“ DON’T really sit down with the aim of writing a song,” Christine McVie told in 2017. “I keep notebooks full of lyrics that usually don’t go anywhere, but when I sit down at the piano, I’ll knit bits together. I sit down with the aim of just seeing what crops up.” What usually cropped up were songs that cut right to the chase, expressing the joys and pains of romance in language that was economical yet rich, simple on the surface but concealing emotional complexity just underneath. McVie, who died on November 30, aged 79, was the architect of many of Fleetwood Mac’s biggest and most enduring hits, though she was a modest pop genius. Occasionally she was overshadowed by the more forceful personalities in that band, yet she always seemed to float above the fray – even when she addressed all that drama in her lyrics. Here’s her life in 20
