Yahoo News Christine McVie’s 10 best songs
Christine McVie’s impact on Fleetwood Mac was felt almost immediately. Describing herself as “just a girl who plays piano”, she was married to the band’s bassist John McVie when they asked if she fancied joining in 1970. Though they were already a successful blues act, adding a keyboard player gave their music a more commercial direction, eventually making them one of the world’s biggest selling bands, with her voice one of their most recognisable traits. Following her death at 79, here are 10 of her most unforgettable tracks:
1. Songbird
Written – impossibly – in just half an hour, Songbird came to McVie in the middle of the night when she woke suddenly with the song fully formed in her head. She later claimed it may never have existed without the “couple of toots of cocaine and a half a bottle of champagne” she’d consumed earlier, disturbing her sleep. Disarmingly tender, it reveals McVie’s voice at its purest, its lilting loveliness paired with a simple piano line to suit McVie’s heartfelt, perfectly uncomplicated lyrics. Her by-then ex-husband John McVie later admitted that hearing her sing it made him weep. Later famously covered by both Eva Cassidy and Willie Nelson, it remains one of the greatest love songs ever written.
2. Only Over You
McVie wrote the haunting, ethereal Only Over You about her on-going three-year relationship with Beach Boys drummer Dennis Wilson. They were introduced by Mick Fleetwood in 1979 but their relationship was plagued by Wilson’s destructive battle with drink and drugs, acknowledged in the song as McVie admits “people think I’m crazy”. Characterised by McVie’s trademark optimism in the face of other’s doubts, it matches her delicate romantic ideals with a steely belief that love could conquer all, telling Wilson movingly, “angel, please don’t go.”
When it appeared on the band’s 1982 album Mirage, a simple line under the track’s writing credit acknowledged him as its inspiration, a final declaration of affection from McVie following the end of their relationship. Sadly within a year, Wilson was dead, drowning in California just weeks after his 39th birthday.
3. Little Lies
One of Fleetwood Mac’s best-known tracks from their 1987 album Tango in the Night, Little Lies typifies McVie’s creative genius. Instantly catchy, it has all the hallmarks of a chart-conquering pop song with its impossibly catchy chorus, perfect harmonies and those distinctive radio-friendly keyboards. Yet things were rarely as simple as they sounded for McVie.
Underneath its pop gloss, Little Lies is infused with regret and sadness at a bitter betrayal in a relationship, yearning for the protective pretence of lies instead of being forced to confront the truth. McVie later admitted it was about “the whole ‘shoulda, woulda, coulda’ feeling”. Though she co-wrote the track with her then-husband, songwriter Eddy Quintela, fans have since speculated it was in fact another track written about former lover Wilson.
4. Don’t Stop
McVie may have shared singing duties with bandmate Lindsey Buckingham on this track from Fleetwood Mac’s 1977 album Rumours, but it was entirely inspired by her own life. Relentlessly upbeat, its anthemic message and blues groove was intended to be every bit as motivational as it sounded, written to perk up her ex-husband and bandmate John McVie as they attempted to record Rumours together.
In fact, her positivity was needed by everyone in the band at that point. With heavy drug use causing problems all round, Mick Fleetwood was in the middle of his own messy divorce, while the relationship between the band’s Buckingham and Stevie Nicks was crumbling beyond repair. McVie herself split with John in the middle of a Fleetwood Mac tour, potentially jeopardising their future. Yet perhaps rallied by Don’t Stop’s cheery insistence that better days were on the horizon, the band carried on and Rumours became one of the best-selling albums of all time, eventually shifting over 45 million copies.
5. Hold Me
A breezy, beautiful track, Hold Me brimmed with McVie’s assuredness, knitting a brooding, incessant bass line with tinkling piano lines and deceptively soft harmonies that make it instantly recognisable as a Fleetwood Mac track. Co-written by McVie with singer-songwriter Robbie Patton, it appeared on the band’s 1982 album and was thought to be about the end of McVie’s relationship with Dennis Wilson.
It was also the band’s first single to be accompanied by a music video, recorded in the heat of the Mojave Desert amid ongoing romantic tumult and disagreements. The video’s director Steve Barron later pointed out that none of the band were in the same scene together because they were barely speaking at the time.
6. You Make Loving Fun
Another track taken from Rumours, You Make Loving Fun was a bubbly snapshot of McVie’s love life following her painful divorce from John McVie. By then, McVie had reached breaking point after living, working and touring with her husband finally became too much. Their split was exacerbated by his chronic alcoholism, with McVie later admitting they couldn’t bear to be in the same room together as “John is not the most pleasant of people when he’s drunk.”
Following their split, McVie began dating the band’s lighting director Curry Grant and poured her giddy excitement at her new-found relationship into the swaggering funk strut of You Make Loving Fun. It was a new start for McVie, a chance to find happiness again as she muses that she “never did believe in miracles/But I’ve a feeling it’s time to try.” Yet, typically, she rose above any bitterness, telling John the track was actually written about her dog.
7. Got a Hold on Me
McVie released three solo albums in total including Christine Perfect before joining Fleetwood Mac and later, 2004’s In The Meantime. However, her 1984 self-titled release remained her best-known. Recorded between the releases of Mirage and Tango in the Night, the band were spending time apart, recovering from their fractured relationships and concentrating on their respective solo careers. McVie later said she knew it wasn’t “the most adventurous album in the world”, but she had simply made the album she wanted to listen to.
Fleetwood Mac fans still adored the song’s gloriously effervescent chorus, wide-eyed lovelorn lyrics and the fact Buckingham played on lead guitar, restoring their hope the band would yet return with another album.
8. I’d Rather Go Blind
Before joining Fleetwood Mac or marrying John McVie, Christine – then known by her rather wonderful maiden name of Christine Perfect – sang backing vocals and played keyboards for blues band Chicken Shack. In 1970, she performed lead vocals for this version of Etta James’ classic track I’d Rather Go Blind, instantly making it her own and hinting at her colossal talent.
In her hands, the track is a bluesy, broken-hearted lament to the end of a relationship, almost duetting with mournful horns as McVie desperately clings on to what might have been. Though she may not have written the track herself, it laid the blueprint for some of her biggest hits with Fleetwood Mac later where her faith in romance would permeate even the bleakest situation.
9. Everywhere
Released in 1987, the sublime sigh of Everywhere is perhaps McVie’s ultimate pop masterpiece. From the tinkling opening keyboards to that confident bass line, it perfectly encapsulates the overwhelming delight of falling in love, summed up so simply in the song’s shimmering chorus line, “I want to be with you everywhere.”
Imbued with McVie’s utter lack of cynicism and the understated warmth of its female harmonies, it feels utterly effortless, still a joy to listen to nearly 35 after its release. It has since been covered by everyone from Paramore to Niall Horan and Anne-Marie and remains a favourite with advertisers selling everything from supermarkets to cars.
10. Feel About You
While McVie’s faith in romantic love barely faltered, perhaps her most enduring and important relationship was with bandmate Lindsey Buckingham. Though the pair were never romantically involved, their friendship and songwriting partnership endured Fleetwood Mac’s most turbulent times. They collaborated on five Fleetwood Mac studio albums and Stevie Nicks later commented they were the dream songwriting team, saying that Buckingham “brought the perfect touch to [McVie’s] songs”.
Appropriately, her final album before her death was not with the band but with Buckingham alone, released in 2017 and glittering with the low-key pop polish they had always brought out in each other. A spirited, sassy tribute to all that’s good in a relationship, it showed McVie’s impulsive playfulness and her unfailing belief in the sheer joy of being in love.
