Fleetwood Mac was no stranger to creative and personal differences throughout their decades-long tenure as a band, and Mick Fleetwood being particularly fond of a song that Stevie Nicks couldn’t stand is no exception. Of course, the bandmates’ differing opinions on the iconic song make sense.
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To Nicks, it was a glaringly obvious reminder of her failed relationship with Lindsey Buckingham. To Fleetwood, it was a song that, in his words, let him “revert to my old animal ways.” (What more can a drummer ask for?)
The Fleetwood Mac Song That Let Mick Fleetwood Cut Loose
As any good drummer knows, the right musical style can make or break a song. Even if the drummer feels like letting loose and going wild, if it doesn’t fit the song, it can sound more absurd than powerful. Many of Fleetwood Mac’s late 1970s songs required a smooth, laid-back drumbeat, á la “Dreams” or “Gold Dust Woman.” Both Stevie Nicks vehicles, these songs contributed to the band’s easy listening vibe. Other songs by Lindsey Buckingham or Christine McVie tended to be more upbeat and pop-oriented, like the Buckingham-penned fifth track on Rumours, “Go Your Own Way.”
Fleetwood later recalled Buckingham walking into rehearsals with a demo of “Go Your Own Way” with the song’s arrangement all planned out. “He was very soon to learn that because I’m dyslexically connected to drum parts—meaning that I truly don’t know how to repeat anything—my playing tends to be this funny random stuff that luckily people like. Hopefully, it has a charm to it. Basically, it’s my version of turning everything backwards, perfectly dyslexically, and Lindsey and I came up with something we were all happy with. I love playing this song.”
“It’s one of my favorites because I get to kick the hell out of my drums,” Fleetwood continued, “[and] it’s got that wonderfully primal part. It’s a great ‘let loose’ stage song. I can revert to my old animal ways and not be quite so polite. Lindsey is a full-on rock ‘n’ roller on this song, and that I love.”
Why Stevie Nicks Always Hated This Lindsey Buckingham Track
Just because the lead guitarist and drummer loved “Go Your Own Way” doesn’t mean everyone in the band shared that opinion. For Stevie Nicks, listening to that song was more of an emotional challenge than a great enjoyment. Lindsey Buckingham wrote the now iconic song during his breakup from Nicks, who he was dating before and when the former folk-rock duo first joined Fleetwood Mac. Even without that context, the song’s lyrics are fairly straightforward. But when one considers the romantic turmoil between the two bandmates, Buckingham’s words become especially cutting.
Loving you isn’t the right thing to do. How can I ever change things that I feel? If I could, baby, I’d give you my world. How can I when you won’t take it from me? You can go your own way, go your own way. For Nicks, the worst lines were in the song’s third verse.
“I very, very much resented him telling the world that packing up, shacking up with different men was all I wanted to do,” Nicks said in a 1997 Rolling Stone interview. “He knew it wasn’t true. It was just an angry thing that he said. Every time those words would come out onstage, 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 for years.” In the end, Buckingham’s song would go on to inspire Nicks’ classic track, “Dreams,” another defining cut from their seminal 1977 record.
Photo by Mark Sullivan/Getty Images
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