Black folks have a profound affection for Fleetwood Mac, and it’s no mystery why. Their songs are a captivating blend of soulfulness and raw human messiness—profound yet delightfully petty. But the true grip on our hearts lies in the tumultuous love story that birthed the music. Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham made musical magic for years as part of the rock group Fleetwood Mac. But the bandmates also had a complicated love story that often spilled over into their work and gave us some of the classic breakup songs fans know and love, like “Go Your Own Way” and “Dreams.”
The pair broke up in 1976, but they continued to make music for decades. And a powerful onstage moment between the two during a 1997 performance while singing a song Nicks wrote about their breakup has become a favorite of Fleetwood Mac fans young and old..white and Black. It’s something anyone who’s ever been in love can relate to, and we can’t help but think it’s one of the Blackity Blackest moments ever.
This is the story of the deliciously messy love story between Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham.
Friends as Teens
Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham first met as teenagers when Nicks transferred to Buckingham’s high school in Northern California for her senior year. The pair’s mutual love of music led them to become friends.
First Came Fritz
After high school, Buckingham asked Nicks, who was studying at San Jose State College, to join a rock band he was in called Fritz. The group performed around the Bay Area before eventually landing bigger gigs opening for larger acts like Janis Joplin. Nicks left school to pursue her music career full-time.
Then Came Love
Fritz was unable to land a record deal, which ultimately led to the group breaking up. But Buckingham and Nicks weren’t ready to give up on their dream and decided to form the duet, Buckingham Nicks. They recorded a self-titled album together in 1973, which didn’t get a lot of love.
“That album didn’t do well commercially, but it certainly was noticed,” Buckingham told Dan Rather in an interview.
But little did they know it would be a major milestone in their personal and professional lives. The pair, who had worked together for years as friends, found themselves in love.
Joining Fleetwood Mac
Although the Buckingham Nicks album didn’t take off the way the pair would have liked, it did catch the attention of Mick Fleetwood, who met Lindsey Buckingham at a recording studio in 1974. After hearing Lindsay’s guitar work on the Buckingham Nicks song “Frozen Love,” Fleetwood asked him to join Fleetwood Mac. The band had been plagued by personal conflicts and lots of changes in the lineup. Buckingham told Fleetwood he would join the group under one condition.
“Of course, my response was, ‘If you take me, you’ll have to take my girlfriend too,” Buckingham told Dan Rather. “And they did.”
The rocker called the chance meeting a “very nice piece of luck.”
“Landslide”
With its two new members, Fleetwood Mac released a self-titled album in 1975. The album contained several hits, including “Rhiannon” and “Landslide.”
Breaking Up is Hard to Do
By 1976, Nicks and Buckingham’s romantic relationship was waning, but Nicks refused to let the end of their love affair mean the end of Fleetwood Mac. Although they were no longer dating, they continued to work together for the sake of the band.
“You just have to throw yourself into your song. I mean, I broke up with Lindsey in 1976. We’d only been in Fleetwood Mac for a year and a half, and we were breaking up when we joined,” Nicks told The New Yorker in an interview. “So we just put our relationship kind of back together, because I was smart enough to know that, if we had broken up the second month of being in Fleetwood Mac, it would have blown the whole thing.”
Rumours
Despite the personal issues between the bandmates, the group released the album “Rumours” in 1977, which would become one of their most successful projects. The album, which sold over 40 million copies and won a GRAMMY for Album of the Year, remains one of the highest-grossing albums in history. But as Buckingham told Dan Rather in an interview, he believes most of the album’s appeal came from the fact that the songs gave fans an inside look at the romantic relationships (and breakups) of the band’s members. Bandmates John and Christine McVie, who were once married, were also going through a divorce at the time.
“Basically Stevie was writing dialogues to me. I was writing dialogues to her, and Christine McVie was writing dialogues to John,” he said. “So you could say that what we did beyond the music was really to tap into the voyeur in the audience. People were really able to invest in us as people because they could see and it was very well documented.”
“Go Your Own Way”
One of the biggest hits on the “Rumours” album was “Go Your Own Way,” a song Buckingham wrote about the end of his love affair with Nicks.
