How can it be that we have never polled RUMOURS by Fleetwood Mac?!

totally weird that no one did this!

probably cuz it's more or less one showstopper after another?

I believe this has been polled at least twice, once quite recently

or was I thinking of the s/t

Best Song on Fleetwood Mac's "Rumours"

loool this is probably the hardest poll ever for me

i note that i voted for silver springs on the other poll

I think the other poll doesn't come up in the search results cause of the quotation marks, fwiw

voted dreamz

d'oh. i guess "Rumours" doesn't come up when you search Rumours w/o quotes? xpxp

well i think i missed that one and am voting second hand news in this one.

this time, YMLF gets it

Right now it would be Never Going Back Again. Probably voted different in the other polls.

aw man my memory sucks. i posted on that other poll!

"The Chain" appears to be the favorite 20 years after hearing for the first time. Still, mostly classics all the way through this one.

just listened to this this morning, after watching the Classic Albums dvd last night. obv impossible to choose but today i'll go for YMLF.

Dreams or Go Your Own Way

oh man i love the drumming in the chorus before the 'don't break the spell' bit on you make loving fun SO SO MUCH

i love lindsay's pre-chorus ("i never did believe...") arpeggiations that he purged from the demo but he played live, eg:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XoMWa3jRtLo

totally

YMLF, for "...but i've a feeling it's time to try"

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Want to listen to this right now.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

oh daddy always strikes out

Kinda surprised nobody voted for "Don't Stop". One of the biggest hits off the album and all....

I hate it.

Didn't even realize that this was a new poll. I would've voted for "You Make Loving Fun"

I don't mind "Don't Stop" but it's difficult to imagine an actual Fleetwood Mac fan plumping for it even if they like Christie most - "You Make Loving Fun" is not just better but a much better encapsulation of her strengths. Which is a misleading way to put it: the drawback for "Don't Stop" is that it's too strong, too blithe, whereas her finest songs ("Over My Head", "Say That You Love Me", "You Make Loving Fun", "Hold Me", "Love In Store", "Everywhere", "Little Lies", "Isn't It Midnight") all possess a wonderful blend of strength and fragility.

surprised at the winner, to be honest.

Sure, but there's a wistfulness in "Don't Stop" too; she's pumping herself up.

I can't believe the result here. I PROTEST. GOLD DUST WOMAN should have won!!! Do people listen to this regularly or did they just vote based on memory?

i voted "i don't wanna know" last time, might have gone for "second hand news" this time for variety.

I did vote for 'Gold Dust Woman' but honestly, any of these songs (except 'Don't Stop') would be a worthy winner of any poll.

nah, "oh daddy" deserves what it gets imo.
maybe it was less creepy to call ppl daddy in the seventies.

still listen to this on the regular btw--twice last week, at least.

I'm not sure it was less creepy then either! That song is chilling, for all the right reasons.

I think Don't Stop also suffers thanks to the Clintons, maybe?

Maybe 4 days is too short for a poll, especially when 2 of those days are holidays?

Oh Daddy in the 80's:

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2a4uf_adrian-belew-oh-daddy_music

The last minute of "Second Hand News" sounds like the armies of Mordor marching, especially the bass rolling like thundah. There's a bit of disconnect between that martial sound & the ostensible subject-matter of the song, unless the idea is that the "stuff" he wants to do is sinister.

cocaine obv

"marching powder"

DOWNDOWNDOWNDOWNDOWNDOWNDOWNDOWNDOWNDOWNDOWNDOWNDOWNDOWNDOWNDOWNVVDOWNDOWNDOWNDOWN

was i the only one to vote for "songbird" in this poll? come on! (it is possible that i did not vote in this poll, though).

I would have voted The Chain, followed by Go Your Own Way, and Never Goin' Back Again.

the Lindsey Buckingham chorus is just such a tonal shift from the verse, and the rideout harmonized vocals are fantastic.

btw tylerw I considered Songbird...good song.

