Here we are, my favorite Fleetwood Mac tracks, and it’s no surprise that this list is dominated by Christine McVie songs. I so admire her as a songwriter, as a singer, and as a musician. She is the heart of Fleetwood Mac, and I feel overshadowed by her more colorful cohorts, Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks. Yet it’s when all three of the together make music that the magic happens. I credit much of my love of Fleetwood Mac on Lindsey’s obsessive production work, Stevie’s passion, and the unique and breath-taking way the three sound when they sing together. Christine’s not alone in the Top 5 though, and Stevie makes quite a long-lasting mark with her top track. Let me know what you think!
#5 – Say You Love Me (McVie, C.) Fleetwood Mac (1975)
Another of Fleetwood Mac’s most well-known songs, “Say You Love Me” was the fourth single from the Fleetwood Mac album peaking at #11, where it hung out for three weeks. It was also the fourth single from the album in the UK, and the first to chart, reaching #40. For me, it’s the prototype of Christine McVie songs, and perhaps one of the most enduring. This woman has fallen head over heels for this guy who’s a bit of a player. Things sound great in verse one, it’s the start of a relationship, she’s smitten, then the chorus comes in and he turns on the charm and tells her he loves her. Yet in verse two suddenly things aren’t going so well, and she thinks he’s moved on, but back he comes into her life and she just wants him to treat her right. Will he? Only time will tell.
Things I love about this song? Christine’s piano really drives the song. I love the intro which is all piano, then it just steadily moves the song along. This is possibly my favorite John McVie bass line, especially the melodic part through the chorus. Lindsey’s banjo adds a lot of color to this number as well, But what makes this song so special to me, was it’s the first time I experienced that gorgeous and unique sound that comes when the three of then harmonize on the chorus. I love how their voices blend together seamlessly, but because their voices are so distinctive, you can pick out each one beautifully. It’s pure pop bliss. I used to sing this song over and over when I was a teenager, each time taking a different harmony part. And two silly things I love about this song: on some choruses, I love the way Christine sings, “And dere’s not another living soul around” instead of “there’s;” and the use of the word “woo” in “You woo me until the sun comes up.” How often do you hear the word woo? It’s a great word.
The song was remastered for the 45 release, with the banjo coming in a little brighter, and some fuzzy electric guitar licks added in to pump up the sound, but I prefer the original, piano-driven version, so I’ve included that here. Then, because of the stripped down arrangement and highlight of the vocals, I’ve also included the live version from The Dance. It’s cool to see the five of them all lined-up at the front of the stage too.
#4 – Warm Ways (McVie, C.) Fleetwood Mac (1975)
Christine McVie’s “Warm Ways” is my earliest memory of Fleetwood Mac. As a 13-year-old in the throes of puberty, this lush, sexy ballad really resonated with me. Spending the night with her lover, she’s waiting for the sun to come up because she can’t sleep with his warm ways. I could only imagine what that was like. Christine’s breathy vocals touched parts of me that other songs had not done up to this point. This song featured all the best things about the talented musicianship of the band, each part fitting the song’s tone perfectly. The heavily reverbed Fender Rhodes electric piano, the languid guitar licks and softly strummed acoustic guitar, the gentle, plush bass work, and Fleetwood’s incredible drumming came together with sublime beauty. Stevie and Lindsey’s gentle background vocals seemed to float like gauze under Christine’s exquisite voice. The slow fade-out still raises goosebumps on my arms.
It’s placement on the album, sandwiched between two of Buckingham’s rockers, “Monday Morning” and “Blue Letter” works perfectly, it’s gentle wash the perfect balm to the high energy male energy around it. A writer from PopMatters extols “Warm Ways” as Christine’s finest moment. He notes, “McVie’s contralto radiates the heat of someone who enjoyed hours of incredible sex and can’t wait for the next round. But the music is wistful. The layers of gratitude McVie’s voice folds into the line ‘You made me a woman tonight’ suggest a woman awake to erotic possibilities undreamt of twelve hours earlier.” The song speaks to a maturity that most pop rock songs eschew, and no one can pull it off like Christine McVie. Sadly, the band has never performed the song live, although there are some bootleg recordings of the band rehearsing it which I’ve included here so you can here Christine and Stevie harmonizing together.
