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TL;DR:

  • Christine McVie said the greatest song she wrote for Fleetwood Mac is like a prayer.
  • The tune appeared on Fleetwood Mac’s Rumors.
  • It served as the B-side of a No. 1 single.
Fleetwood Mac members smiling
Fleetwood Mac | GAB Archive / Contributor

Fleetwood Mac‘s Christine McVie was asked to name her favorite song she ever wrote. In response, she discussed one of the tracks from Rumors. Notably, the song in question served as the B-side to one of the band’s biggest hits.

Christine McVie discussed her favorite era of Fleetwood Mac’s career

During a 2022 interview with The Guardian, McVie was asked to name her favorite era of Fleetwood Mac’s career. “I would be silly not to say the Stevie [Nicks] and Lindsey [Buckingham] era, because that was pretty sensational,” she said. “We had our fights here and there, but there was nothing like the music or the intensity onstage.”

McVie discussed why that era was so magical. “We weren’t doing anything in Britain, so [we] just decamped to America and fell into this huge musical odyssey,” she recalled. “Stevie and Lindsey had been playing as a duo, made a great record [Buckingham Nicks], which to this day I really love, but hadn’t got very far.”

Christine McVie said the best song she ever wrote came to her when she was unable to sleep

McVie was asked to name her favorite song she ever wrote. “I’ve got to say ‘Songbird,'” she said. Notably, the song is from a period of Fleetwood Mac’s career where Nicks and Buckingham were both part of the band.

McVie discussed the origin of “Songbird.” “I couldn’t sleep, started to get a song rolling around in my head and I wrote it in half an hour,” she said. “‘For you there’d be no more crying … ‘ It’s sort of like a little prayer for everybody. We went into Zellerbach Hall studios [In Berkeley, California], they got me a bunch of red roses and I sang it alone on the stage.”

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Fleetwood Mac’s ‘Songbird’ appeared as the B-side of the song ‘Dreams’

“Songbird” was never a single and never charted, but it served as the B-side of “Dreams.” The tune appeared on the album Rumors, which hit No. 1 on the Billboard 200 for 31 weeks. Altogether, the album stayed on the chart for 504 weeks.

“Songbird” was also the B-side to “Dreams” in the United Kingdom. According to The Official Charts Company, Rumors reached No. 1 in the U.K. for one of its whopping 968 weeks in total. Notably, standup comic Sandra Bernhard covered “Songbird” as part of a routine where she made jokes about McVie. Bernhard said McVie called herself “the other girl in Fleetwood Mac.”

“Songbird” wasn’t a big hit but it’s part of the legacy of a big hit album.

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