Original subtitles

I listen to Fleetwood Mac everyday

because artists like that unlock the doors of perception.

They connect you to a creative soul.

In terms of being able to do music across a multiplicity of genres,

they're kind of incomparable.

For me, it's the marriage of those tones,

both of the voices but of the instruments.

And what I love about Fleetwood Mac is that no song

is really a show-off song for anyone.

Everyone kind of gets their moment.

They're the perfect example of letting go

and just, just letting your thing flow.

Where it leads, if you let it flow,

is these songs that came out of these different marriages.

Well, Fleetwood Mac were invented by Peter Green,

who was a blues guitarist

and part of the British blues guitar explosion of the time.

A kind of Clapton-y, Yardbirds thing was going on around there,

and he started Fleetwood Mac and it's very much his baby.

Peter Green recruited Mick Fleetwood on drums and John McVie on bass,

and they were the name - Fleetwood Mac.

They were huge.

At one point they were selling more than the Beatles

and the Rolling Stones combined,

and had a really big hard-core blues following.

Albatross changed that slightly

in that they became slightly more mainstream.

But in doing that, it lost them a lot of those hard-core blues fans,

but it gained them a lot of new fans.

INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC: Albatross

It sounds incredible, even all these years later.

It's just got that classic Americana...

..kind of dream pop, dream-like vibe.

But it also wouldn't feel out of place on kind of...

almost like a '90s chill-out album as well.

To have established a blues fan base

and to then present them with this,

I can't imagine it was well-received by all of their fans.

It certainly would confound expectations.

Certainly, I think, a lot of people would be surprised

if they heard the entire back catalogue.

I used to listen to a lot of kind of rock and roll and punk music,

and there's a Fleetwood Mac song,

I think it's called Somebody's Going to Get Their Head Kicked in Tonight.

That's certainly the kind of, the chorus of the main line.

get their head kicked in tonight.

And I just...

I don't think when I first heard that song

I realised it was Fleetwood Mac that sang it.

Then when I realised it was and it was the same people

that sing, like, Everywhere, I was just like,

"What? That doesn't make sense."

So, yeah, there's lots of surprising gems

in the Fleetwood Mac back catalogue.

We're now going to do our latest single, called Oh Well.

about the shape I'm in

and my legs are thin

what I think of you

that you want me to...

Guitars are the coolest...instrument.

Look at those guys!

Look at them, they're having fun.

They don't care that you're there.

The way he's playing, the way his fingers are, and they look so cool.

I knew he'd understand

and I'll be your guiding hand

what I think of you

that you want me to.

It was very, erm, intense kind of 12-bar, it has to be 12-bar.

The anorak crowd, the sort of hard-core blues guys were like,

"Oh, you're a sell-out."

And with "Oh Well" as well, they're already losing fans,

haemorrhaging hard-core blues fans.

and then they lose their main songwriter.

So they don't just lose their crowd, they lose their main guy.

Apparently, two band members, Peter Green being one of them,

had a bad acid trip in Germany, this is the folklore of it.

And after that, Peter Green did not feel right.

So at this point, obviously, Peter Green just needs a really good rest.

So Peter leaves and you still have Mick and John,

Fleetwood and Mac,

who obviously want to continue as a band.

And so you have this kind of almost barren period

where they're not making music, they're constantly searching

and trying out new members.

Then in comes Christine, John's wife,

who comes in on merit

because she's an incredibly accomplished songwriter,

great keyboard player.

Which led to this craziest luck ever with Mick Fleetwood going

into a studio in Los Angeles to check out the studio,

and the producer, like, puts on a reel to show him what he can do,

"This is what I last... This is my latest thing."

Apparently, Mick Fleetwood heard a record by a duo called

Buckingham Nicks, so he asked them out for dinner.

He invited Lindsey Buckingham, the guitarist,

to join Fleetwood Mac and Lindsey Buckingham said,

"Well, actually, I'm going out with Stevie Nicks,"

who is the other partner in the duo, "We come as a package.

