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McPoodle


A cartoon dog in a cartoon world

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Apr
14th
2014

Guest Review: "Rumours", by Fleetwood Mac · 4:29am Apr 14th, 2014

McPoodle here. The author of “At the Inn of the Prancing Pony” showed some initial reluctance to my insistence that she publish anonymously. However, as it became closer to the time when the story would be appearing on this site, she began to realize the opportunities that anonymity affords her. In particular, the opportunity to express personal opinions without those opinions having political ramifications.

She has therefore asked if I might allow her to use my blog to post essays on subjects that interest her. That means that this, and other blog entries in the “Guest Review” series, will have nothing whatsoever to do with “At the Inn of the Prancing Pony”. I do think, however, that they provide valuable insight into the opinions and attitudes of the author of that story, and I for one enjoy having that information available to me when reading a work of fiction.


When I set out to begin reviewing the music of modern-day humanity, my first instinct was to begin by submitting my thoughts on the song entitled “Bohemian Rhapsody”, by the British band Queen.

I was informed by McPoodle that this particular subject was “the most obvious first review material in the history of rock reviews”, and suggested that I display a little more originality.

Very well. Instead of “Bohemian Rhapsody”, I shall review another work from McPoodle’s 1970’s-leaning CD collection, the album Rumours, by Fleetwood Mac.

Rumours was the eleventh album by the British-American band. Released in early 1977, it was certified platinum within a matter of months (meaning that it had sold a million copies in America), and received the Grammy Award for Album of the Year in 1978, going on to sell over 40 million copies by 2012. Clearly, this was a work that had meaning to the era and continues to have meaning to listeners even today.

Fleetwood Mac is a group with a somewhat schizoid history. It was originally founded as a purely British blues band in 1967, but by 1973, its fortunes had fallen so low that the manager attempted to steal the name of the band, putting on tours with a group of studio musicians that had nothing whatsoever to do with the lineup that recorded the album that the fake band was supposed to be promoting. By the time a lengthy lawsuit settled the whole affair, Fleetwood Mac was reduced to just three members: drummer Mick Fleetwood, bassist John McVie, and keyboardist Christine McVie. Christine McVie, wife of John, did not consider herself a strong enough singer to be the sole lead for the band (she originally joined the band as a groupie, and had become the second-most prolific songwriter for the group, behind whoever was their current lead guitarist at the time), and so the group could not continue until they found someone to take or share the lead duty with her, preferably a guitarist.

That guitarist was found in the American Lindsey Buckingham, who brought his musical partner and girlfriend, the singer Stephanie “Stevie” Nicks, along with him into the band. They had specialized in folk rock, and their contributions transformed the sound of Fleetwood Mac, from blues-rock to a much-more popularly oriented rock. The result was the album Fleetwood Mac (1975), which was platinum certified and sold three times as many copies as any previous album by the band. This five-member configuration would remain stable for the next twelve years, and so perhaps it would be more instructive to consider Rumours the second album of the Buckingham-Nicks era of Fleetwood Mac, rather than the eleventh album by the band since its inception.

As a second work tends to do, the production of Rumours put huge strains on the members of Fleetwood Mac, to prove that the success of their earlier album was not a fluke. Fueled by massive drinking and cocaine splurges (or as McPoodle calls it, “being a hit band in the 1970s”), these strains ultimately led to the divorce of John and Christine McVie, and the breakup of Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nick’s six-year relationship. Instead of trying to put a happy face on these strains, Buckingham, Nicks and Christine McVie, the three songwriters of the band, actually shared what they were going through with their listeners, thereby putting those listeners through the unique experience of hearing two couples falling apart.

So let’s take a look at each of these songs:

1. “Second Hand News”, written and sung by Lindsey Buckingham.

I know there’s nothing to say.
Someone has taken my place.

Buckingham’s songs have the disconcerting quality that their upbeat melodies frequently clash with their downbeat lyrics. From the very start of the album, we have an acknowledgement that what the singer had was gone, that’s he’s just “Second Hand News” to his love. As you’ll find in practically every song on this album, the choruses include the entire band, so that Nicks is singing along with words blaming her for ending her perfect relationship with Buckingham.

