So Christine McVie died today.
I have… a lot of feelings.
My thing with Fleetwood Mac started in 9th grade, when my dad handed me a cassette of their 1975 self-titled album, and told me to give it a try, I might like it. And I did, in a completely obnoxious way, in the way you only really get into things when you’re 15, and they become your entire personality. I became that asshole, the one recommending two-decade-old music to anyone who would listen, like I had made some huge discovery.
I scoured the internet for grainy photos of them to print out and tape to my bedroom wall. I lurked on forums, dug through my dad’s bookstore for biographies and old magazine articles, pilfered all my parents’ cassettes and listened to them on an old Walkman, in the glowing dark of our living room in the middle the night. And when Napster became a thing, I downloaded lo-fi demos from the 70’s, multiple versions of the same song, each one slightly closer to the one that made it on the album, tracking all the changes in instrumentation and lyrics and melody.
I liked plenty of other music, but this was eternal. Each album became the soundtrack to a summer, or a shitty year of school, or a miserable unrequited crush. I got really into the song Save Me (an underrated Christine jam from an otherwise crappy album) while I was at Dublin, far away from my friends and family, wishing for a time machine, a way to go back to the year before.
The Christine songs I’ve been listening to on repeat all night:
Save Me (from Behind the Mask)
Over & Over (from Tusk)
Love Shines (from 25 Years – The Chain)
Temporary One (from The Dance)
Hold Me (from Mirage)
Little Lies (from Tango in the Night)
the river goes on and on,
and the sea that divides us is a temporary one
and the bridge will bring us back together