#3 – Heroes Are Hard to Find (McVie, C.) Heroes Are Hard to Find (1974)
Here we go, the first of two surprise entries… for me, at least. The first offering from 1974’s Heroes Are Hard to Find album, the last Fleetwood Mac album before the arrival of the Buckingham Nicks team. It was just Christine McVie and Bob Welch carrying the songwriting duties, and surprisingly, in retrospect, it included some of Christine’s best and I must say, most daring work. Perhaps she subconsciously felt a change was in the wind for the band that caused her to step up her songwriting game, but whatever the reason, her songs on this album have proven to stand out amongst her prolific oeuvre.
Coming in at #3, is the title track of the album, a bold, brassy, call to the ladies that was Fleetwood Mac’s attempt at a hit single. Sadly, the song didn’t make it to the Top 100, but it diid help the album become the highest charting of the band’s career, climbing to #34 on Billboard’s Hot 200. This is an upbeat McVie number, driven by her rollicking piano, and preacher-style, call and response delivery, but punctuated with an incredibly catch horn section that adds so much color and verve to this great, great song.
Lyrically it takes Christine’s usual trope of falling for a guy that’s just no good for you, and turning the blame from the pining woman, to the no-good guy. As she sings, ” But you’ve got to pity him, and try to understand, that a hero, a hero is so hard to find.” I love how she starts the song with a call to all the ladies, “Girls you know,…” then she proceeds to gather them together to say, we’ve all been there, you get involved with a guy and they invariably disappoint you. Well, just remember, a hero is hard to find. Christine and Bob Welch provide the fun response, back-up vocals to Christine’s preaching, to add to the fun. This song always makes me smile, and it’s a nice change of pace for Christine, and one I would have loved to see more of through the years.
#2 – Silver Springs (Nicks) The Dance (1997, 1977)
Lest you thought the Top 5 was going to be all Christine McVie songs, Stevie Nicks comes crashing back in so close to the top at #2 with the gorgeous underdog track, “Silver Springs.” The story of “Silver Springs” is a fascinating one, fraught with tensions that nearly broke up the band. As a teenager, I remember discovering the songs as a b-side to the “Go Your Own Way” 45 release from Rumours. Even back then, I was stunned that this amazing song had been left of the album, only to appear as a b-side. Because of it’s elusive nature, I lost track of the song over the next 20 years, until it emerged, powerfully as the stand-out track of Fleetwood Mac’s reunion concert and live album, The Dance. Nominated for a grammy and given new live in such a dramatic way, it was certainly vindication for Stevie Nicks who fought passionately for the song to be included on the Rumours album.
Written about the collapse of her long relationship with Lindsey Buckingham, the song had been intended to be included on Rumours. For multiple reasons, including its length and relatively slower tempo and — over strenuous objections from Nicks — the song was excluded from the album, and replaced with I Don’t Wanna Know. Nicks was furious, and the tensions that arose nearly led to the break-up of the band, or at least that version. Years later, after the world tour to support their 1987 album, Tango in the Night, Nicks left the band after a dispute with Mick Fleetwood, who would not allow her to release “Silver Springs” on her 1991 compilation album, Timespace — the Best of Stevie Nicks because of his plans to include the song as part of a Fleetwood Mac box set, 1992’s 25 Years — The Chain. It’s fitting that the song was the centerpiece of the band’s 1997 reunion concert, and a vindication of sorts for Nicks.
