This Fleetwood Mac Song Was a Direct Response To “Go Your Own Way”

If you’re at all a Fleetwood Mac fan, you’re no doubt familiar with the breakups that played a role in the making of the highly successful album, Rumours. One of these breakups was between frontwoman Stevie Nicks and her longtime boyfriend, guitarist Lindsey Buckingham. The event contributed several songs to the record. Two of them turned out to be among the group’s most successful: “Dreams” and “Go Your Own Way.”

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As Nicks reveals in her biography, Gold Dust Woman, the two Fleetwood Mac songs have a lot more to do with each other than fans probably realize. “Go Your Own Way” was Buckingham’s attempt at dealing with their breakup, during which he accused Nicks of “packing up” and “shacking up.”

Nicks didn’t like that very much.

“So then I wrote ‘Dreams,’” she explained. “And because I’m the chiffon-y chick who believes in fairies and angels, and Lindsey is a hardcore guy, it comes out differently.”

Nicks continued, “Lindsey is saying go ahead and date other men and live your crappy life, and Stevie is singing about the rain washing you clean. We’re coming at it from different angles, but we were really saying exactly the same thing.”

Stevie Nicks Talks About How “The Best Songs” Are Written

One might think that venting about your breakup via song gets awkward after a while, especially if you’re singing in a band with your ex. According to Nicks, though, she could recognize that writing about real life is just part of the process.

“Lindsey writes ‘Go Your Own Way’ and I write ‘Dreams’! I write philosophically, he writes angry!” Nicks told BBC Radio 2. “So yes, a lot of the stuff that, you know, little sentences or stuff that he would say would upset me! However, as a songwriter, I have to respect that he’s gonna write about what’s happening to him, and so am I.”

“Go Your Own Way” would go on to become one of the band’s most enduring songs and their first Top 10 hit in the US. “Dreams” is still the group’s only No. 1 single in the country.

“So I could never say to him, you know, back off!… Stop writing songs about me,” Nicks continued. “Because that was his life then and that’s when the best songs are written and it doesn’t really matter who breaks up with who at that point, that’s when everybody writes the best songs…”

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