Like many who grew up during the baby boomer era, the repurposing of cherished songs for commercials often feels like a jarring experience. The use of Carly Simon’s “Anticipation” for ketchup was perhaps an early sign, and the transformation of Fleetwood Mac’s dramatic “Go Your Own Way,” from the Rumours album, into an anthem for a COPD medication felt particularly dissonant. More recently, Pilot’s infectious 70s hit “Magic” was reborn for a diabetes drug, morphing “Oh oh oh it’s magic,” into “oh, oh Ozempic.”
Yet, amidst this landscape of re-appropriated musical memories, there’s an exception. The new Chevrolet EV commercial, soundtracked by Fleetwood Mac’s “Everywhere,” evokes an undeniable sense of joy. The song’s vibrant chorus and layered harmonies create a fleeting moment of pure elation, transforming an ordinary car ride into something truly magical.
This enchantment is courtesy of Christine McVie, the songwriter behind “Everywhere,” a testament to her exceptional pop craftsmanship. The fact that “Everywhere” remains so resonant, streaming into our consciousness 35 years after its release, amplifies the shock and sadness of her sudden passing.
Following Christine McVie’s return to the spotlight this past summer to promote Songbird, her first collection of songs in years, many, including myself, hoped for one final Fleetwood Mac reunion. Despite ignoring their 50th anniversary in 2017 and years of farewell tour teases, the desire to see her perform live again remained strong. Memories of her 2019 performances, jamming on Fleetwood Mac classics like “Black Magic Woman,” “Oh Well,” and revisiting hits like “Little Lies” and “You Make Loving Fun,” alongside unearthed gems such as “Tell Me All The Things You Do” and her own “All Over Again,” fueled this yearning.
McVie had recently expressed her weariness of hotels and constant travel. A persistent back issue made sitting at the keyboard, her anchor within Fleetwood Mac through numerous iterations since Peter Green and Jeremy Spencer’s departures, physically challenging. The vision of her at the piano, as she was at the Peter Green tribute concert, embraced by Mick Fleetwood, and dating back to her initial session with Fleetwood Mac in 1968, paving the way for her official arrival, was a cherished one.
It’s hard to believe it was as far back as a sweltering August day in 1976 when Christine McVie called. Our first meeting had been the previous year, during Fleetwood Mac’s tour with new members Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks – a situation that initially irked road manager John Courage, who wasn’t keen on a young, aspiring music journalist being around the band.
Calling during a break from recording their next album, McVie revealed its title: Rumours. The name stemmed from an exasperated remark by John Mcvie, her then-husband and the band’s bassist, who declared their intertwined personal dramas resembled a soap opera.
Fleetwood Mac’s self-titled album had already surpassed three million sales and topped the Billboard charts after a remarkable 60-week climb. “It’s been quite a turn of events,” she reflected that day. “We haven’t had time to turn around and take notice of anything except the fact that we’ve been working so hard.”
Christine McVie was also navigating the complexities of newfound fame. While excited about new songs like “Don’t Stop” and “You Make Loving Fun,” she was disconcerted by the re-release of a long-forgotten solo album. Fleetwood Mac’s soaring popularity allowed her former record label to capitalize on her name, unearthing her past. That summer saw the release of her debut solo album, misleadingly billed as The Legendary Christine Perfect. McVie was, understandably, mortified.
“I’m not at all happy about it,” she confided, describing the album as “archaic” and admitting to feeling deeply embarrassed. She explained being “pushed” into making the record by her manager after her two albums with the blues band Chicken Shack. “I’d just like to make it clear to anyone that’s interested that it’s eight years old,” she emphasized.
While Sire Records exploited her name to market the Blue Horizon reissue, Mick Fleetwood offered a comforting perspective. He reassured her, “Chris, it’s not that bad. You’ve got to realize how dated it is and the musicians you used are pretty diabolical. If you take it in that respect, it isn’t that terrible.”