"We don't go anywhere without each other."

So, unbeknownst to Mick Fleetwood,

suddenly he's got Stevie Nicks in the band.

And probably this was a sort of,

"Is she going to work? Is this going to work? What are we going to do?"

But actually, suddenly, the magic happens.

on a poor girl like me

Falling at your feet

my head to my toes

make the feeling go

and the lights go down

another living soul around

running for cover

for a little sympathy

it'll be the end of me

and the lights go down

Oh, look at that!

until the sun comes up...

And they're so different voices, as well.

You know, Christine and Stevie's voices are worlds apart.

But together...

..it's so special.

So much of the success of the songwriting has come from

Stevie and Christine. Their talent as performers and musicians,

you know, no arguments there.

But in terms of what went on, in terms of the songwriting,

I don't think they get the credit that they're due for how much

of the success of Fleetwood Mac is due to them.

gonna stay away

weaker every day

as I used to be

it'll be the end of me

and the lights go down

living soul around

and the lights go down

living soul around

Rhiannon is written by Stevie Nicks,

and I really think it's a phenomenal song.

It only reached 46 in the UK charts, I believe,

which is a shockingly low chart position.

In the Rolling Stone magazine vote of the 500 top songs,

it comes in at 488, which I think is a very respectful place

when you think of how many songs there are in the world.

But what I like about this song, Stevie Nicks always introduces it

as being about a Welsh witch.

This is a song about a Welsh witch.

through the night

like a bird in flight

you've never seen a woman

if she promised you heaven?

and then she is the darkness

like a fine skylark

a lady like her rises

At the time, she was very much into Welsh mythology

and was starting to learn about the goddess of horses,

which is very prominent in Welsh folklore.

But it's the way she's written it.

She writes in a stream of consciousness,

which really only Stevie Nicks could do.

She doesn't finish her phrases, so she writes words that fit

the musical phrase more than they fit the sense,

but it works because that's how she writes.

It's ingrained, it's part of her DNA,

she's not faking it.

She's discovered what works for her voice.

through the night

like a bird in flight

a lady like her rises

and your life knows no answer

Stevie Nicks was the only member of the band

who didn't play an instrument,

so she wrote in a different way to everybody else.

But she has this stage presence.

She's 5'1" and she has that thing of suddenly she's the focal point.

I don't think they predicted the success she would have,

just as being an icon, just as being herself.

Yes, you can't mistake her for anybody else.

so ahead of its time.

Creating those sounds without a pick - he was a finger player -

but also strums.

It's just mind-blowing.

John's like, you know, he just stands in the background there

and does his thing brilliantly and is so intrinsically important

to the sound of that band.

John and Mick, you know, those two are the... They're the roots

of Fleetwood Mac, they're the foundations, really,

and the quiet foundations.

Just get on with what they're doing.

The notion of something beautiful

coming out of something so horrendous is Rumours.

This was a band who, the success of the Mac was growing,

they were a hugely popular band.

But as they were becoming more and more successful,

the band were imploding, really.

You know, relationships were breaking down.

Rumours is really a break-up album between Buckingham and Nicks

and also John and Christine,

and Mick Fleetwood was breaking up with his wife in England.

Almost every song is about someone in the band.

And they are playing on, and singing on, songs about each other,

bringing lyrics in at the last minute because they know

the person in the room will know it's about them,

and obviously it's complete chaos

and yet those tensions are the things that make it.

And some of those songs are quite mellifluous

and they're quite soothing and then you realise what they're about -

they're about a band hating each other.

And then to just air that about each other, it's...

It's a lot of tolerance on each side to allow it, you know,

and not throw around tools and just walk out.

the right thing to do

that I feel?

I'd give you my world

when you won't take it from me?

another lonely day.

