(Credits: Raph Pour-Hashemi)
Tue 11 November 2025 18:30, UK
It’s hard to tell the story of Fleetwood Mac without including a little bit of heartache in the mix.
Everything about Rumours seemed like a nightmare for anyone to have to go through, but before they even got to the walking soap opera stage of their career, they had already gone through enough hardship to kill any other band a few times over. But when Mick Fleetwood was looking back on his career, a few songs couldn’t be separated from the pain it took to make them in the 1970s.
Then again, it’s easy to divorce yourself from what a song’s about if it’s played thousands of times. It probably hurt Stevie Nicks to see a track like ‘Go Your Own Way’ find its way onto the charts, but after a few too many gigs of playing the tune, it went from being a malicious song from Lindsey Buckingham to another track in the setlist that the band found their way muscling through.
It might be easy to go on autopilot in those situations, but that’s not how Fleetwood Mac started. Many pop machines have their shows down to a science, but part of the beauty of seeing the Peter Green version of the band was not knowing what was going to happen. They were known for making long extended blues jams, and while that’s not exactly the catchiest thing in the world, it’s an absolute trip to watch in real time.
Green was practically the guiding light of the band before Buckingham and Nicks were even a thought in their minds, but there was no way he could have lasted. Much like Brian Wilson and Syd Barrett, Green had a few bad trips of LSD that had lasting effects on him, and after a few disagreements with the band over how they were spending their money, he felt that it was time to part ways with the group.
Although no one really wanted to have Green leave, Fleetwood could always go back to that time by listening to ‘Love That Burns’, saying, “I think a heartbreakingly moving song is ‘Love That Burns’ from Peter Green. That’s Peter. Later on in terms of how we transitioned to something that wasn’t strictly blues and that would be ‘Man Of The World’ where you empathize and listen to what he is saying. It’s still evident that Peter was in a lot of pain and I would pick those two songs from whence he came.”
It was far from the most recognisable song from around that ime, but given what Green was going through, it hits a lot different looking at how his mental descent happened. It was one thing to bring in Jesus iconography whenever he played, but the ‘Green God’ persona ended up turning him inside out, which led to him wanting to give away all of the band’s money to charity to help the world.
The idea was completely impractical in many respects, but you can’t really fault a song like ‘Love That Burns’. Even at his worst moments, he still had tremendous empathy for everyone that he came across and while it did take its toll on his psyche after a while, it’s nice to see that kind of heartfelt spirit throughout his time with the band and even on the odd moments where he would return to the group, like when he took a solo on Tusk.
The heart of Fleetwood Mac for most people may be the Rumours lineup, but Green’s sense of musical passion is something that no one could have properly replicated. That doesn’t mean that albums like Rumours or Tango in the Night are any worse because he wasn’t in the group. It was just a different band, and Fleetwood had to accept the fact that he was losing one of his best friends in the group.
Related Topics