the album instead? And
they said, well, re recorded. I don't want to know,
And she said, I think Lindsay thought it would be
okay with me because I wrote it, but I wasn't
okay with it. She's just classic man, like, we're taking
your song off the album, and we also decided which
of your songs we're gonna put on. Yeah, so she

(01:07:06):
she went in and recorded that song seriously under dress.
Silver Springs was relegated to the B side of Go
Your Own Way, which was especially galling considering, you know,
the song that meant the world to her is now
the B side to drags her through the mound, you know,
shacking ups all you want to do, So that really

(01:07:26):
just kind of added insult to injury, and it really
it remained a deep cut until fleetwood Ma live album
The Dance, which I'm getting goose bumps even thinking about. Everyone,
do yourself a favor and google the performance of Silver
Springs from The Dance to watch a blood bath non parol,

(01:07:47):
like good lord. It is one of the most harrowing
performances I've ever seen in my life. The eye contact. Yeah,
oh my god, yeah, it's it's it's beautiful. It's a
one of the kind thing. And the capit to that
it is that she used to check into hotels on
the road under the alias Miss Silver Spring, so she
truly never let go of it until one day she

(01:08:09):
murdered him. Moving on, this brings us to I think
this is my favorite track on the Album's probably everybody's
fad the track on the album, The Chain. Um. The
Chain so called because it's really a combination of sort
of unrelated songs that the band had worked on that
they all linked together, kind of like the Beatles did
of the Day in the life. Um. The Chain has

(01:08:31):
its basis and an unreleased Christine mcviee song and then
old Buckingham Knicks track Yeah, and it's core is a
Christine McVie song called keep Me There, which and the
Pantheon of all time draft names was called butter Cookie
back in the day. Is it so funny? I love
when songs are like that. You know, you get something
like the jam that turns into like tiny Dancer or something,

(01:08:54):
and Elton John was calling it like, you know, the
Minister's tea Kettle or something dumb like that. Anyway, it's
a keyboard driven song because obviously Christine McVie wrote it,
but they never really got around to finishing it, and
so Buckingham says, what happened, He tells Rolling Stone In
He says, we decided that this song needed a bridge,
so he cut a bridge and edited it into the

(01:09:16):
rest of the song. So you get to the two
halves of keep Me There, which are built then around
probably one of the coolest basslines in maybe of all
twentieth century pop music. It's so good, and it's John mcvige,
you know, it's his shining moment. So they just made
that the middle of the song and I guess it

(01:09:36):
just stayed in partial form for a while. Buckingham says,
it almost went off the album. Then we went back
and decided we liked the bridge, but we didn't like
the rest of the song. So it really came together
kind of catches catch can. But the interesting thing about
the guitar part is that their self pledgiarization recycling continues.

(01:09:57):
Buckingham basically steals a good hard figure from himself from
this song called Lola My Love, which is recorded from
the Buckingham Nick days, and he recycles that for the
chain and then so the ending of the song is
actually the only thing that is left from Christine mcveige's
original track, which, as you will recall, was called butter Cookie.

(01:10:20):
It comes up with a bunch of much better name
the chain because it was a bunch of pieces. And
then Jordan's what would you describe as the final link
in the chain? Well, I'm glad you asked Highchool. I
think that the final link in the chain were the lyrics.
Originally the song had no words, because again it's just
a bunch of instrumental parts from unrelated demos that were
all linked up, and Stevie wrote the words. And uh,

(01:10:42):
I don't even think she necessarily wrote it initially with
this song in mine. I think she wrote the lyrics independently,
and then she came in and said, you know, I've
wrote some lyrics and they might fit for this thing
you would doing the other day. So it got all
linked up, and uh, it really, I mean, it's just
a centerpiece of the band, not only their live set,
but just their whole cannon. It really is such an

(01:11:04):
an apt metaphor for this group of people that are
just bound together for decades despite all this turmoil. I mean,
the chain will keep us together. It's a symbol of
strength and togetherness, but it's also imprisonment, you know. I mean,
the words to that song are are so brilliant. And
The Chain, I believe, is the only track that all

(01:11:27):
five members of the classic Fleetwood Mac era all of
a writing credit on. I think that's the only one. So,
I mean, it's it's funny that song that's called the Chain,
that's sort of about the love hate relationship of everybody
kind of being bound together, is something that they all
kind of had a hand in creating, which is pretty fitting.
And it's got a bass solo, and it's got a

(01:11:47):
great bass solo. Hell yeah, John McVie, at the end
of the day, John mcvigh comes out on top, Yes
he does. John mcvigh was actually the one who hit
upon the title Rumors for this record. They were initially
gonna call it Yesterday Days Gone from Don't Stop Thinking
About Tomorrow, but John and v suggested rumors because he
thought the band were, you know, their songs were basically

(01:12:08):
journals and diaries and they were talking about each other
through their music. And that brings us to the album cover.
Herbert Worthington's absolutely iconic cover feature Stevie in her which
she ran and guys dancing. I think she's dancing with
mc fleetwood. Whatever that we want to call that pose.
It called some drama. The cover caused some drama because

