Why Christine McVie Wrote the Song ‘Oh Daddy’ for Mick Fleetwood
Christine McVie had a special relationship with her Fleetwood Mac bandmate, Mick Fleetwood, and she even wrote the song “Oh Daddy” from the Rumours album for him. Here’s why McVie wrote such sensual lyrics for her friend, and what fans thought the track was really about.
Christine McVie wrote the Fleetwood Mac song ‘Oh Daddy’ for her bandmate Mick Fleetwood
Keyboardist Christine McVie was married to Fleetwood Mac bass guitarist John McVie, but she wrote a sensual song for another bandmate – drummer Mick Fleetwood.
The group made some of their best music during the most turbulent period of their personal lives. While the Rumours album took off, ultimately becoming Fleetwood Mac’s most successful record, the musicians struggled to keep their relationships intact.
Christine was unhappy in her marriage to John, and Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham were going through their breakup. Mick, a founding member of the group, helped keep them together with his stable, fatherly presence. He remained a constant throughout the decades as various members came and went from the band.
According to Songfacts, McVie wrote “Oh Daddy” for Fleetwood, immortalizing his paternal role in her life. The slow, sexy song includes the lyrics, “Oh Daddy / You soothe me with your smile / You’re letting me know / You’re the best thing in my life.”
The song ‘Oh Daddy’ was rumored to be about Christine McVie’s affair
Considering the “Oh Daddy” lyrics are so sensual, it makes sense that many assumed the Fleetwood Mac song was about Christine McVie’s affair with the band’s lighting director, Curry Grant.
McVie wrote a different track on the Rumours album about her entanglement with Grant. Her affair inspired the song “You Make Loving Fun.”
Although McVie’s husband John played the song with the rest of the group, he had no idea what it was about. “Knowing John, he probably thought it was about one of her dogs,” Mick Fleetwood said (via Songfacts).
Mick Fleetwood was a father figure to the ‘Songbird’ singer, and he helped her overcome her flying phobia
It makes sense that Christine McVie saw Mick Fleetwood as a father figure. The Fleetwood Mac drummer was the one who helped her conquer her greatest fear: flying.
McVie took a break from Fleetwood Mac in 1998 due to her panic attacks and flying phobia. She stayed away for about 15 years.
The keyboardist has been candid about why she left the group. “I did have a phobia about flying. And I had the phobia when I left Fleetwood Mac,” McVie told CBS News (via Express).
After years of avoiding airplanes, she worked with a therapist to overcome her fear of flying. The therapist asked McVie where she would go if she could fly anywhere on the planet. Her first answer was that she wanted to see Fleetwood.
“I said Maui because that’s where Mick was living at the time,” McVie told Harper’s Bazaar in March 2019. “So, the therapist said, ‘Why don’t you just buy a ticket. You don’t have to get on the plane, just buy the ticket.’”
Coincidentally, Fleetwood had just booked a flight to see McVie. “Then as irony would have it, Mick called me just after and said, ‘Look, I’m coming to London, are you around?’ I told him that I’d just bought a ticket to see him and he said, ‘Well I’ll meet you in London then and we’ll fly back together.’ So that’s what I did.”
