Video Classics: ‘Go Your Own Way’ – Fleetwood Mac

AP Photo

Filed under

The Rumours album, released in February of 1977, represented the most celebrated (and commercially successful era) of Fleetwood Mac‘s long career in music. The album went to #1 in both the United States and Britain, netted the band a GRAMMY, and went on to sell over forty million copies worldwide.

But while this golden era for Fleetwood Mac’s music began in 1977, its harbinger was this song, released the year before.

“Go Your Own Way”, released in December of 1976, was the first single from Rumours, a preview of the things to come. It went to #10 on the U.S. charts.

Christine McVie, Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks shared songwriting duties almost equally three ways on Rumours. “Go Your Own Way” was a Buckingham contribution, and describes the end of his on-again/off-again relationship with Nicks, the most cutting line from the lyrics being “Packing up, shacking Up is all you want to do.“

Nicks denied she had ever shacked up with anyone, and wanted the line removed, but Buckingham didn’t relent, and it remained. It was one of many domestic problems that plagued the band during the creation of Rumours and its subsequent tour (the biggest coming last, the divorce of McVie with husband and fellow bandmate John McVie). It is a credit to Fleetwood Mac’s professionalism, if nothing else, that they were able to mint an album like Rumours amid such personal turmoil.