The Songbird Keeps Singing
My heart was broken. Twice in one day. I was good enough for a backseat-makeout session with a boy I’d only recently met, but my “supposed” best friend at the time was more than willing to offer him more than kisses and some fondling, not to mention she had a really cool car. So I turned to my music. Specifically, I turned to Fleetwood Mac, playing their “Rumours” album over and over on my stereo. That’s when I discovered “Songbird,” with its woeful, soft tune and powerful lyrics. It was as if she wrote it just to make me feel better.
For you, there’ll be no more crying
For you, the sun will be shining
And I feel that when I’m with you
It’s alright, I know it’s rightTo you, I’ll give the world
To you, I’ll never be cold
’Cause I feel that when I’m with you
It’s alright, I know it’s rightAnd the songbirds are singing,
Like they know the score
And I love you, I love you, I love you
Like never beforeAnd I wish you all the love in the world
But most of all, I wish it from myself
And the songbirds keep singing
Like they know the scoreAnd I love you, I love you, I love you
Like never before, like never before,
Like never before
Yesterday, we said goodbye to an icon of my teen years, Christine Perfect McVie, 79, a long-time member of the band Fleetwood Mac. Reading about her passing sent me into a spiral of emotion, remembering how her music affected me. I also felt some anxiety wondering if younger generations will hold tight to the memory of this era of music as most of what is popular today doesn’t rank close at all. I find today that music is electronic and synthetic, and half the time, I can’t understand the lyrics at all… “what ARE they singing about??” Okay, call me old. But I’m proud to be a tail-end Boomer.
My high school experience (1974–1977) had its ups and downs, but one of the advantages was being semi-popular in a small school district. It was a great era, too, for music. There was the amazing guitar of Jimmy Page with the screaming vocal and intense, screaming lyrics of Robert Plant; Led Zeppelin wasn’t going away soon. On the other hand, I loved pop music and soft rock, especially Linda Ronstadt, Bread, James Taylor, Carole King, etc. But the highlight of those years, and well into the ’80s, was Fleetwood Mac. Especially the album “Rumors,” and on it, the B-side of the № 1 hit, “Dreams.”
“Rumours” was released in 1977, my last year of high school. With hits such as “Dreams,” “Second-hand News,” “Go Your Own Way,” and “Gypsy.” But " “Songbird” would pull me back more than once. I circled back, listening to it over and over again a few years later when a two-year relationship ended again in his choosing another woman over me.
McVie wrote “Songbird” in a half hour after waking up in the middle of the night, according to an interview she and Lindsey Buckingham had for PEOPLE Magazine during an interview in 2017.
In 1976, there was no knowledge of AIDS, Reagan had just left the governor’s manse, and people still thought of cocaine as non-addictive and strictly recreational. Rumours is a product of that moment and it serves as a yardstick by which we measure just how 70s the 70s were. — Jessica Hopper
The album became an icon of music from this period. “Its success made Fleetwood Mac a cultural phenomenon and also set a template for pop with a gleaming surface that has something complicated, desperate, and dark resonating underneath,” wrote Jessica Hopper in 2013 for the Pitchfork Review. Most fans didn’t know that the band was experiencing a lot of personal drama, with Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks’s relationship falling apart and McVie and her husband, John McVie, in the middle of a divorce. All this emotional turmoil must have led to the depth of the dulcet melodies and the heart-wrenching lyrics in the songs on this album.
I thank Christine and all the members of Fleetwood Mac for sharing your talents, so we could all enjoy them and welcome them into our daily lives. May Ms. McVie rest in eternal peace, and may we never forget what she gave to us.
To my 20-something students, this was an era of “real” music. If you haven’t checked it out before, then do it now. And may you share it with your children too.