Stevie Nicks is looking daggers at Lindsey Buckingham because

she wanted a line removed - "packing up, shacking up" -

which is Lindsey Buckingham responding to the shock

of Stevie Nicks leaving him.

is all you wanna do

I'd give you my world

Everything's waiting for you

It's a really brilliantly arranged song.

Backing vocals, for me, are one of the most magical parts

of making a record and Fleetwood Mac are an absolute flag in the sand

for how to do backing vocals and how to sing together as a group.

And the song's got such a beautiful example of those.

another lonely day.

Fleetwood Mac have found their way into my songs.

There's one particular song, Dreams, which was...

A friend of mine had put on a mix tape and the tape got stuck

in the tape player in my first car.

It was the first song on the first side,

so when it went round, when it clicked both sides,

it came back to that again.

And I must have heard that song hundreds and hundreds of times.

I went from loving this song to absolutely hating it,

like really getting on my nerves, to loving it again.

That's never happened before.

It's always - you love it, then you hate it,

then it's, "I'm never going to hear that again."

"Thunder only happens when it's raining,

"raining, raining, raining," and it's probably somehow eked out

Why Does It Always Rain On Me?

Maybe. Who knows?!

play the way you feel it

what you had

when it's raining

when they're playing

and they go

you'll know.

Dreams is a really fascinating song to me because I don't

really understand why I love it so much.

Because it's a groove.

It really comes down to the testament of Stevie Nicks' voice.

And someone else doing it, it could've been really dull.

around your dreams and

you'd like to sell?

Great songs come from below the neck, they come from your gut,

where all these memories and emotional memories are trapped,

and this is where your emotional life is.

It's not up here, it's down here.

And if you're going through really harsh emotional stuff,

it's very easy to go down.

Them going through these crazy relationships

in the making of that record is exactly what makes that record.

when it's raining

when they're playing

and they will go, oh, oh

you'll know

when it's raining

when they're playing

and they will go

you'll know.

So you've got these kind of call and response songs going on

between Stevie and Lindsey, and then on the other side

with John and Christine, Christine's off doing her, you know,

I guess therapy of getting it all out through song.

And she comes back with this brilliantly, kind of bouncy,

breezy song about, you know, tomorrow's just another day.

It's amazing to think that these songs came out of that.

The thing for me is like, is she saying it to herself

or is she saying it to John?

You know, "Don't stop thinking about tomorrow,"

to herself or to John?

Or to the entire band? Let's be fair!

and don't want to smile

in a different way

about tomorrow

to come?

that you've done

yesterday's gone.

Lyrically, it's just a masterclass in really saying

exactly what you're talking about, you're not being that veiled.

But you're saying sometimes quite cliched things

in a way that speaks of something new, that speaks of

something rawer than just a regular cliche.

that it's true

Before I knew what The Chain was as a song, that bass riff I knew

from watching Formula 1, or my dad watching Formula 1.

And then it was only years later discovering that it was part of

this epic kind of almost opera, from Rumours, The Chain.

It's my favourite Fleetwood Mac song because it's so...

When you hear it for the first time,

it takes you here, there and everywhere,

it's so unexpected as to where it goes.

For me, I think it's one of the best songs ever made.

It's just the most haunting sound, and the choice of the key

and the choice of the words of being "silent in the night

"as the sun comes up" and saying, "If you don't love me now,

"you'll never love me again," it's...

just utterly heartbreaking.

Look at the way Stevie Nicks is looking at him.

Oh, it's just so cruel the way she's looking at him.

I mean, one could say you could see the pain in their eyes,

even on this reunion.

It's as if they're solving their relationship problems

in front of an audience.

This is another thing that I love about this band.

This is about six different songs, that didn't work as whole songs,

that they just cut up and spliced together.

I always used to be going round, kind of going...

SHE IMITATES 'THE CHAIN' RIFF

..when I was little and I didn't know what the song was.

And then when I came to get to know the album when I was much older,

I was like, "No way!"

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Rumours sold 45 million copies - how do you follow that up?

