If I were to choose a top ten list of albums for all time, Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours would be within it. There was something indelible and fresh about every cut on that album. It was released at a time in my life that required this boost of energy and creativity. I tap into music as I would any drug in my life, it feeds me and draws both strength, and emotional highs while engaged and can both heal me and relieve the stresses and strains of anything that might be going on at any time. All music heals me, that is a fact established simply by having introduced “Musical Triggers” in the first place. But Rumours became a never-ending binge that can still resurface all these 45 years later.
I was first introduced to Fleetwood Mac in the summer of 1975, by no means the beginning of the group itself. I was still in New York during that summer, my last living there and the period before my senior year in high school at Ward Melville. The band had originated in 1967 in the UK and gone through moderate successes and line-ups, but it was when original members Mick Fleetwood, John McVie, and his wife Christine (who joined in 1970) added Lindsey Buckingham and his partner Stevie Nicks, that Fleetwood Mac became the band I know. In 1975 the new line-up released their (second) self-titled LP and the world was introduced to music that included “Rhiannon,” “Over My Head,” “Landslide,” “World Turning,” and “Say You Love Me.”
In early 1977 the band released their second album as a line-up (and 11th under the name Fleetwood Mac) and the magic that is Rumours was given to us all. At this point in my life, I was well into a second semester at Arizona State University, having arrived in Tempe, Arizona back in August of 1976. I lived on the first floor of the men’s dorm on campus called Palo Verde West. In my first semester I had lived on the fourth floor with an amicable, but somewhat disjointed roommate situation (not to mention my first ever), that left a lot to be desired. My second experience turned out to be a great deal better.
My new roommate was called Gene. Unfortunately, 45 years later I have little to no recollection of things like his last name or where he was from. What I do remember is that Gene and I found a lot in common through drinking and smoking joints in our room. He was a kindred spirit. Gene was a lanky guy, a couple of years older than I, with a tendency to slouch or appear somewhat elastic. There was a slur to his regular speaking voice and that only was accentuated when we drank together in the evenings while doing homework or discussing the nature of the campus or world around us. Gene was not classically handsome and seemed to always look in other directions when speaking to me, his eyes partially closed whether drinking or not.
Gene and I were very different people in terms of background, dress, attitude, goals, interests, and even friends. He was a straight guy who tended to isolate, but all that mattered to me at the time is that I was comfortable coming back to my room and could always count on getting high in one way or another. We were an odd couple of roommates, he was very strait-laced and academic appearing, I still had thick, dark hair halfway down my back and these light brown tinted prescription glasses that only perpetuated the stoner style I had somewhat perfected in my younger years. It was a stage that was the best I could do at this time in my life.
Not at all unusual in this matching were the disparate tastes in music. It seemed that whatever he listened to would be something I would not and vice-versa. Neither of us truly disliked the music the other would play, at least not to the extent of my first dorm roommate Ray Gamble from Las Vegas who played “Disco Duck” on a loop throughout our entire first semester. Normally with Gene and I, there wasn’t any argument because we were high. After February of 1977 that all changed when I began to play the album Rumours in the evenings, and we found something very much in common. I remember listening to the album over and over to fill myself with its rich and heartfelt lyrics emphasizing the turmoils and troubles all five of the members had been dealing with during the creation of the album, most of which were between the members themselves. Between them, there was fighting, divorce, and cheating wives, but a beautiful and creative cohesion that produced songs built to engineer the healing and processing of all that was going on amongst them. By the end of the semester, and my departure to a house with a bunch of guys off-campus for the summer (and beyond) I did not have to put the album on because Gene would be doing it on his own.
Rumours was an album that gave us music like, “Dreams” (recently resurrected on the charts in a viral moment), “Secondhand News,” Go Your Own Way,” “Songbird,” “You Make Loving Fun,” “Gold Dust Woman,” and the amazing “The Chain.” “The Chain” was the only song on the album that was credited to all of the members of the band as writers. What was interesting about the cut was how it had been put together from pieces of other music the band had worked on that had all been rejected. The lyric was written by Stevie Nicks about the breakdown of her relationship with Lindsey Buckingham.
The trigger for me is the song being the first song on the second side of the LP as well as the first song they played when I saw them in concert in the summer of 1977 in Tucson, Arizona. The concert was in an outdoor stadium and was one of the best concerts I had ever been able to see.
This substack is dedicated to Christine McVie. With her passing the Fleetwood Mac I have loved from those days passes into the night. I can say I have no idea where my roommate Gene from Palo Verde West is today, but the music we shared is everywhere and can still provide me solace from the world it has always done.
And if you don’t love me now
You will never love me again
I can still hear you saying
You would never break the chain (never break the chain)
Thank you, Tamara! I will definitely do that. I appreciate your support.
❤️