Record Roulette: Rumours
This week’s Record Roulette is Rumours by Fleetwood Mac. We know it, we love it, let’s just dive right in.
Rumours was released in 1977, which I would argue was one of the best years for music (Queen’s News Of The World, Billy Joel’s The Stranger, ELO’s Out of the Blue, ABBA’s The Album…). I think we’re all quite familiar with the dramatics of production- the McVies’ divorce, Stevie and Lindsey’s messy breakup, and later her affair with Mick. All occurring in the midst of drunken, cocaine-fueled recording sessions. In fact, Colin Bertram wrote in his 2020 Biography article detailing the album’s creation that “Rock-and-roll soap operas don’t get more dramatic than the months spent at close quarters recording and mixing Rumours.”
While there’s nothing I love more than some good old-fashioned rock gossip, there are plenty of other articles that can explain it better than I can. So we’re going to switch gears a bit this week, exploring personal connections with music through the lens of Rumours.
I’d like to start by saying that Rumours is my white whale, along with Jim Morrison’s An American Prayer, but that’s a story for another day. I have been on the hunt for an original copy of the album for about four years- Sure, I could log onto eBay and bid hundreds of dollars for a chance to hold that precious record, but I long for a more organic meeting. I’d like to walk into a record store, see Rumours from across the room, and fall in love with “Dreams” and “Gold Dust Woman” all over again. Maybe that’s a pretentious pipe dream, but it keeps me going.
At only 11 songs and a 39-minute run time, the record tells a different story to everyone who listens. For me, “Never Going Back Again” is not about Lindsey Buckingham’s rebound flings but about my tumultuous relationship with higher education. I listened to this song on repeat when I dropped out of college in 2019 (I would later drop out three more times, but that’s beside the point). I was having a hard time choosing between traditional education and living life on my terms, and my father lovingly said,”No one really wins when they’re 18”. So indeed, I was never going back again, at least not to Gonzaga.
Going back even further, “Go Your Own Way” reminds me of high school, scream-singing in my friend’s car on our way to see Fleetwood Mac at the Times Union Center. We were going through a heavy Stevie Nicks phase, and seeing her perform in person was one of my Top 5 Life-Doesn’t-Get-Better-Than-This moments. In the same vain, “The Chain” and “I Don’t Want to Know” take me back to driving around my hometown in the summer of 2020, living in limbo, trying to figure out my next big move.
“Don’t Stop” has always struck me as very out of place, perhaps thrown in at the last minute (similar to this paragraph). It’s suspiciously upbeat for a song reflecting Christine’s side of the divorce- in The Fleetwood Mac Story: Rumours and Lies, she stated,”It might have, I guess, been directed more toward John, but I'm just definitely not a pessimist.” At face value, it is indeed an optimistic song, but if you listen closely, you can almost feel the angst oozing out of Buckingham’s voice.
Source: NPR
It goes without saying that Rumours is one of my favorite albums, and if somehow you haven’t heard it yet, you’re in for a treat. The only thing I will say is that this record must not be shuffled. The track list is integral to Rumours’ story, and if played out of order, you’ll be left trying to piece it together. On that note, I strongly encourage you to listen to the album and intertwine your own story with that of Fleetwood Mac’s. Rumours is precious to me not just because of its brilliance and lasting impact on music history, but because it’s become a part of my story in more ways than one.
Listen to Rumours on Spotify, Apple Music, or SoundCloud