Especially how do you follow that up when the band has just

gone through what it's gone through to make that record

and then the success that it has?

I mean, they could've quite easily just walked away

and broke up as a band, but they didn't.

For me, what happened after Rumours is possibly more interesting,

as a creative writer, because they went against the grain

and they did Tusk, which is critically acclaimed

but not a huge commercial success.

So when Tusk came out, I can remember the industry

almost glorifying in pulling them apart and saying,

"Oh, doesn't work, it's the end of them."

But like all great legendary bands, in retrospect,

the audience catches up with their work.

Tusk is interesting because they're really being pulled

in different directions and some of it does sound like punk rock.

Again, it's a band literally being pulled apart

because they really can't stand each other at that point.

But also, they don't know where...

musically, where they're going.

Mick Fleetwood, the drummer, is managing them at this point.

So they are allowed to do what the hell they like

and they're spending extraordinary amounts of money,

not just on studio time, but on poodles and things.

You hear stories of them painting...

"Paint the whole place pink!"

You know, "Let's bring in a grand piano."

It's just a ridiculous amount of expense and excess.

if he's going to stay?

if he's going away?

what's going on?

who's on the phone?

I don't know where the idea came from, for Mick.

He just loves a lot of drums.

So he had the University College of California, I think it was,

their marching band, not only play on the end of the track,

but for the video they were in the LA Dodgers' stadium,

Stevie was twirling her baton.

You might notice a cardboard cut-out of John,

that's because Stevie and him had a fall-out

so he didn't want to come that day.

I just love the bombasticness of it.

Kind of, "I tell you what we're going to do, we're going to fill

"the LA Dodgers' stadium with a marching band and shoot a video.

"That's what we're going to do!"

And they could, because they were the biggest band in the world

at that time, in terms of how many records they were selling

and how many hits they'd had off that record.

So I think they were almost testing everyone as well

and just seeing what they could get away with.

I know that the album Tusk certainly took some of the millions of fans

that they had acquired through the success of Rumours

by surprise because it's very different.

To me, though, this immediately sounds cooler

than anything on Rumours.

And while it might not have had the same initial level of, like,

just staggering success, I think with the passage of time,

it's kind of maybe borne out as being cooler.

about the fire

It's another really good example of Stevie's writing credentials.

She's just a style, you know, she's Stevie Nicks,

she's this image icon, beautiful.

But she evolved, she took on different looks,

she took on different personas.

And I think, for me, you got a sense of how she was feeling personally,

through what she wore and how she held herself on stage.

Oh, her voice, man.

It's such an '80s video.

Look how cool they look.

It was in the era of big music videos, MTV.

This is the Fleetwood Mac of my childhood.

And one of the things that's so phenomenal and so interesting

about Fleetwood Mac is, if you look at their kind of biggest hits,

most of them have been written by the two women in the band.

So to have these two really strong female songwriters

is really unusual. We have so many great female vocalists,

but it's not so typical that they're also writing the material.

The thing I love about Landslide, that I love about all of

Stevie's songs, is that they're so personal.

She wrote this before she'd signed to Fleetwood Mac.

She was 27 years old, she'd spent a lot of time working as

a waitress and a cleaner, desperate for the break,

and it just wasn't coming. I think her dad even said to her,

"Give it another six months and then, you know, get a proper job,"

type thing, or we'll put you through college.

And three months into that six months, Fleetwood Mac happens

and this is one of the songs that she then takes to them.

and I turned around

in the snow-covered hills

What is love?

rise above?

the changing ocean tides?

of my life?

I've had the great pleasure of meeting Stevie Nicks

and she's an extraordinary person.

Extremely down-to-earth.

And I said to her, "How do you manage being Stevie Nicks?"

And she says... GRUFFLY: "Well, I decide if I'm Stevie Nicks or not.

"If I walk down a corridor,

"I'm looking at the floor, no-one even sees me.

