{"id":3787,"date":"2017-01-09T12:40:47","date_gmt":"2017-01-09T12:40:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fleetwoodmac-uk.com\/wp\/?p=3787"},"modified":"2022-10-02T13:11:49","modified_gmt":"2022-10-02T12:11:49","slug":"the-life-of-a-song-fleetwood-macs-the-chain-ft-com","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fleetwoodmac-uk.com\/wp\/the-life-of-a-song-fleetwood-macs-the-chain-ft-com\/","title":{"rendered":"The Life of a Song: Fleetwood Mac\u2019s \u2018The Chain\u2019 | FT.com"},"content":{"rendered":"

JANUARY 9, 2017
\nby: David Honigmann
\nFT.com<\/a><\/p>\n

The hit was born of a romantic geometry complex enough to baffle the Bloomsbury Group<\/strong><\/h1>\n
\"\"<\/a>
Stevie Nicks and Christine McVie perform in Atlanta, Georgia, June 1977 \u00a9 Getty<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In early 1975, two Americans, Lindsey Buckingham and his girlfriend Stevie Nicks, had just joined a once-famous British blues band now down on its uppers. Buckingham, a perfectionist, buzzed around showing the other members how to play their parts on the songs he was bringing to the project. The bassist was unimpressed.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe band you\u2019re in is Fleetwood Mac,\u201d John McVie told him. \u201cI\u2019m the Mac. And I play the bass.\u201d And that \u2014 as Mick Fleetwood, who was the Fleetwood, records in his autobiography \u2014 was that.<\/p>\n

A couple of years later Buckingham and Nicks had been integrated into the band, and the new line-up had a successful album under their belt. It was now Fleetwood and McVie together who laid down the signature bass-and-drums riff that would define what was (with all due deference to former members Peter Green, Jeremy Spencer, Danny Kirwan and Bob Welch) the high water mark of Fleetwood Mac: \u201cThe Chain\u201d, from their globe-conquering album Rumours.<\/p>\n

Fleetwood Mac were in the throes of romantic geometry so complex it would have bemused the Bloomsbury Group, and recording in a Sausalito studio in a blizzard of liquor and cocaine. All of them were writing bitter songs about each other. Steve Nicks essayed a song she called \u201cThe Chain\u201d. \u201cI\u2019m down on my knees\/begging you please\/baby don\u2019t leave me\/\u201d, she sang \u2014 presumably to Buckingham. In demo form, at least, the song is pretty but abject.<\/p>\n

At the same time, Christine McVie, John\u2019s by now former wife, was working on \u201cKeep Me There\u201d, a throwback melodically to her solo album of a few years previously. The opening may have been nugatory, but the chord progression up into the chorus had a driving tension. And three minutes in, her ex-husband let fly with that 10-note bass riff and the song raced through an extended coda, with Christine McVie playing jazzy electric piano.<\/p>\n

Nearly all the elements were there. The two songs were forged together. New lyrics emerged, turning the submission into defiance. \u201cDamn your love, damn your lies\u201d, Nicks now sang. The sound-world of the song became bleaker. McVie\u2019s keyboards were toned down. To knit the whole thing together, Buckingham recycled the instrumental guitar passage that opens \u201cLola (My Love)\u201d from his and Nicks\u2019s earlier Buckingham Nicks album. The resulting amalgam simultaneously hymned the pain of personal separation and the strength of community within the band. \u201cI can still hear you saying\/you would never break the chain.\u201d It was the only song from this line-up credited to all five members of the band.<\/p>\n

Many songs from Rumours were released as singles, but not \u201cThe Chain\u201d. In the UK, though, the song achieved ubiquity when the BBC used it as the theme music for its Formula One coverage \u2014 the Doppler rush of the instrumental break perfectly mirroring the head-turning swivel of watching race cars. This must have delighted Fleetwood, at least, a car enthusiast from his youth.<\/p>\n

Cover versions are surprisingly rare. The Saskatchewan hair metal band Kick Axe fuzzed the riff into unintelligibility. Florence + The Machine performed it at Glastonbury in 2010, casting around valiantly for the appropriate key but fully channelling its tribal intensity.<\/p>\n

US country-folk singer Shawn Colvin, tasked with reproducing the song for a 1998 track-by-track version of Rumours, made \u201cThe Chain\u201d slinky and soulful; her take fades out just before the bass riff. By contrast, the Los Angeles punk experimentalists Liars, on Mojo magazine\u2019s Rumours Revisited, doubled down on the darkness: their reading is glitchy, murky, obsessive \u2014 and again, riffless.<\/p>\n