2. “Dreams”, written and sung by Stevie Nicks.

Now here you go again.
You say you want your freedom.
Well who am I to keep you down?

“Second Hand News” is immediately followed by Nicks’ rebuttal, in which she makes it clear who created the intolerable conditions that ended their relationship. As she states in the chorus, “Players only love you when they’re playing.” “Dreams” became the only number one single from the album in America.

3. “Never Going Back Again”, written and sung by Lindsey Buckingham.

Been down one time,
Been down two times,
I’m never going back again.

Another disarming, charming song by Buckingham. It’s very short and very simple. Buckingham tells Nicks that he has found another woman, and that he can be happy without her—so this time the happy melody is covering up vindictive lyrics instead of bitter lyrics.

4. “Don’t Stop”, written by Christine McVie, sung by Lindsey Buckingham and Christine McVie.

Don't stop, thinking about tomorrow,
Don't stop, it'll soon be here,
It'll be, better than before,
Yesterday's gone, yesterday's gone.

Christine McVie is here singing to her husband, who was seeking a divorce from her. And even though she knew that their marriage could not continue, here she was urging him to find happiness in his life without her, even telling him not to look back at their time together.

5. “Go Your Own Way”, written and sung by Lindsey Buckingham.

Loving you
Isn't the right thing to do.
How can I ever change things
That I feel?

This is, in my opinion, the core of the entire album, even if I reach this interpretation by going against Buckingham’s own intentions for this song. Once again, the lyrics point to the regret of a relationship ending. But this time, the soaring joy of the music, especially the chorus, undercuts that feeling to the point of reversing it. Buckingham dismisses Nicks, telling her she can “go her own way”. But in my ears it sounds more like a mark of liberation: he is setting her free from all of her sorrows, whether caused by him or anybody else, to go out and define herself exactly as she wishes. This feeling, that the end of love can be the beginning of true happiness, is something I have rarely encountered in pony poems and songs, and never in a work with any popularity to it. And yet this hit #10 in the American Billboard lists in 1977. For all those in my own country who have decried humanity for their faults compared to ponies, I reply with this song, that they can’t be so bad if they can write and love something like this. I challenge anyone going through a difficult breakup or fight with a friend, lover...or sister, not to smile after listening to it.

6. “Songbird”, written and sung by Christine McVie.

And I wish you all the love in the world,
But most of all, I wish it from myself.

This song is, ironically, the very opposite of “Go Your Own Way” in my personal interpretation. The lyrics and melody unite into a gentle love song. But the knowledge that the singer is addressing it to the man who is leaving her makes it hopelessly bittersweet. It’s as if McVie needs to listen to the last song, and move on with her life.

7. “The Chain”, written and performed by Fleetwood Mac as a whole.

And if
You don't love me now
You will never love me again
I can still hear you saying
You would never break the chain.

The contradictions between words and meaning continue in the only song on the album where credit was shared by the entire band, including the usually silent Mick Fleetwood and John McVie, the very sources of the “Fleetwood” and “Mac” in the band’s title, with an ending trio between John McVie’s bass, Fleetwood’s drums and Buckingham’s guitar that raises goosebumps. Despite the lyrics condemning the three wayward couples (Fleetwood was getting a divorce of his own alongside the other two breakups), the overall feeling is of reinforcement: despite their personal problems with each other, the band will live on, held together by the unbreakable chain of their dedication to the pure cause of their art.

...I could have used one of those chains in my life.

8. “You Make Loving Fun”, written and sung by Christine McVie.

I never did believe in miracles,
But I've a feeling it's time to try.
I never did believe in the ways of magic,
But I'm beginning to wonder why.

And here we have Christine McVie’s alternative to “Go Your Own Way”: you can go be happy as an individual, or you can find a relationship that makes you happy. This makes it the most conventional song on the album, the one that buys into the notion that falling in love is the ultimate purpose of living, just as every other human and pony pop song keeps telling me. Of course, it’s never that easy.

