(Credits: Far Out / YouTube Still)
Fri 7 November 2025 17:00, UK
There is a mysticism around Christine McVie that no one will ever understand except those who worked with her.
Her musical partner in crime, Stevie Nicks, was just about to jump on a plane to see her when she took a turn for the worse and passed away the following day. Since all hope for a Fleetwood Mac reunion has been completely stored away, with Nicks saying that it simply couldn’t ever work without her. Suppose it says a lot, really, that through both members’ struggles in the spotlight, they were never once at odds with each other.
Many pieces of the story of Fleetwood Mac demonstrate the deep-seated soul bond between Nicks and McVie, like the story of their first meeting, and how they’d gotten on like a house on fire, which was also incidentally the unspoken ‘test’ that granted Nicks her place in the band with Lindsey Buckingham. There’s also the constant chatter on Nicks’ part post-McVie that speaks volumes about how much they meant to each other.
But one of the biggest and most important parts was how much they stuck together during some of their most explosive moments. When things were intense on stage and heating up behind the scenes, Nicks and McVie sought out quiet moments in each other. “We were cool onstage,” Nicks told The Guardian. “But offstage everybody was pretty angry. Most nights Chris and I would just go for dinner on our own, downstairs in the hotel, with security at the door.”
When it came to the music, however, both had separate approaches. Nicks was far more forthcoming in her emotional explorations, often venturing into whimsical realms to tell embellished stories. McVie, on the other hand, was a little more lowkey, with songs like ‘You Make Loving Fun’ discussing a partnership that got McVie feeling all giddy, with few knowing it was actually about an affair.
There was also the softer, lovelorn classic ‘Songbird’, a piece so beautifully sorrowful that Mick Fleetwood once said he wanted it played at his funeral. The song, which was written in about half an hour, according to McVie, was an incredibly personal affair. But while that was the case, she also made sure its lyrics were as universal as possible so that anybody could listen and relate.
When it first came to her, however, it frightened her because of how prophetic it felt – giving her the spark to go and record it as soon as possible before she forgot it altogether. As she admitted to The Guardian, “I woke up in the middle of the night and the song just came into my head. I got out of bed, played it on the little piano I have in my room, and sang it with no tape recorder. I sang it from beginning to end: everything. I can’t tell you quite how I felt; it was as if I’d been visited – it was a very spiritual thing. I was frightened to play it again in case I’d forgotten it.”
She went on, “I called a producer first thing the next day and said, ‘I’ve got to put this song down right now.’ I played it nervously, but I remembered it. Everyone just sat there and stared at me. I think they were all smoking opium or something in the control room. I’ve never had that happen to me since. Just the one visitation. It’s weird.”
What she’s describing was probably that familiar mysticism that no one else understood or even caught on to – the special McVie type of magic that made everybody stop and listen. Fleetwood Mac was a chaotic machine at the best of times, and McVie came in as the angelic force that smoothened the edges, making people stop, and take a deep breath.
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