"If I walk down the corridor as Stevie Nicks, everybody sees me!"

and you turn around

in the snow-covered hills

will bring it down, down

will bring it down.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Tango In The Night is one of those ones

where it's an extremely commercial album.

There's so many hits, hits, hits on that record.

Apparently it was Lindsey Buckingham, it was his demos first

and then he took it to the band and the band kind of reconvened again.

But they can pull it out the bag.

They know what a good record sounds like.

They're very happy to spend a long time in the studio,

getting it to that point.

It still doesn't sound like they've made up.

They're still slightly at war. Tango In The Night kind of

came out again through a real dark period for the band.

You know, there was a lot of dependency on drugs and things

within some of the band members,

they were having a really hard time with that.

And there is a kind of darker feel to this, I think.

Even those kind of galloping drums

that you get through some of the songs.

There's a real kind of urgency to it, I think.

Tell me sweet little lies

Tell me, tell me lies

No, you can't disguise

Tell me sweet little lies

There's a reason why

close your eyes

Let's give it a try

Tell me sweet little lies

Tell me, tell me lies

No, you can't disguise.

There's that big sound and there's still the use of

the West Coast-style harmonies, you know, that musicality,

and all sorts of elements which make it more interesting

than it first seems. It's very well-crafted.

That's the Christine McVie thing,

she's really good at writing pop songs,

so the stuff she writes has that real pop element to it,

then you have Stevie Nicks being a little gothy sort of

Kate Bush-esque in the corner, and you have Lindsey Buckingham

doing his rock stuff, and somehow it all works.

So they can each take a credit for a song and yet the songs can

sit together on an album really well and it doesn't seem, you know, like

they're from completely different places, and that's quite a talent.

Tell me sweet little lies

Tell me, tell me lies

No, you can't disguise

Tell me sweet little lies

Tell me, tell me lies

No, you can't disguise...

The first time I remember hearing Fleetwood Mac was Big Love.

I think it could have been on...

And it wasn't hearing it, it was the video.

I remember seeing the video somewhere and the sound of it

was very distinct.

I had no idea who they were, this was like a new band to me,

but they looked older, so that was interesting.

The sonics. It was all about the sonics of it, the sound of it,

and the vocals were really, really great.

The voices. His voice especially.

The interesting thing about Big Love is you can hear echoes of

all the little bits of their past in that one song.

There's this little trail-off,

this little bluesy trail-off that echoes Oh Well.

This bit.

Biddle-diddle-diddle-diddle.

That biddle-diddle-diddle-durh at the end is the echo,

and it's like a book-end.

Ah, ah...

I always assumed that the grunts was Stevie or Christine,

but it wasn't, it was Lindsey pitching his voice up.

Huh, ah...

Which is just slightly bonkers.

Uh, ah

Uh, ah.

They've left, they've broken up, they've got back together.

Whether it's for Bill Clinton

or, you know, an anniversary tour or whatever.

words they couldn't say

Let the night unfurl

Singing in my world...

And now Lindsey Buckingham's left,

I'd really like to believe that Mick Fleetwood is in LA just now

just kind of like going to gigs and checking to see

if there's any new players that he thinks,

"Here's a good songwriter I could use."

The door's not closed, I don't think.

There's not really been much said about it

but, you know, they've got some new members in, but...

I don't really care. I'm watching Stevie.

My darling, it's best

I cried

Listen to me

This band, Fleetwood Mac, they've survived so much.

50 years, that's unbelievable.

And I think it's nearly over 100 million records they've sold.

Half of that, nearly, through one record.

That's amazing. That's a great achievement

for a band who are still out there touring, and their music,

more importantly, over everything, still resonates.

They spawn a million bands, trying to be as good as that.

Trying to... Trying to achieve that foothold that's their own,

and that's an amazing gift to give the human race.

Out your name

and I don't know what to say

I'll even shout

and I can't get the words out

Happening to me

I'm acting peculiarly

We better make a start

before you break my heart