By then, Christine McVie had already been instrumental in transforming Fleetwood Mac, a process that began the moment she joined and contributed the magnificent “Show Me a Smile,” foreshadowing the hits to come. She was the architect of the melodic shift that awaited Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks in early 1975. The transcendent three-part harmony in McVie’s “Why” exemplified this. It was also McVie who injected dynamism into Chicken Shack’s bluesy “Get Like You Used To Be,” turning it into something kinetic for the band’s sets. A spiritual connection to their roots emerged as she and Lindsey Buckingham electrified arenas with “World Turning,” a nod to Peter Green’s song of the same name. And crucially, it was Christine McVie who delivered Fleetwood Mac’s first hit single in this new era, “Over My Head,” from which point the band never faltered.
Christine McVie captivating audiences with her performance and John McVie laying down the groove during a Fleetwood Mac concert in 1977.
In March 1977, just a month after Rumours release, the band was back on tour. I had the privilege of sitting with McVie backstage in Hartford after their performance. Sipping white wine, she relished the energy of the stage. She recognized the band’s transitional phase, bridging their past and present. With characteristic self-deprecation, the then 33-year-old singer quipped, “I’m old enough to be half of the audience’s mother.”
Little did anyone know the magnitude of what was about to unfold. Christine McVie would soon require an alias for travel. Rumours would eventually sell over 20 million copies. The rest, as they say, is history, a history inextricably linked to the rhythmic foundation laid by John McVie on bass, complementing Christine’s melodies.
Numerous moments followed over the years. We discussed her self-titled solo album for a Song Hits cover story. In the summer of 1987, when the band reunited for Tango In The Night, I was invited to interview both Christine McVie and Mick Fleetwood at her Beverly Hills home for another Song Hits cover.
This was the house where, just days prior, Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks had their infamous clash. Buckingham, reluctant to tour, compelled Fleetwood to repeat a familiar task: find a new guitarist. This time, he recruited two, Billy Burnette and Rick Vito.
Following the interview, the ever-gracious McVie invited me to lunch. We gathered in the kitchen for cucumber sandwiches before Fleetwood and McVie departed for rehearsal. Christine McVie smiled warmly as she posed for a photo in the driveway.
These memories have flooded back in recent days, too many to recount fully.
One particularly vivid memory is from Fleetwood Mac’s last tour, where Christine McVie initiated the second encore with “Don’t Stop.” The song, once adopted as a Clinton-era campaign anthem, was now reintroduced as a song about resilience. McVie then joined Stevie Nicks for a duet of the lesser-known “All Over Again” from the Time album. The lyrics, displayed behind them, breathed new life and relevance into a virtually forgotten song. There they stood, collaborators for over four decades, in a world still grappling with the concept of women, let alone two, leading a band. Christine McVie’s understated presence often obscured her pioneering role.
A poignant moment of connection as Christine McVie and John McVie share an embrace on stage, highlighting their enduring personal and musical bond within Fleetwood Mac.
The memory that resonates most deeply is Christine McVie concluding Fleetwood Mac concerts with her masterpiece, “Songbird.” Seated at the piano, bathed in stage lights across arenas in America, McVie transformed personal pain into a hymn of hope and redemption. When she sang the soaring line, “And I wish you all the love in the world, but most of all I wish it from myself,” a wave of applause would erupt, seeming even louder in the intimate stillness of the moment. And when Christine McVie embraced her former husband, John McVie, as the song concluded, it felt like a communal catharsis, witnessed nightly by twenty thousand people who saw reflections of their own struggles in Fleetwood Mac’s music, underscored by John’s steady bass.
It mirrors the experience of watching a television commercial and seeing fragments of yourself and loved ones in the faces of those riding and singing together, reveling in the simple joy of a car sing-along, propelled by a timeless melody, a melody crafted by Christine McVie, forever intertwined with the rhythmic pulse of John McVie’s bass.