9. “I Don’t Want to Know”, written by Stevie Nicks, sung by Nicks and Buckingham.

I don't want to stand between you and love,
Honey, I just want you to feel fine.

I don’t know—this one just doesn’t work for me. The music is just so...ordinary. I suppose it can be considered the flipside of “Never Going Back Again”.

10. “Gold Dust Woman”, written and sung by Stevie Nicks.

Rock on, gold dust woman.
Take your silver spoon
And dig your grave.

The album is concluded with a puzzling song that resists interpretation. On one level, the eponymous woman could be said to be a personification of the drugs and alcohol that drove the members of the band to crash so spectacularly against each other. She’s called a “black widow”, a “pale shadow of a woman”, a dragon. Maybe Nicks is forecasting her own ruin as a rock star who has and will leave a trail of broken lovers behind her, comparing her life in a way to the tragic path of Janis Joplin. But not even Nicks in interviews knows for certain what the song means, so I will stop my speculations there.


As they vowed in “The Chain”, Fleetwood Mac managed to survive the making of Rumours. The semi-experimental album Tusk (1979) sold “merely” four million copies, which led the follow-up, Mirage (1982) to be more eager to seek popular appeal. Tango In the Night followed in 1987, and ended up second only to Rumours in copies sold. In between these albums, each of the singer-songwriters took turns putting out their own solo albums. In 1987, Lindsey Buckingham departed Fleetwood Mac, and was replaced by two other guitarists, a sign of just how much he had contributed to the band. They put out a number of albums over the next decade, but only the “Best Of” compilations ever reached sales numbers to rival the Fleetwood Mac through Tango in the Night period. As you might expect for a group with their tumultuous history, the group broke up and reunited in a variety of formations in the decades that followed. As of this year, they are back together and planning on putting out a new album.

I often consider myself a fish out of water. I live in a world utterly unlike the one of my greatest successes and greatest failures. Unlike many such “Rip Van Winkles”, I do not condemn the new era I find myself in; indeed, I see much to commend it over the flawed era in which I once lived. Even in its flaws I see something that is commendable. The press on both Earth and Equestria are out of control, tearing apart innocent lives and exposing secrets that nopony had any business knowing, purely in pursuit of sales and ratings. But the same press exposes the secrets that need to be exposed in order for society to thrive. And in a world where almost nothing is secret, where people compete to determine who can arrive first at the most self-destroying revelation, you have something like Rumours, where the pain that anyone who was not an artist should want to hide away forever is exposed for all to see, and revealed for the art that it truly is. Even in pain can sublime beauty be found.

Someone has taken my place, but it is alright, because I can go my own way.

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Comments ( 7 )

Huh. This was much more interesting then I expected and certainly and interesting insight to a band I had never heard of before. I would be interested in seeing more of these.

Reading a review of an album I've never heard of, by a band I've never heard of, from a person I've never heard of, is like peering into an alternate universe.

Which I guess is the point of this, huh?

For some reason, this has me wanting to see more FleetfootMac shipping.

I may have a problem.

I read this to get a feel for the reviewer rather than the reviewed, and it was truly enlightening in that regard. Also, the idea of a pony perusing my CD collection is kind of hilarious, not least because in my case, that collection is mostly Weird Al.

In any case, this highlights a quality of the LP era that's been lost in this time of custom playlists: the metasong. The message inherent in the songs and ordering thereof on an album, once immutable, now almost forgotten. And that's kind of sad.

2009113

Eh, people still put out concept albums that need to be played in order to make any sense.

Ok, so my main example is Rush (Clockwork Angels), and they're just getting back to what they spent their first decade or so, back in the vinyl era, doing, but still, I'm sure there must be newer bands doing the same thing.

Also, Cheese Sandwich.

Hmn, well so much for my previous assumption that the author was Twilight. Seems far more likely that it's either Celestia or Luna.

Aha. Reading this blog entry finally makes the anonymous author clear. In retrospect it is obvious, given the Parade story and so forth, but I had been wondering through the first 2 chapters of Prancing Pony, and now I can enjoy it without having that eat at me.

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