“Rumours” by Fleetwood Mac

“Rumours” by Fleetwood Mac, was released on February 4, 1977. It was the eleventh studio album released by the British-American rock band and it had a lot to live up to. The band’s tenth studio album, “Fleetwood Mac,” which had been released two years earlier, had garnered enormous success, and living up to it was something the band had to keep in mind while recording.

The recording sessions of “Rumours” were marked by great emotional strife. The members of Fleetwood Mac certainly liked to mix business with pleasure and several of the members were involved romantically. According to Rolling Stone, “Stevie Nicks had just split with her longtime lover and musical partner, Lindsey Buckingham, while Christine was in the midst of divorcing her husband, bassist John McVie. Meanwhile, Mick Fleetwood’s extra-band marriage was on the rocks, leading to an affair with Nicks before the year was out.” All of this emotional tension lead to brutally honest lyrics and because of it, the “Rumours” saga is still known as one of the biggest musical scandals in rock band history.

One example of the intense lyricism on the album, would be in the song, “Songbird,” which happens to be my favorite song on the album. Christine McVie wrote, “For you, there’ll be no more crying / For you, the sun will be shining / And I feel that when I’m with you / It’s alright, I know it’s right” in the midst of her divorce about the beginnings of her relationship with her ex-spouse. Most of the songs on this album have just as much intensity in their lyrics, and the album is hailed as one of the best of the twentieth century.