(Credits: Far Out / LastFM)
Thu 8 January 2026 19:03, UK
When you listen to Christine McVie’s very best Fleetwood Mac songs, it’s hard to imagine her ever losing her songwriting mojo. ‘Songbird’, ‘Say You Love Me’ or ‘Everywhere’ all showcase McVie as the brilliant songwriter she was, sitting somewhere between the groove of the rhythm section and tenderness of the band’s melodic leaders.
But in 1975, when Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks joined the band, she may have understandably felt threatened and insecure in that regard. Prior to their admission to the band, McVie was writing safe in the knowledge that she and Peter Green had an almost symbiotic creative relationship that thrived in the band’s blues rock palette.
But upon his exit from the band and subsequent introduction of Buckingham and Nicks, suddenly she became one of three voices, desperately trying to merge styles together in order to create a cohesive musical unit.
But any hesitations over the trio’s synergy were quickly squashed when the band unveiled their new outfit under the 1975 self-titled Fleetwood Mac record. ‘Rhiannon’, ‘Landslide’ and ‘Monday Morning’ triumphantly showcased the very best of their new American vocalists, while McVie found her voice in ‘Say You Love Me’, ‘Sugar Daddy’ and ‘You Make Loving Fun’.
The latter track has widely been regarded as her best effort to date, combining her upbeat melody writing with the inherently groovy bass lines of her ex-husband, John McVie. Which was ironic given the track was Christine sharing her newfound love for the band’s lighting director, Curry Grant.
In typically dramatic Fleetwood Mac fashion, McVie would sing centre stage, sharing passionate tales of her relationship with Grant, while John McVie laid the root notes for the groove that compounded the song’s narrative intent.
The song was a much-needed tonic for McVie, who was clearly becoming bogged down by the toxicity of life on the road with a husband she was trying to divorce. In fact, she recalled the icy nature of that period to Cameron Crowe, saying, “We literally didn’t talk.” She added, “We were as cold as ice to each other because John found it easier that way.”
But the song proved, there is nothing like a new relationship to get you out of your funk. The difficulty of her personal life at that time was clearly having an effect on her songwriting, and up until the point of writing ‘You Make Loving Fun’, McVie found herself in a creative hole.
“I thought I was drying up,” she said in Q magazine. “I was practically panicking because every time I sat down at a piano, nothing came out. Then, one day in Sausalito, I just sat down and wrote in the studio, and the four-and-a-half songs of mine on the album are a result of that.”
McVie remarked that the lustful hit was the standout of those songs, and led her into a newfound environment of creative genius. While Buckingham and Nicks stole most of the headlines on the band’s follow up Rumours, the 1975 record showcases McVie at her very best. Liberated, encouraged and buoyed by the band’s new sonic vision, she delivered some of the decade’s very best songs when she sat at that piano, and regained her mojo.
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