I'm 35, have listened to this album hundreds of times, and am only now understanding the relationships it limns.

First listen: great pop songs with a tough rhythm section!
Second listen: three distinct excellent singer-songwriters!
----------
Four hundred-third listen: They're talking about my life.

listened to it again the other night and was struck by how sophisticated it is - in songwriting, production, subject matter, even attitude considering what was going on behind the scenes. it's such an Adult album in a trad juvenile genre.

i sure as hell wouldn't sing backing vocals on a song accusing me of "shacking up" with other people.

still listen to this on the regular btw--twice last week, at least.

― ian, Monday, September 21, 2009 12:13 PM (11 months ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Me too. It's so good.

Would have voted Go Your Own Way or maybe Second Hand News. This is tough!

I got the remastered two-disc set recently. It's got an alternate 'You Make Loving Fun' with different backing vocals in all the wrong places, which is pretty awesome.

does anybody else unfailingly skip over "don't stop"? can't stand that shit.

Me. I think what I hate about it is the relentless jauntiness of the tune. If it had a couple of minor notes, or a few triplets, I might totally change my view.

I love "Don't Stop". Yeah, it's way jaunty (it's nearly an ABBA song), but I like to think that's tempered a bit by the dark subject matter.

It makes sense in context. Squeezed between despairing tracks, it sounds like an unanswered prayer.

was "The Chain" the lol lurker/spoiler vote cuz that's kinda challoppy imho

you don't like the chain?

can someone tell me for sure what syllable lindsey buckingham is saying repeatedly during "second hand news," this question has been on my mind for quite some time now -- is it "down" or some other miscellaneous syllable?

Sounds like "bow" (as in "bow wow") to me.

Yeah, I always sing it as "bow" if I'm singing along.

saw a used vinyl copy of this in a thrift store over the weekend -- for $20! totally ridiculous, seller must be hoping for a serious sucker.

(not because the record is bad obv, but because it sold a bajillion copies -- must be one of the more common used records in the world)

When I sang Second Hand News at Karaoke I was fed the word "Dow."
Dow Dow Dow duh dow
doodely doodely doo
I was drunk and breathless. Much respect for LB.

I like The Chain but it's rated really high on this poll and placed higher than quite a few more superior songs imo.

tyler you should be able to find a nice, clean copy for under $5. probably closer to $2.

unless it was the white vinyl? but even that i think doesn'ts ell for $20.

no, i'm pretty sure this was just a regular copy in decent shape. think it had a sticker on the slip that said "first pressing" or some BS. the rest of this guy's stuff was way overpriced too, but Rumours just really stood out.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RLD1ZKOGJgI

i really love this version of 'never going back again'

thanks for posting -- I thought he was going to go into "mother nature's son" at the bridge!

think it had a sticker on the slip that said "first pressing" or some BS

Hot stamper!!!

I love singing along in harmony with "Secondhand News".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_QBwKKGSdO8

^^^thinking about when songs like this and silver springs get left off a record it ~blows me away~.

Currently the #11 album in the U.S.A.

damn you, you beat me.

and on the same week that Stevie Nicks' new album debuts too.

this is hilarious

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQeBWNRi1nY

shit gets real at :50

guitar faces come fast and hard at 1:35 in this one

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2kPuSH9Pvc

Is this Glee's doing? ('Oh Daddy' was robbed here btw)

from billboard:

Right outside the top 10 is Fleetwood Mac's 1977 album "Rumours," which re-enters at No. 11 with just under 30,000 (up 1,951%) thanks to exposure gleaned from the May 3 episode of Fox TV's "Glee," which dedicated its entire hour to the album. Of its almost 30,000 haul last week, a full 91% were downloads. The week previous, the set sold just over 1,000 total copies.

from wikipedia: Will tells April about the current glee club tensions, which she likens to Fleetwood Mac when they were making their Rumours album. Will and April sing Dreams to the club, and he assigns the album to get them focused back on music.

