And the songbirds are singing, like they know the score
Mick Fleetwood once called her “the steadying presence” of Fleetwood Mac. And in the days following her death at age 79, tributes to Christine McVie often reached for similar phrases – the hidden strength, the cornerstone, the heart and soul – to describe the role she played for more than 50 years in rock’s most tempestuous soap opera.
“I don’t like being centre stage, I never have,” she told Uncut in 2022. “I like to be part of a group.” Watching her in concert, whether during the band’s heady late-70s era or what would be their final tour, in 2019, she was all business, more serious musician than rock star. Blue-grey eyes peering out from behind blonde fringe, swaying and singing confidently at her keyboards, aligning herself with the rhythm section of Fleetwood and ex-husband John McVie, while Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham basked in the spotlight. But that cool reserve couldn’t alter the fact that Christine was the group’s most dependable and successful songwriter. When you look at their worldconquering statistics – eight multi-platinum albums, more than 130 million copies sold (the perennial Rumours alone responsible for 40 million) – at the centre are her evergreen hits like Over My Head, You Make Loving Fun, Don’t Stop, Little Lies and Everywhere. “I suppose I must be good with hooks,”