But the world of hip-hop can tell a powerful riff when it hears one. Cleveland rappers Bone Thugs-n-Harmony\u2019s \u201cWind Blow\u201d is essentially freestyle rap over a more-or-less unchanged middle section of \u201cThe Chain\u201d, foregrounding the bass melody. A more ingenious homage came in \u201cUp Your Speed\u201d by the British rapper Sway DaSafo. His song is a tribute to automotive antisocial behaviour, with a video full of souped-up monster cars performing doughnut handbrake turns. It ends with just a snatch of the outro from \u201cThe Chain\u201d, combining the band\u2019s imperiousness with a cheeky nod to Formula One.<\/p>\n

Fleetwood Mac themselves fell out, broke up, recruited new members, grew up, and eventually reunited in their five-piece form. The centrepiece of their live sets is still, inevitably, \u201cThe Chain\u201d.<\/p>\n

Photograph: Rick Diamond\/Getty Images<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

JANUARY 9, 2017 by: David Honigmann FT.com The hit was born of a romantic geometry complex enough to baffle the Bloomsbury Group In early 1975, two Americans, Lindsey Buckingham and his girlfriend Stevie Nicks, had just joined a once-famous British blues band now down on its uppers. Buckingham, a perfectionist, buzzed around showing the other … Continue reading The Life of a Song: Fleetwood Mac\u2019s \u2018The Chain\u2019 | FT.com<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[7,19],"tags":[79,96],"class_list":["post-3787","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fleetwood-mac","category-uk-articles","tag-fleetwood-mac","tag-the-chain"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p31Ax0-Z5","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2573,"url":"https:\/\/fleetwoodmac-uk.com\/wp\/fleetwood-macs-stevie-nicks-lindsey-buckingham-and-i-will-always-be-antagonising-to-each-other-guardian-uk\/","url_meta":{"origin":3787,"position":0},"title":"Fleetwood Mac’s Stevie Nicks: ‘Lindsey Buckingham and I will always be antagonising to each other’ | Guardian (UK)","author":"fmfanuk","date":"January 18, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"The Guardian Jan 15th 2015 Tshepo Mokoena The Fleetwood Mac singer-songwriter opened up to Rolling Stone magazine about working with ex-boyfriend and bandmate, Lindsey Buckingham Despite their onstage pretence to be close friends and inextricably linked, walking on hand in hand and singing to each other, Fleetwood Mac\u2019s shawl-loving singer\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Fleetwood Mac"","block_context":{"text":"Fleetwood Mac","link":"https:\/\/fleetwoodmac-uk.com\/wp\/category\/fleetwood-mac\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Photograph: Stephen Lovekin\/Getty Images","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/fleetwoodmac-uk.com\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/f45220f4-b8af-4148-879a-a39d02b89370-620x372.jpeg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/fleetwoodmac-uk.com\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/f45220f4-b8af-4148-879a-a39d02b89370-620x372.jpeg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/fleetwoodmac-uk.com\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/f45220f4-b8af-4148-879a-a39d02b89370-620x372.jpeg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":5871,"url":"https:\/\/fleetwoodmac-uk.com\/wp\/lindsey-buckingham-blames-disoriented-stevie-nicks-for-the-lack-of-new-fleetwood-mac-music-classic-rock\/","url_meta":{"origin":3787,"position":1},"title":"Lindsey Buckingham blames \u201cdisoriented\u201d Stevie Nicks for the lack of new Fleetwood Mac music | Classic Rock","author":"webbot","date":"December 6, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"By Paul Brannigan ( Classic Rock ) Dec 6, 2021 Lindsey Buckingham says the fact that Fleetwood Mac haven\u2019t released a new album since 2003 \u201cwasn\u2019t for lack of trying\u201d Lindsey Buckingham blames Stevie Nicks for the lack of new music from Fleetwood Mac, telling Classic Rock magazine that the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Fleetwood Mac"","block_context":{"text":"Fleetwood Mac","link":"https:\/\/fleetwoodmac-uk.com\/wp\/category\/fleetwood-mac\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/fleetwoodmac-uk.com\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/CxMbdL9F3hh8nmZ3sjUZcb-970-80.jpeg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/fleetwoodmac-uk.com\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/CxMbdL9F3hh8nmZ3sjUZcb-970-80.jpeg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/fleetwoodmac-uk.com\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/CxMbdL9F3hh8nmZ3sjUZcb-970-80.jpeg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/fleetwoodmac-uk.com\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/CxMbdL9F3hh8nmZ3sjUZcb-970-80.jpeg?resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1748,"url":"https:\/\/fleetwoodmac-uk.com\/wp\/lindsey-buckingham-says-therell-only-be-a-new-fleetwood-mac-album-if-stevie-nicks-agrees-nme\/","url_meta":{"origin":3787,"position":2},"title":"Lindsey Buckingham says there’ll only be a new Fleetwood Mac album if Stevie Nicks agrees | NME","author":"fmfanuk","date":"October 1, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"NME Online September 30, 2013 15:10 'Stevie needs to come to the table with some material,' says guitarist Lindsey Buckingham has said that there will only be a new Fleetwood Mac album if Stevie Nicks wants to do it. 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