It still sells a thousand a week, thirty-four years later?! Lindsay must eat & drink money.

He has a recording studio made out of gold bars, with bathroom tiles glued over them for that echo.

he also keeps the entire USC marching band circa 1980 in an italian villa, just in case he needs them.

I'm watching this right now (and hopefully further lining Lindsay's pockets indirectly)

Lindsey, jeez - I always do that

i don't want to know = the secret best song on this record.

I keep forgetting about that one. If I'd have voted in this poll when it first came up I would have went for 'You Make Loving Fun' immediately. It's all about John McVie's bass playing and the background harmonies in the chorus for me. He must have been thrilled to play bass on it, though.

Has the original mix of Silver Springs ever been on CD?

i don't want to know = the secret best song on this record.

― tylerw, Friday, October 28, 2011

Got the superduper reissue today - the 'new' outtakes are really great, kinda baffled that the 2004 reissue didn't use them instead of the barely different mixes. Things like Lindsey and Stevie duetting on Never Going Back again, which has bongos, brushes, piano and different guitar licks, a Stevie demo of 'The Chain' that is a completely different tune apart from the chorus (and 'Keep Me There', a completely different song where the end of The Chain comes from, but can't remember whether that was on the 2004 one), Dreams with just the Rhodes/minimal guitar riffs, a really intimate demo of Songbird...

Live disc is kinda perfunctory, but a nice set of performances and sounds super clean, haven't watched the DVD yet, and the vinyl is lovely.

Also, infuriatingly, absolutely no mention of where these things come from, dates, etc, in the book, but maybe that's asking a bit too much. Got Ken Caillat's book for that, but it's a bit light at points.

Someone pointed out the other day Mick's trucknuts on the cover and now I can't unsee them as trucknuts.

Ken Caillat's head was undoubtedly a bit 'light at points' during the making of the record, mind!

Haha, no kidding...

haha I just noticed someone (Lindsey, presumably) whispers "fuck" at the beginning of "The Chain"

Ha wow, good spot!

First listen: great pop songs with a tough rhythm section!
Second listen: three distinct excellent singer-songwriters!
----------
Four hundred-third listen: They're talking about my life.

― Gucci Mane hermeneuticist (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, September 8, 2010 4:03 PM (2 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

alfred otm

sweet. "dreams" is my favorite from this album.

Never heard this demo of "Dreams" before, the backing track is a pretty different direction then what was committed to the LP:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rIt7SpT_06M

Would've voted "Silver Springs" if it made the LP. Have to say "Dreams" though.

Silver Springs was cut out of spite by Lindsey, right? according to Stevie, I Don't Want to Know was an old Buckingham/Nicks song that Lindsey insisted on re-recording in lieu of putting Silver Springs on the record (both couldn't be included because of side length).

I believe "Silver Springs" was cut because there was not enough space on the LP and the band didn't think it fit with the feel of the album. However, it's one of the most achingly pointed love songs she wrote about Lindsey.

Should've been a landslide for Dreams

xp i can't remember which Fmac book/autobio i read this in, but Silver Springs was recorded early on and bumped before time was an issue- Lindsey insisted on re-recording I Don't Want to Know in its place.

Was just checking the expanded CD, and Rumours w/"Silver Springs" weighs in at 44:50, which I guess would have messed up the dynamic range on vinyl some.

I wrote it for Rumours, and fourteen years ago I walked into the studio and the record was basically done. It was at the Record Plant, and Mick said, 'Stevie, I need vou to come outside to the parking lot cause I need to talk to vou for a minute.' And I knew it was reallv serious 'cause Mick never asks you to go out to the parking lot for anything.