The song clearly embodies the emotions wrapped up in Stevie and Lindsey’s break-up in a way no other song does. In the live video of the concert version, Stevie and Lindsey share a moment, singing together, and the emotion from 20+ years ago just still out from them. I love this story Stevie told “MacLean’s” magazine: After Christine McVie rejoined Fleetwood Mac in 2014, her heartbreak sisterhood with Nicks was rekindled. By that time, “Silver Springs” had already become a staple of the band’s set lists. “When I finish [performing] ‘Silver Springs,’ Christine waits for me and takes my hand,” Nicks said in 2015. “We walk off and we never let go of each other until we get to our tent. In that 30 seconds, it’s like my heart just comes out of my body.”
I love both the studio and live versions, but there’s something about the live version that really captures the intensity and the passion of the song. Stevie is in the best vocal form she had been in for years, and the live version really shows up Christine’s piano talents, forming the foundation for the song, while the studio version spotlights Lindsey’s delicate guitar work, both acoustic and electric. As always, “Silver Springs” is another amazing example of how these three vocalists come together and harmonize better than just about anyone. It’s one of Stevie’s more grounded songs lyrically as well, and she restrains from going all mystical and ethereal, which I very much appreciate for this song.
For me, this is Stevie’s crowning, song-writing achievement, and for Fleetwood Mac, it’s one of their best moments as well, and I would add, for the McVie/Buckingham/Nicks era, THE moment.
#1 – Come a Little Bit Closer (McVie, C.) Heroes Are Hard to Find (1974)
And in a surprise move, Christine McVie takes the top spot with a little-known ballad from 1974’s Heroes Are Hard to Find album. I knew this track would end up high on the list, but was pretty surprised to find it in the top spot. To tell you the truth, I’m not sure what “Come a Little Bit Closer” has that pushes it to the top, but I have loved this song since I first heard it sometime in the late 70’s, when post-Rumours I delved into my brother’s back catalog of Fleetwood Mac albums.
Not a whole lot is written about “Come a Little Bit Closer,” so I don’t know all that much about the background of the song, but several critics who laud the album as one of the most overlooked of Fleetwood Mac’s albums have universal praise for this sweeping, McVie ballad. Dave Swanson of Ultimateclassicrock.com wrote, “‘Come a Little Bit Closer’ is pop perfection from Christine McVie. The song has an almost George Harrison-like quality to it with some nice pedal steel from the legendary Sneaky Pete Kleinow.” The song is grand and bombastic in the way Christine rarely is, with crashing drums and sweeping strings. It opens with a gorgeous, piano intro, something else that Christine rarely does — show offer her piano skills — gracefully building with an ascending scale to a crash of drums and what is possibly my favorite thing about the song… the strings sweep up and slowly descend along with some big notes from Christine’s piano, in contrast to the pedal steel guitar that provides a complimentary ascension, all culminating in Christine’s gorgeous alto voice bringing it all together.
When the chorus comes in, I am practically swooning. Some might say this song is over-produced, but I think the grandiosity fits it perfect, and when Christine’s voice soars to the clouds in the line, “When you held me in your arms…” I am so choked up over the beauty. McVie and Welch provide backing vocals that are perfection, and as the chorus ends, we’re back into that sweeping ascent/descent compliment of strings and pedal steel. Rarely does Christine cut loose like this, her songs are usually pretty laid back and cool, but here she throws her heart way out there and the effect is thrilling. I distinctly remember leaping around the room to this song… if I had been a figure skater, I would have no doubt done a routine to this song — I can see just where the triple jumps would go.
Lyrically it’s not too far afield from your standard McVie song. The relationship is over, and she is yearning for a lost love. “Now all that’s left is a sweet memory…” But then the second verse seems to imply things might not be over and done with… and she asks him to give them another chance. “Come a little bit closer, ’cause I remember the time when you held me in your arms and you wanted to be mine.” Listening to it again over and over as I write this I see how it’s definitely deserving of the #1 spot in my list of favorite Mac tracks. If you’ve never heard the song (or even if you have) I’d love to hear what you think!
And how about your favorites? Did I miss any of your favorite tracks? Thanks for indulging me, this was fun. I’ll be back with more, but now it’s time to check in on my love of comics again.