“Loving you
Isn’t the right thing to do
How can I ever change things
That I feel?”
“Tell me why
Everything turned around
Packing up
Shacking up is all you want to do.”
“Dreams”
Of course, Nicks had to tell her side of the story, and she did so with an amazing clap back, the hit song “Dreams.”
“Now here you go again,
You say you want your freedom,
Well, who am I to keep you down?
It’s only right that you should,
Play the way you feel it,
But listen carefully,
To the sound of your loneliness.”
“Thunder only happens when it’s rainin’,
Players only love you when they’re playin’,
Women, they will come and they will go,
When the rain washes you clean, you’ll know.”
Taking Us to Church
“Rumours” is still finding new generations of young fans, including Black TikTokers TerryAndKaniyia, who lost their minds while listening to the soulful track “The Chain.”
“Just listened to their album “Rumours”, we had no idea they had this much SOUL🔥 ,” they captioned a post.
Commenters agreed. “Fleetwood Mac is a spiritual experience,” wrote someone.
It’s All in the Eyes
Stevie Nicks wrote lots of songs about her relationship with Lindsey Buckingham, but “Silver Springs,” a revenge track which is all about their breakup, is probably one of the deepest.
Just check out the haunting lyrics:
“Time cast a spell on you, but you won’t forget me,
I know I could’ve loved you, but you would not let me.
I’ll follow you down ’til the sound of my voice will haunt you.
Give me just a chance,
You’ll never get away from the sound of the woman that loves you.”
The song, which was written for “Rumours,” didn’t make the album’s final cut and was later released as a B-side. But this performance during a 1997 Fleetwood Mac reunion still has everyone talking on social media today. People can’t help but focus on the way she looks at him – a perfect reminder of what could have been.
“It’s the intense and deliberate eye contact for me 💀” wrote someone on TikTok.
Others who’ve watched the clip are reminded about a love of their own that gives them the same feeling.
“We all have a Lindsey Buckingham in our lives,” wrote another commenter on the app.
Now I Know Why Mama Loved This Song
TikToker@mrprofessor318 posted his reaction to “Silver Springs.”
“When you listen to ‘Silver Springs’ and realized why your mom loved that song,” he captioned his post.
“She didnt just stare into his eyes…she stared into that mans soul while singing this straight to him. Stevie will always be iconic,” wrote someone in the comments.
A Powerful Hex
TikTokers who watch the performance today can’t help but think Nicks, whose bohemian style gives some of her fans witch vibes, was casting a spell on Buckingham, who was involved with his wife Kristen when the band performed together in 1997. And in one of the ultimate bad ass moves, Nicks even made Buckingham sing along.
“And she made him sing the incantation Of his own hex! I love it!,” wrote one person on TikTok.
“It Was You”
Although Lindsay Buckingham and Stevie Nicks were never married to each other, Buckingham did walk down the aisle with Kristen Messner, a photographer he met in 1996. The two had a son together in 1998 and eventually tied the knot in 2000. They went on to have two more kids in 2000 and 2004.
Buckingham says Messner was the inspiration behind some of his songs, including his 1997 song, “It Was You,” a song in which he thanks her for choosing him to start a family with.
“Every day now how the time has flown,
Every day now I am finally home,
Because I waited for a woman who,
Was true,
I waited for a woman it was you.”
But Messner ultimately filed for divorce in 2021, due to irreconcilable differences, which left some fans wondering if the split could open the door for Nicks and Buckingham to give their love another try.
“I will simply combust if Stevie and Lindsay end up together in their old age,” one TikToker said in a post. “I’m sorry, that was my first thought. I know I’m not alone.”
“He’s Not My Best Friend”
While most Fleetwood Mac fans would love to see a romantic reunion between Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham, it’s probably not in the cards. Although the pair have a decades-long personal and professional relationship, Nicks says she doesn’t think they could ever go back to being the kinds of friends they were as teenagers.
“He’s not my best friend and never will be, because we were those kinda lovers, you know, and when we broke up, it was awful, and it was nasty and bad. And so we can never really be good friends,” Nicks said in an interview. “We care about each other very much, but we don’t hang out.”
If they ever do find their way back together, we know the music will be fire.
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