So we walked to the huge Record Plant parking lot and he said, 'I'm taking Silver Springs off the record.' And, of course, my first reaction was, 'Why?' And he said, 'There's a lot of reasons, but because basicallv it's just too long. And we think that there's another of vour songs that's better, so that's what we want to do.' Before I started to get upset about Silver Springs, I said, 'What other song?' And he said, 'A song called I Don't Want To Know.' And I said, 'But I don't want that song on this record.' And he said, 'Well, then don't sing it.'

And then I started to scream bloody murder and probablv said every horriblv mean thing that you could possibly say to another human being, and walked back in the studio completely flipped out. I said, 'Well, I'm not gonna sing I Don't Want To Know. I am one-fifth of this band.' And they said. 'Well, if vou don't like it, you can either (a) take a hike or (b) you better go out there and sing I Don't Want To Know or you're only gonna have two songs on the record.' And so, basically, with a gun to my head, I went out and sang I Don't Want To Know. And they put Silver Springs on the back of Go Your Own Way.

~Stevie Nicks, BBC radio interview, 1991

Stevie also speaks about in that great Classic Albums documentary MaresNest posted on the Fleetwood Mac: C or D thread.

there should be a Fleetwood Mac bootleg series

the bass played on The Chain supposedly for sale

https://reverb.com/item/6414168-alembic-series-graphite-john-mcvie-actual-bass?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIrLT5weHs2QIVT6ppCh2usw_IEAEYASAEEgLz-vD_BwE&pla=1

yow

that is one ugly-as-sin bass

how in the world did "go your own way" win this with twice as many votes as "dreams"

Karl read my mind.

yeah Dreams is far ahead of anything else on this flawless classic

That this album stills sells so strongly amazes me. Alan Light's new book has terrific reporting.

agreed. it's fun to see how the album continues to be a living thing, touching Gen Z. plus all the random pop culture collisions that have taken place over the years, from Clinton in '92 to the pandemic-era Ocean Spray meme set to "Dreams." should have gone further in depth with "Stevie Nicks' Fajita Roundup," I was disappointed that only got a passing mention.

"don't stop" is top tier on this record, wild that it didn't get any votes.

According to Light, the best-selling vinyl releases of 2022 were by Taylor Swift, Harry Styles, Olivia Rodrigo, Kendrick, and Rumours. "You can never keep enough copies of Rumours in a secondhand record store, especially in a college town," Mark Ronson is quoted as saying. The album got a second wind in 2011 thanks to Glee; in this moment, according to Light, the way the backstage soap opera lends itself to Easter eggs for Gen Z listeners, plus Stevie Nicks' shrewd self-marketing, has kept it relevant.

I think scott seward said here several years ago that he can't keep copies of Rumours in his store.

i wonder if the clinton taint has soured “don’t stop” for ppl? i’ve always loved it too, esp the way the vocals are mixed

The book goes into that bit.

also has ‘stereophonic’ been discussed anywhere on ILX?

still love this Flight of the Conchords joke

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LK9kzCnunWo

“don’t stop” sounds like ash colored sweatpants to me, but someone on this board once said it helps to picture Lindsey “extremely on cocaine” while he’s singing, which helps.

ha, in this book Light finds a quote where Buckingham says, "I didn't buy cocaine -- too expensive." I think he was the one in the band who dabbled least? He just sounds like he's in a permanently addled mode.

I'm endlessly fascinated with the version on their 1980 Live LP, which is one of my favourite records of all time. The album seems to have been assembled in a fit of pique, with revealing moments such as Christine saying "Well, we haven't played anything off Tusk yet" to absolutely no reaction from the audience. Meanwhile, the version of Don't Stop, perhaps the most euphoric, upbeat number off Rumours, is taken from a soundcheck, and is absolutely lifeless and peters out into an impotent little bass squiggle from John McVie.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fbW3d8A9Wak

ok I'm listening back now and it's not so lifeless, but it def peters out into nothingness. the rest of the LP is killer, too - the best versions of Landslide and Never Going Back Again (both are relevatory imo).

i feel like lindsay's performance on the album version is completely subsumed by the song's christine-ness.

