“Yesterday is gone,” repeated the conclusion of the chorus of Do not stopone of the greatest hits composed by Christine McVie for Fleetwood Mac. It was one of the engines voices, the band’s wonder album and one of the best-selling albums of all time, selling over 40 million copies. The theme is still so valid that it is still heard in recent series today merlinfrom Netflix.
The song had a certain addressee – her ex-husband John McViethe band’s bassist, and Fleetwood’s Mac. Applying an almost psychological gaze, she begged him to stop drinking and haunting the past, and instead focus on the future “which will soon be here.”
John McVie’s alcoholism was one of the many uncontrolled variables of Fleetwood Mac, who thanks to them – or in spite of them – have reached unsuspected heights for a band that three years ago seemed hopeless.
a meteoric rise
When Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks joined the group in 1975, Fleetwood Mac was like a Chinese vase that no one knew where to put: an English blues band that lost its leads to drugs and cults, that moved to California where it looked like a transplanted tree with little chance of success, and without a certain musical direction . .
Mick Fleetwood, John McVie and his wife, Christine Perfect (now McVie) didn’t know where to party. Buckingham and Nicks changed the face of the group which achieved its first big hit with the self-titled album where the hits were provided by women: Christine McVie scored four hits and Stevie Nicks contributed the unforgettable rhannon.
But the one whose success (or alcohol) went to his head went to John McVie: He went into a destructive spiral that devastated his marriage to Christine. Things could only get worse: he teamed up with the strong point of the group and everything exploded. The man of lights was fired and bitterness invaded the rest; Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks were divorced, as were Mick Fleetwood and Jenny Boyd, the sister of Pattie Boyd, George Harrison’s first wife.
A diamond in space
It was logical that the press took on all this damage not in one day, but in weeks of outings, and that this put Fleetwood Mac’s future in brackets, who entered the studios with a new couple: that of drummer Fleetwood with Stevie Nicks, which lasted a breath (she left him for another drummer, Don Henley of the Eagles).
But when Christine McVie presented her songs, Do not stop it looked like a diamond in space: it brimmed with optimism and encouragement, and it was one of the few danceable rockers in the disco days.
What the public didn’t realize at first was that it was Christine’s way of trying to mend her ex-husband’s alcoholic depression. Indeed, the record would be called Yesterday is gone (Yesterday is gone), but with a lot of unresolved free love, the album dubbed voices.
So much cocaine was consumed in its package that the group insisted they give the drug dealer credit which was sold It couldn’t be: that man died before the group even finished the album.
In all this madness, Christine McVie seemed the most sober, an idea she was instructed to bury a few years before her death, when she confessed in a report that cocaine and champagne enhanced her stage performance.
cristina alone
She’s always been a lady though, Lady Di of Fleetwood Mac. She joined the band in the late ’60s and fell madly in love with John McVie, until the bassist’s blood became too saturated with alcohol.
Christine McVie has made solo attempts with mixed success; her first album with her maiden name, Christine Perfectwas released in 1970 without much impact.
It was much better for him in the second with a married name: Christine McViewhere luminaries such as Eric Clapton and Steve Winwood attended.
He tried again in 2004 with Meanwhile and surprisingly, in 2017 in a duet with Lindsey Buckingham who was kicked out as a Fleetwood Mac mean dog by his ex-wife, Stevie Nicks. “It’s him or me,” and ever since voices the image of the group that remained in the audience was that of Nicks with his scarves and his bambulas, Buckingham finished out. But good Christine remembered that she had played on her own solo records and agreed to join forces for a far better record than the world could hope for.
When Christine McVie’s unexpected death came, there was speculation of a Fleetwood Mac farewell tour, with the reinstatement of Lindsey Buckingham. But it couldn’t be.
Stevie Nicks lovingly dismissed her in an emotional statement: “A few hours ago, I was informed that my best friend in the world from day one of 1975 had passed away. I didn’t even know she was sick until last Saturday. I wanted to go to London to be with her but they told me to wait. Since Saturday about her a song of hers has been spinning in my head: over and over (It is again); I thought I could sing it to him, and right now I’m singing it to him. I always knew I’d need those words someday.”
The chorus repeats, “Over and over, can this be true?” Sadly it is, and the world is a less warm place without Christine McVie’s voice encouraging us to think about the future.
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Source: Clarin