(01:12:28):
why not every other element of this production drama? As
if something would go smooth. No. According to the photographer
Herbert Worthington's, Lindsey Buckingham has quote never forgiven me for
not being on the Rumors cover. And this is in
Ken Kelly's book. I guess Kenny interviewed him. Lindsay came
up to me and said, I wish I could have
been on my own damn cover. He didn't say damn

(01:12:49):
I hadn't that, but but emphasis mine um and Herbie,
I guess tried to explain to Lindsay, you know, the
cover idea was about creating a piece of art. It
wasn't supposed to just the straight headshots of the group.
H Lindsay was not happy about that. I mean, yeah,
I I I'm not on his side for this. I'm sorry.
Like you've got the guy in the band who's eight

(01:13:10):
feet tall, you've got the woman in the band who
looks like an actual fairy, and like the guy who
wears kimonos and has like an enormous mount of goofy
curly hair. Is like piste off. He didn't get to
be on the cover. Like it looks like an oil painting,
like it minus the balls thing, but like it's so
beautifully arranged, just like imagining like Lindsey bucking I'm standing

(01:13:30):
there like hands on his hips in his kimono, like
just dead center just throws it off so much. He
look this image of Lindsey Buckingham and his kimono is
very strong with you. I want to know more about
There's a there's a there's a performance of them doing
dreams at one point and it's I think he's playing
Less Paul. It's before he's playing the returner guitars. But
he is truly wearing a kimono belted at the waist,

(01:13:53):
not unlike Rush in a certain era from them. But
I don't know, he's just he's just a he's a striver.
He's just a hilarious person to me, someone who takes
himself so so seriously. Um anyway, sorry, but you mentioned
Mick Fleetwood's balls earlier, as you well should have. There
is a story about the pair of wooden balls that

(01:14:14):
are dangling from mc fleetwood's pants. It's definitely a weird detail.
I mean, it's something I've kind of always wondered about.
And those balls almost miss it, Like it almost seems
you almost missed them because there's so much poison like staging,
and his limbs are so long, and then and then
you look down and you're just distracted by this bit
of grotiery. You would think that it was just this

(01:14:35):
kind of like spur of the moment, boyish prank, and
it's not. These balls actually have kind of a long
history with Nick Fleetwood as kind of a good luck talisman.
There were known as lavatory chains. There are the things
you pulled the flush the toilet and they date back
to early Fleetwood Matt gigs, like in the Peter Green
days in the sixties. And he said he gave an
interview with the Maui Times in two thousand nine and

(01:14:57):
he said that, well, I had a couple of glasses
of English jail and I came out of the toilet
with these. I guess he just ripped him off the
toilet and he just tied them to his pants down
between his legs when he was playing, just to be funny,
and uh, you know, he was like to say, in truth,
they started off as a blues player. The whole ethic

(01:15:17):
of a lot of blues music is slightly suggestive, I
might say, and suitably, I walked out on stage with
these two laboratory chains, with these two wooden balls hanging down,
and it just stuck. And this wasn't his only tribute
to uh virility, I suppose you could say, Uh. He
also went through performative. Yeah, he went through a long

(01:15:39):
period of placing a dildo on top of his bass
drum that he called Harold, and I guess it was
like a mascot, almost on par with like the penguins,
uh in the pre Buckingham Next days of the band.
And I guess uh Harold's career came to a an
abrupt end when Fleetwood Mac were touring the American South,
and I guess they were really arrested for having a

(01:16:01):
dildo on the trump kit. Um. So so that was that.
But the balls, Meanwhile, Mick Fleet would continue to to
to wear them as sort of like a good luck
charm really, and they made an appearance at pretty much
every Fleetwood Mac show and apparently the original set were
lost on the road, which I mean would be an

(01:16:22):
amazing you know rock and roll Indiana Jones adventure to
try to track down Mick Fleetwood's rumors balls. Um but
he makes do these days with with a replica, and
he says, I think this is speaking to the MAUI times.
I won't say there as old as me, but and
it starts getting an X rated commentary here my balls
are quite old, weirdow. Sorry, we all we all have

(01:16:48):
our good luck charms. Hey, if you happen to know
the whereabouts of the original set of Mick Fleetwood's balls,
please tweet at us using the hashtag meet Fleetwood's Balls.
I promise you Jordan will enjoy the at This is
like unsolved mysteries, like Robert's Stack being like update update,
Mick Fleetwood's balls have been found. I wish I had

(01:17:11):
a Bobby Stacks impression on deck where he's like, I
don't know if I can pull this out. Three hours
after we three hours after we broadcast the episode on
Mick Fleetwood's balls, a housewife in Des Moines, Iowa was
watching our show and called in. Three hours later, Mick
Fleetwood's balls were found and returned to him. Tearful reunion.

