Poem: Fleetwood Mac

The soap-opera of 
Fleetwood Mac has 
had me hooked since 
I was about 10 or 12. 
 
There was a doco – a bit 
of late-night music-TV  
 
that filled in all the blanks. I was, 
as a kid, already a fan, but I had no 
idea how the same band that sang 
Sara and Sweet Little Lies had 
jammed out an instrumental called 
Albatross. 
 
My brother recorded this thing called 
Fleetwood Mac at 21 and I watched it 
over and again. Until I could quote whole 
sections. Watched it like my own son would 
grow up to watch Peppa Pig and The Wiggles and  
then Doc McStuffins and now The Simpsons. Watched 
it the way people binge watch any of the 
TV they now consume. 
 
Game of Thrones or Breaking Bad or 
Sopranos or The Wire or whatever arrives next 
week or is being caught up on from the Golden Age 
of TV-turned-into-Boxsets. 
 
I’d get home from school and watch the same documentary 
about Fleetwood Mac over and again. Learning about the 
bit-part players – like Bobs Welch and Weston, and how sad 
to think of Bob Welch as any sort of bit-part only. 
 
For years I could only hear about albums like Penguin and Bare  
Trees and Future Games. These were hard to find – even though they 
were by my heroes. It was a mystery to me how to access 
some of the finest music I would go on to hear. So I’d cling to the clips 
 
and the funny, laidback things John McVie would say. And how defensive 
Stevie Nicks seemed when she’d talk about how Lindsey Buckingham would 
often say that he did his finest work working on some of her songs (even though 
Lindsey never did say it. Instead Lindsay talked about how frustrated he was with 
pressure and with the push and pull of various aspects that he could not control). 
 
The blanks were filled in for me – but it was still (mostly) about the music.  
The soap-opera is fascinating, that these fine musicians all fucked with each 
other’s feelings and fucked each other, or fucked around on each other was  
somehow deeply compelling to me. Even at 12 or 13. I’d think about how they 
must have cared so deeply about the music – to keep it all going. 
 
And sure there are egos – and there was money and drugs and whatever else  
that becomes 
both the reason to keep going and the 
method of blurring anything else. 
 
And I have thought about all of that ever since. As I listen to the albums by Fleetwood 
Mac that other fans never bother with or might not even know about. And when 
I hear the biggest hits. Some of them I’m lucky enough to still  
hear as if for the first time. Others bug me a little due to overplay or because they 
were elevated in place of some of the true album-track stars.  
 
I can’t pick a favourite album or era – the blues band material is wonderful. 
Those ”lost years” where the band was falling apart in some way for every  
album but was also as prolific as it was ever going to be. 
 
And the giant stadium rock’n’pop madness of Rumours and Tusk and Mirage 
and Tango In The Night. 
 
I went on to solo albums by not just Lindsey and Stevie – and their killer duo 
album that got them gig. I had VHS tapes of Christine McVie concerts and LPs 
by Mick Fleetwood  
and any guest appearances. 
 
Books and other video tapes 
and DVDs – stories 
and docos and  
 
so many hits compilations. 
 
I’d drive over to a mate’s house who lived 
half an hour away just so we could 
listen to our tapes of Fleetwood Mac,  
comparing whether live or studio versions 
were best. 
 
And yet I’ve never heard the story 
told better than on that 
dubbed VHS tape that my 
bro recorded late one Friday night. 
 
It packs so much in – 21 years in 51 minutes. 
 
We watched it first as a family. 
All of us hooked. All of us learning. 
 
I just took it to a whole other level. 
The way I did 
with a lot of music  
and memories and memorabilia 
and silly ephemera.  
 
These things meant the world 
to me. 
 
Some of them still do. 
And will forever. 
 
There are better bands 
than Fleetwood Mac 
but there are none 
that mean more 
to me in my  
lifetime. 
 
And there might 
well be better 
poems about 
Fleetwood Mac, 
 
that wouldn’t 
be hard, unless 
this is the only 
poem about 
Fleetwood Mac. 
 
Which is possible. 
 
But never the reason 
for me to write this.