Christine McVie feels that the good times between she and her Fleetwood Mac bandmates tend to get overlooked. McVie is back with her latest solo set, titled Songbird (A Solo Collection), which features guest appearances by Eric Clapton, Lindsey Buckingham, and Steve Winwood.
While chatting with Mojo she was asked if there was one thing about the recording of the band's mega-platinum 1977 Rumours album that gets overlooked — with McVie responding, “How much we laughed. “John (McVie) and Mick (Fleetwood) or Lindsey (Buckingham), they’d always moan about what a tough time we had, blah, blah, blah. But I’d say, 'Hang on. Don’t forget how much laughter we got in that studio!' We laughed a lot — in between the bouts of melancholy and suicide, of course. That’s something we’ve always had within all of the different versions of Fleetwood Mac, I must say, not just during the Rumours era.”
McVie went on to say, “People tend to scrutinize your songs – especially the Rumours-era songs — for autobiographical clues. But. . . If they were all about me personally, I’d have killed myself by now. I always write about unrequited love or love in some form or another. I don’t write about politics or the weather. I do include the sun and the sea quite a lot. They are songs from somebody else’s point of view sometimes. I find that refreshing to think along those lines. It gives me a different track to go down.”
When asked when she was happiest in Fleetwood Mac, McVie said, “I’ve always felt very fortunate. Always. Obviously, some of the work was hard and it was tough going. When Stevie (Nicks) joined it was a bit weird because I'd never worked with a girl before. We just wanted to have Lindsey, but he said, 'If I join my girlfriend comes with me.' So that was a debate. But I instantly liked her. She and I aren’t what you’d call close buddies, but if one of us was in trouble, the other would be there like a shot. At the time, I struggled with her superstardom for a bit because I felt like somebody kicked me off the stage. I got used to that and I kind of dug it the end, because I could hide behind the keyboard where I feel perfectly at home.”
Stevie Nicks remembered the moment in 1974 when she put her foot down and got Lindsey Buckingham to commit to joining Fleetwood Mac: “I said to him, 'We need to meet these people, because, it's a great band Lindsey. They have a great rhythm section, Christine (McVie)'s an amazing Hammond organ player, and y'know what, we are starving to death. And I have two waitress jobs and a cleaning lady job, and I'm really tired of being super, super poor. I am, I'm tired of it.'”