Lindsey Buckingham Thinks He and Stevie Nicks Did Not Have ‘the Luxury of Closure’ Because of Fleetwood Mac
Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham of Fleetwood Mac have one of the most well-known relationships in pop culture. The two were dating when they first joined Fleetwood Mac and broke up during their tenure with the band. In an interview with Dan Rather for AXS TV, Buckingham revealed that he thinks Fleetwood Mac prevented him and Nicks from “the luxury of closure.”
Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham did not have closure
In 2015, Buckingham was interviewed by Rather about his career and time in Fleetwood Mac. During the interview, Buckingham was asked about the creation of Fleetwood Mac’s album Rumours.
The band released the album in 1977, and it is regarded as one of the band’s best albums and one of the best albums of all time. In the interview, Buckingham shared that Rumours was inspired by the emotions between Nicks and Buckingham after their breakup.
“By the time we got up to Sausalito to start recording Rumours, Stevie and I, although not quite as well-defined were estranged, we’re not living together, we for all intents and purposes broken up,” Buckingham explained. “John and Christine McVie were divorced.”
“So normally when people break up, when there’s a pain involved like that, disappointment, heartache, people are allowed a requisite amount of distance and time in order to let the dust settle before they move on. Well, we did not have that luxury. We were, you know, in very close quarters, never had the luxury to be apart. So, therefore, never really had the luxury of closure,” the guitarist said in the interview.
Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham wrote songs about each other
Fleetwood Mac’s most popular lineup includes Mick Fleetwood, Buckingham, Stevie Nicks, Christine McVie, and John McVie. Of the members, Nicks, Buckingham, and Christine McVie were the main songwriters.
“We were five people. Stevie and I had been a couple for a long time. John and Christine McVie had been married, so you had these two couples,” Buckingham explained to Rather about Fleetwood Mac before Rumours.
Buckingham thinks the band’s interpersonal drama helped make Fleetwood Mac’s music relatable.
“And also, you had three writers. So Stevie was writing songs, basically dialogues to me. I was basically writing dialogues to her. And Christine McVie was writing dialogues to John,” the guitarist told Rather. “People were really able to invest in us as people.”
He added, “There was nothing to hide. Everyone knew that this was what was being written about. Everyone knew that these songs, the subject matter, was what we were living.”
Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham broke up while in Fleetwood Mac
According to Nicks, her relationship with Buckingham was rocky even when the two first joined Fleetwood Mac. However, the two tried to stay together for as long as possible for the sake of the band.
“You just have to throw yourself into your song. I mean, I broke up with Lindsey in 1976. We’d only been in Fleetwood Mac for a year and a half, and we were breaking up when we joined Fleetwood Mac,” Nicks told The New Yorker.
She continued, “So we just put our relationship kind of back together, because I was smart enough to know that, if we had broken up the second month of being in Fleetwood Mac, it would have blown the whole thing.”
In 2018, Buckingham was fired from Fleetwood Mac, and in interviews, he has shared that he blames Nicks for his firing.
