Fleetwood Mac has been rock’s biggest soap opera for five decades. From their beginnings in the 60’s English blues rock scene, to their reinvention as Californian rock superstars in the 70’s, to their smooth hits of the 80’s and up to today. Throughout this period there were violent romantic outbursts and historic drug use. “There were parties all over the house,” John McVie told ROLLING STONE in 1977. He remembered the creation of their classic song “Rumours.” “Amazing. Horrifying. Huge amounts of illegal substances. Meters of this miserable stuff. The days and nights just went on and on.”
But the soul of Mac’s magic has always been her songs. They began as a vehicle for the blues vision of tragic genius Peter Green, continued their career in the early ’70s with fascinating, often overlooked transitional albums with Jeremy Spencer, Danny Kirwan and Bob Welch, and reached an astonishing peak when singer Christine McVie, madcap drummer Mick Fleetwood and ultra-reliable bassist John McVie joined forces with Southern California songwriting team Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks.
Our list of the band’s 50 best songs encompasses all of these eras. What connects them all is an almost mystical chemistry born of exhausting personal dramas and heartbreaks that they somehow managed to transform into some of the most beloved rock ‘n’ roll songs of all time.
50. “I Don’t Want to Know”
Rumors, 1977
For any other band, a song like “I Don’t Want to Know” might be a focal point. On Rumors It was just an afterthought, added when the band realized that Nicks’ “Silver Springs” was too long to fit on the LP.
Nicks later speculated that he was chosen to appease her. Because it was one of her own compositions that she had written before joining the group. “That always has a shadow on ‘I Don’t Want to Know,’ she remembered. “Even though I love him and he turned out great.”
49. “That’s Alright”
Mirage, 1982
Fleetwood Mac has had a huge influence on country music. Artists from the Dixie Chicks to Little Big Town have covered their songs. Nicks grew up with her grandfather singing old country songs to her.
And that side is particularly evident in “That’s Alright,” a lilting shuffle first released as an acoustic version of “Designs of Love” in the days of Buckingham Nicks recorded and years later for Mirage was revised. The rootsier alternative version is a gem among the extras of the 2016 reissue of Mirage.
48. “The Green Manalishi (With the Two Prong Crown)”
Single, not included on the album, 1970
This miasmatic proto-metal blues freakout was written by Peter Green shortly before he left Fleetwood Mac. It is inspired by a dream Green had while taking mescaline, in which a green dog appeared to him, symbolizing money. “It took me at least two years to recover from that song,” Green recalls. “When I heard it, it was so powerful that it completely exhausted me.”
47. “The Ledge”
Tusk, 1979
“Lindsey really took a stand,” Nicks said about Tusk. And nowhere was that more evident than in “The Ledge,” a joyfully crazy leap into post-punk primitivism and noise for noise’s sake. He recorded the song alone. Turned his guitar down until it made an ugly growl as he launched into another thinly veiled tirade about his relationship with Nicks.
“I was trying to find things that were under the radar,” he recalls of the song and other similar songs on the LP. “Here, this one guitar covered everything. It was a concept piece on that level. John and Christine had nothing to do.”
46. “Earl Gray”
Kiln House, 1970
Guitarist Danny Kirwan was only with Fleetwood Mac for a short time; He was a student of Peter Green and joined the band when he was just 18 years old. But he left his mark. You can hear his pastoral blues rock style in this beautiful instrumental from “Kiln House.” A nice guitar composition that could have been on Wilco’s “Sky Blue Sky”.
Decades after Kirwan was kicked out of the band because of his drinking and mental health issues, Fleetwood proudly displayed his photo in his home in Hawaii. “Danny was wonderful,” Fleetwood told Men’s Journal in 2014. “But he couldn’t cope with life.”
45. “Farmer’s Daughter”
Fleetwood Mac Live, 1980
At the end of their 1980 live double LP, Fleetwood Mac sneaked in a dazzling cover of the Beach Boys’ 1963 song “Farmer’s Daughter” from a sound check in Santa Monica. It was more than just a connection between different generations of California rock. It was a sincere tribute.
“The Beach Boys have led the way, and not just in California,” wrote Buckingham in an article for Rolling Stones. “You may have sold a lot of people on the California dream. But for me it was Brian Wilson who showed how far you have to go to achieve your own musical dream.”
44. “Underway”
Then Play On, 1969
“Underway”, a vintage guitar showcase by Peter Green, was a highlight of his last album with the band, Then play on, from 1969. Like Green opposite in 2001 Rolling Stones said: “It was composed spontaneously by all of us when we were just playing in the studio and recording everything we could think of. Completely free. I played that before I got into trouble.” (His whole sad story is told in the 2009 documentary “Peter Green: Man of the World.”)
Onstage, Green and the band stretched “Underway” into a stunning 16-minute jam best heard on later live albums like “The Vaudeville Years.”
43. “Storms”
Tusk, 1979
This gentle, meditative ballad is Nicks’ lament for her brief, messy affair with Fleetwood. “That relationship destroyed Mick’s marriage,” she later recalled. Not surprisingly, “Storms” hit a sore spot with Buckingham. His friend Carol Ann Harris recalled Nicks introducing the song to the band. Only to receive toxic criticism from Buckingham, which led to a loud argument.
“These battles always left bloody traces,” Harris recalled. “Combined with the scars from Lindsey and Stevie’s past personal relationship, they made the atmosphere in the studio even more uncomfortable with each passing day.”
42. “Monday Morning”
Fleetwood Mac, 1975
When Buckingham and Nicks’ 1973 debut album proved a commercial failure, Polydor dropped the duo. But Buckingham had already written a handful of songs for a follow-up album. “[Sie] “We were showstoppers, even as rough sketches recorded on Lindsey’s four-track,” Fleetwood enthused years later.
This also included “Monday Morning”, which after being reworked in the studio became the title song of Fleetwood Mac became. When John McVie wondered whether the band’s new material had strayed too far from the blues, producer Keith Olsen replied: “We’re doing pop-rock now. That’s a much quicker way to make money.”
41. “Black Magic Woman”
Single without album release, 1968
Fleetwood Mac’s first top 40 single in the UK was written by Peter Green after watching a scary television show. “There was a whole group of skulls and stuff,” he recalled. “It was so scary.”
In “Black Magic Woman” he translated these images into a seedy white boy blues. Without Santana’s hit remake two years later, which stuck to the original Mac arrangement, the song might have been forgotten. (The idea came from Santana’s keyboardist Gregg Rollie.) When Fleetwood Mac was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1998, Green was there to perform “Black Magic Woman” live with Santana.