Stevie Nicks Reveals Why ‘Totally Sarcastic Best Friend’ Christine McVie Teased Her
Stevie Nicks and Christine McVie were best friends and the only long-standing female members of the classic rock supergroup Fleetwood Mac. Nicks once revealed why “totally sarcastic” McVie used to tease her. Here’s why McVie poked fun at the “Rhiannon” singer, and how it relates to her solo career.
Stevie Nicks said broke away from Fleetwood Mac and launched a solo career because she had ‘too many songs’
After finding success with Fleetwood Mac, Stevie Nicks released her first solo album, Bella Donna, in 1981. The record featured hits like “Edge of Seventeen” and the Tom Petty duet “Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around.” It received commercial and critical acclaim, reaching No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart, with four singles on the Billboard Hot 100.
In 2016, Nicks explained to The New York Times that she had to embark on a solo career because she’d written “way too many songs.” “In the beginning, I actually sat down and said, listen, I am doing this because I have way too many songs,” Nicks said of her Fleetwood Mac bandmates. “I get frustrated because one of you walks by me every time I sit at the piano and says: ‘Oh my God, there she goes writing another song. We only need three or four from you.’ So what am I supposed to do?”
Stevie Nicks said her Fleetwood Mac bandmate Christine McVie used to tease her for writing so many songs
In a 2019 interview with Rolling Stone, Stevie Nicks explained that her solo career was “much more girlie” than her work with Fleetwood Mac.
“My solo career is much more girlie. It’s still a hard rock band – but it’s much more girlie-girl than Fleetwood Mac is,” she said. “I never wanted a solo career – I always wanted to be just in a band. But I just had so many songs! Because when you’re in a band with three prolific writers, you get two or three songs per album – maybe four. But I was writing all the time, so they just went into my Gothic trunk of lost songs.”
She added that her “totally sarcastic best friend,” Fleetwood Mac keyboardist Christine McVie, used to tease her about the number of songs she wrote.
“Christine would walk by me – my totally sarcastic best friend. She’d say [imitation of Christine McVie’s English accent] ‘Soooo. Writing another song, are we?’” Nicks said. “To this day, I write all the time.”
The Fleetwood Mac songwriter was devastated when Christine McVie died
Stevie Nicks and Christine McVie were best friends and the only women in Fleetwood Mac, so the “Dreams” singer was devastated when McVie dropped out of the band in 1998. The keyboardist said she had to leave the group due to her panic attacks and flying phobia.
Nicks was elated when McVie returned to the band after a 15-year hiatus. “When we went on the road, I realized what an amazing friend she’d been of mine that I had lost and didn’t realize the whole consequences of it till now,” she told the Star Tribune in 2015.
“She brings the funny back into Fleetwood Mac. Before, it was just a boys’ club. With her back, there’s more of a feminine touch to the whole thing,” Nicks said. “I never want her to ever go out of my life again, and that has nothing to do with music and everything to do with her and I as friends.”
McVie died on Nov. 30 after a brief illness at age 79. Nicks shared a tribute to her best friend on Instagram.
“A few hours ago I was told that my best friend in the whole world since the first day of 1975, had died,” Nicks wrote. “I didn’t even know she was ill… until late Saturday night. I wanted to be in London; I wanted to get to London – but we were told to wait. So, since Saturday, one song has been swirling around in my head, over and over and over. I thought I might possibly get to sing it to her, and so, I’m singing it to her now.
She shared the lyrics to the song “Hallelujah” by HAIM, written in her own handwriting, and concluded, “See you on the other side, My Love. Don’t forget me.”