(01:17:32):
Fleetwood reduced the tears by balls. Speaking of Mick Fleetwood's balls,
Hey uh, any Leebovitz is rolling Stone cover shoot, and
Mick Fleetwood's balls actually played a large part in God
I'm So sorry. Um so the band when they were
going to be on the cover of Rolling Stone. Cameron

(01:17:52):
Crow's doing the story, Annie Leevi, it's shooting the art,
and you know it's an open secret in ll A
that this band is a catastrophe of interper relationships. So
the pitch for the art is to have them in
bed with each other, and Fleetwood says in play on,
he says, the intention was a spoof on the rumors
about our private lives, and yet symbolically the picture showed
us exactly as we were all married to each other.

(01:18:16):
Generous read on that, Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, but you
know she knows her audience. I'll say this. And so
the band arrives at her studio and she had left
cocaine out for them as a treat. As a treat,
yeah exactly, here's the little charcouterie plate, here's some cocaine. Um.
But then she says they looked a little freaked out.
At first, but then consumed it in like thirty seconds.

(01:18:38):
Then I learned they'd all recently been to rehab, so
they were all a little jittery, intense, So great setting
for a photo shoot. Band fresh out of rehab is
offered cocaine and put in bed together. The original concept
for the art called for the two ex couples to
embrace each other, but they wisely walked that back a little,
and Buckingham says, you know, for Stevie and me, the

(01:18:59):
wounds and timosities were still very fresh, so the idea
for the photo wasn't all that funny? Was the Fleetwood
Night song on tuss That's like not that funny, is it? Anyway,
Nicks put her foot down and she said, Okay, I'll
be in bed with all of them, but I can't
be in bed next to Lindsay, So I curl up
next to Mick for the next three hours while Annie

(01:19:20):
has suspended over us on a platform, and Christine didn't
want to be next to John because they had just divorced,
so John sits by himself reading Playboy. Now this obviously
strange bedfellows make for strange bedfellows because this session, Nix
and Buckingham backslides. This is something that I found really
hard to believe, but Stevie has quoted us saying that

(01:19:42):
she and Lindsay actually hooked up while in bed for
this photo shoot. To read the quote, and I'm not
totally sure where it's from. But afterwards, Lindsay and I
got to talking about how amazing it was that not
so long ago I was a waitress and he didn't
have a job, and now we were on the cover
of Rolling Stone with this huge record, and we lay
there for about two hours talking and making out. Finally

(01:20:04):
Annie had to tell us to leave because she'd rented
the room for only so long. Family was just like,
get a room. But perhaps even more surprising, you know,
Nicks is also in bed with good old Mick Fleetwood,
and you know it, uh it sparks something in them.
Fleetwood later writes that the shoot caused him to realize

(01:20:25):
that he and Nicks had definitely known each other in
previous lives, which is that's some nineteen seventies pick up
line if I've ever heard it, Like, oh hey, babe,
I think like we might have known each other, but
it wasn't a one way thing. Nix. It later admits
herself that that particular photo session planted the seed for
mix making me, which happened a year later. So they,

(01:20:48):
you know, earnestly embarked on an affair during a late
summer break during the band's tour schedule later that year,
just before they headed to the South Pacific. So maybe
it's a little pre pre South Pacific romance vibes um.
Stevie and I used to slip away and go on
adventures after gigs, which was an easy way to get away,
Mick recalls. They would go to Maui, they go to

(01:21:10):
New Zealand. They would just go driving through the Hollywood Hills,
which doesn't sound make Fleetwood at the wheel of an
automn automobile does not sound relaxing to me. But they
parted eventually, But you know, Mike Fleetwood still looks back
on this with pretty admirably rose colored glasses. He says,
we just love each other in the true sense of
the word, which transcends passion. I will take my love

(01:21:30):
for her as a person to my grave, because Stevie
Nicks is the kind of woman who inspires that devotion.
I have no regrets and near to she, but we
do giggle sometimes and wonder what might have transpired if
we'd given that passion the space and time to blossom
into something more, Which is like, that's a really that's
a really nice quote from Mick Fleetwood that I think

(01:21:51):
that is actually a great note to end of for
all of the bile and spite and resentment and just
torture us in a per some relationships that went into
the making of this album, you have that, you have
that beautiful quote, A really nice moment shared between two
people didn't work out, but they both appreciate each other

(01:22:11):
and what they had for a brief moment of time
for what it was. I think that is beautiful. I
think that should be you know, they say, you know,
people don't change. I think that is the Hero's journey.
They changed, they took, they took something from all this.
I think that is. Yeah. If there's two things I
want you to take away from this podcast, I want

(01:22:31):
you to take away that Rumors is really Joseph Campbell's
The Hero's Journey and hashtag Fleetwood's balls. Uh, this has
been too much information about Fleetwood Max Rumors. I'm Alex Hegel,
I'm Jordan Runtuck. Thank you so much for listening. We
will see you in a few days with more fun
and adventure. Too Much Information was a production of I

(01:22:58):
Heart Radio. The show's executive producers are Noel Brown and
Jordan run Talk. The supervising producer is Mike John's. The
show was researched, written and hosted by Jordan run Talk
and Alex Heigel, with original music by Seth Applebaum and
the Ghost Funk Orchestra. If you like what you heard,
please subscribe and leave us a review. For more podcasts
and I heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app,

(01:23:18):
Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

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