Don't Stop will probably always be my least-favorite song on the album because I just can't separate it from Clinton. I was 11 when he ran for president and so I'd never heard the song before. As a precociously dorky kid I was very much into Clinton at that time (even went to see him speak at a rally) and obviously all of that aged horribly.

I think scott seward said here several years ago that he can't keep copies of Rumours in his store.

That's pretty much the case everywhere. I was gifted a new turntable 10 years ago and afterwards went on a little tear picking up old favorites I didn't yet have on vinyl. I went to one local shop that was otherwise pretty reasonable pricing their used Classic Rock vinyl ($9.99 for high-grade stuff, $4.99-7.99 for same with damaged sleeves, and around a buck for VG or less) but their copies of Rumours started at $14.99 and topped out with an '80s half-speed press that was like $35-40.

I should add this was all a bit shocking because I grew up with Rumours being a garage sale/dollar bin perennial in the late '90s-early '00s, and had myself scored a nice set of most of their other albums of that era for peanuts in 2009.

“You can never keep enough copies of Rumours in a secondhand record store, especially in a college town," Mark Ronson is quoted as saying.

Thread delivers secondhand news.

my local record shop guy says the same thing. in fact last time I went I saw someone buying a used copy which I'm assuming was just put out there. this was definitely not the case 15 years ago.

Random note: A friend of mine said the line "Lay me down in the tall grass and let me do my stuff" made him gay.

You can still find the Bob Welsh-Danny Kirwan-Jeremy Spencer stuff for cheap, but otherwise, yeah, good luck.

"Lay me down in the tall grass and let me do my stuff" made him gay.

haha i for sure thought i was the only one who detected a little bit of gay in this lyric

this kinda incredible article offers further proof of the Rumours vinyl thing: https://www.theguardian.com/thefilter-us/2026/mar/06/spotify-alternative-mp3

I can attest that I picked up both Rumours and Tusk for about $1 each back in the early 00s. (Personally I think Tusk is much better.)

definitely

yeah tusk was everywhere for cheap even into the mid and late 00s.

I bought Tusk on CD in early 1997, months before the MTV concert. Then it seemed like for the rest of the decade through my joining ILX in 2005 that Tusk was the hip choice, "OMIGOD they're actually indie and avant-garde!" etc.

i probably spent less than $100 total buying up vv nice vinyl copies of the complete '70s works of Fleetwood Mac, Steely Dan, and Neil Young back in the day.

OMIGOD they're actually indie and avant-garde

It does have those weird lo-fi Lindsay songs that kind of sound like the Pixies.

I didn't get a CD of Tusk til a little later (parents had the vinyl), but I first got interested in it after reading a excellent "Geek Love" column about it by Douglas Wolk in CMJ around the time of the reunion.

I searched out the CD of Tusk after reading Simon Reynolds' excellent essay in Melody Maker, I guess around 1993 or so? I was already a FM fan since I was 12 and Tango came out, and also had Rumours on cassette and a beaten-up vinyl copy of that 1980 live LP. Found a cheapo second-hand Tusk CD and instantly loved the Lindsey songs, and Sara and Sisters Of The Moon, but a lot of the rest initially left me cold. Easily my favourite of the bunch now (except, possibly, for that live LP). I still don't have Rumours on vinyl, because it's never cheap! But I picked up the rest of them cheap along the way, including a severly water-damaged Tusk - all the inner sleeves stuck together - for buttons that still sounds glorious.

This belongs more in a Tusk thread, but I always liked how the less than stellar mastering on the original CD made it sound like you were listening through a layer of smog. It took me some time to get acclimated to the cleaner sound on vinyl and the expanded CD.

oh wow - maybe that's why I dug it so much more when the expanded CD came out, and why the battered vinyl sounds so good to me? Certainly, the full-length Sara (and the cleaning lady outtake version) give me life.

