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Formula One coverage on Channel 4 to retain iconic Fleetwood Mac ‘The Chain’ title music | Daily Mail

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  • Channel 4 set to keep Fleetwood Mac’s ‘The Chain’ as intro music on their Formula One coverage starting this season
  • The BBC had used the track as its Formula One title music since 1978
  • Fleetwood Mac recorded the song for their Rumours album in 1976
  • Channel 4 will screen 10 live races and show highlights of the other 11

By Philip Duncan, Daily Mail
12 February 2016

Channel 4, the new terrestrial home of Formula One, will use Fleetwood Mac’s The Chain as its title music.

The song has become synonymous with the sport on the BBC since it was first adopted by the corporation in 1978.

Channel 4 tweeted on Friday: ‘F1 has a new home but some things just have to remain: we’re chuffed to announce that The Chain by Fleetwood Mac will be our title music.’

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Former McLaren driver David Coulthard has already made the switch from the BBC to Channel 4, but Suzi Perry, the presenter of the BBC’s F1 coverage following the departure of Jake Humphrey to BT Sport in 2013, last week ruled out joining him.

Channel 4 will show 10 races live – without commercial breaks – and screen extensive highlights of the remaining 11 races scheduled for the upcoming season which gets under way in Melbourne on March 20.

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THE CHAIN

‘The Chain’ was the seventh track on Fleetwood Mac’s February 1977 album ‘Rumours’ having been created the previous year.

It was created by combining segments from previously rejected songs and therefore is the only song on the album to be credited to all five band members of the time – Lindsey Buckingham, Mick Fleetwood, Christine McVie, John McVie and Stevie Nicks.
The bass section at the end of ‘The Chain’ was created by Fleetwood and John McVie, then combined with lyrics written separately by Nicks. She and Christine McVie then reworked the first part of the song.

To complete the song, Buckingham recycled the intro from an earlier duet with Nicks called ‘Lola (My Love)’ from their self-titled 1973 album.

The song became highly recognisable in the United Kingdom when the BBC adopted it for their Formula One coverage in 1978 until 1997. It returned when the BBC regained the broadcast rights in 2011.

At that time, as a result of a campaign to get ‘The Chain’ to No 1 in the UK chart, it peaked at No 81.

A 1997 re-release of the track on a live album ‘The Dance’ topped at No 30 in the American charts.

 

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