I think one reason I struggled with Tusk on first few listens is I knew Over and Over from the live LP, and it is this amazing, luminous song there, with the most lyrical guitar solo I think Lindsey ever played - I remember as a preteen playing it over and over to myself and getting close to tears at what I felt was the emotional quality of how Lindsey played it - very close to the earlier version on the expanded Tusk CD. And the actual LP take is fairly repressed, dampened down, cold. It definitely has its own charm, but to open with what sounded like a lesser version of one of my favourite FM songs was hard to get over.

ha, in this book Light finds a quote where Buckingham says, "I didn't buy cocaine -- too expensive." I think he was the one in the band who dabbled least? He just sounds like he's in a permanently addled mode.

― The Luda of Suburbia (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 9 March 2026 15:21 (seven hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

Buckingham strikes me as the kind of person who turns up at a party extremely manic, and you think “wow this person has done an impressive amount of cocaine already this evening”, and then someone else brings out a plate and he says “I’ve been trying to have a dry month, but okay why not” and you just think “?????”

My dad bought Tusk on release when I was 9 - I spent a summer listening to all four sides on headphones every day or two. I still love it and play it every few weeks.

As a high school teacher I can confirm, the kids love Rumours.

I was at a record store recently and saw some tapes and thought, oh, I'll pick up a tape of Rumours for the high school library retro tech corner, and then realized it was $12 and decided I wasn't that generous.

This belongs more in a Tusk thread, but I always liked how the less than stellar mastering on the original CD made it sound like you were listening through a layer of smog. It took me some time to get acclimated to the cleaner sound on vinyl and the expanded CD.

Not to turn this into a Hoffman thread, but the problem I had with the original CD was that it was too painfully bright, liked they spiked the treble. It already had a strike against it for using the single edit of "Sara" because this was made back when CD's had to be well under 74 minutes (73:45 was still "too long").

When Rhino finally remastered it, they went back to the original master - "Sara" in full - and it sounded MUCH better, uncharacteristically smoother and warmer than the old CD. (Rhino remasters can be really hit or miss, and when they miss it's often because they've had the treble jacked up, but this was not the case here.) It also sounded like it was mastered more carefully, with a consistency in sound that makes everything sound apiece - the old WB CD sounded kind of ragged and all over the place, like they didn't do enough to smooth out the changes in sound quality from track to track.

Anyway, so yeah, I recommend getting the Rhino remaster and the two-disc deluxe edition was really easy to find for $2 just a couple of years ago. May not be the case anymore but it should still be really cheap, and one more reason why I've stuck with CD's.

Also looks like Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab is remastering the Buckingham/Nicks albums, and I can say the hybrid SACD of the 1975 album is definitely the best I've heard it. It's still a premium product, but at least it's a new release that won't go over retail as long as it's still in print, so you can just wait for a sale and/or a coupon like I did. Presumably Rumours and Tusk will be next, whenever that may be.

Buckingham strikes me as the kind of person who turns up at a party extremely manic, and you think “wow this person has done an impressive amount of cocaine already this evening”, and then someone else brings out a plate and he says “I’ve been trying to have a dry month, but okay why not” and you just think “?????”

― Tim F, Monday, March 9, 2026 6:25 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

Welcome to my life

I've read every book on FM that I can find, more than one portray Linds pretty badly at times, but none really paint him as a coke guy, actually. He was, at least back then, a huge pothead.

I grew up hating rumors due to classic rock radio overplaying it so much. I also remember someone telling me how much the album cost to produce with complete disdain

I got into tusk after reading some interview with an early 2000s indie rocker that said to only listen to the Buckingham tracks. It worked but what a terrible opinion

I knew a guy who told me that same thing. I was just a snotty teen who thought I knew everything and hated slick production and only liked lo fi stuff. Worked on me too! This guy was a RABID fan on LB's weird 80s solo records.