When Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham joined Fleetwood Mac in 1975, they helped catapult the band to a creative and commercial peak. In doing so, they also set the stage for a decades-long feud that would become as legendary as their music. Now, nearly 50 years after their breakup, the iconic duo has seemingly set aside their mutual animosity to rerelease their only album as a duo, 1973’s Buckingham Nicks. The move is a poignant reminder of a relationship so tumultuous, its echoes of heartbreak and rage became the very foundation of some of rock’s most enduring music.
From Lovers to Bandmates: The Birth of a Legend
Their story began in high school in the mid-1960s, a shared love for music leading them to form the psychedelic-folk band Fritz. It wasn’t until after that band dissolved that their romance blossomed, fueled by their shared ambition and the recording of a folk-rock album, Buckingham Nicks. The album, which famously featured the pair nude on the cover, failed commercially everywhere except in Birmingham, Alabama, where its raw talent caught the attention of Mick Fleetwood. The co-founder of Fleetwood Mac, in desperate need of a guitarist, heard their album and immediately offered Buckingham a spot. In a move that would change rock history, Buckingham insisted Nicks come with him, beginning a co-dependent journey that would soon strain their love to its breaking point.
The Heart of ‘Rumours’: Love, Rage, and Cocaine
The public unraveling of their relationship reached its fever pitch during the recording of what would become Fleetwood Mac’s defining album, Rumours. The studio became a battleground for their heartbreak, with each artist using their songs to confront the other. Nicks wrote the melancholic but hopeful hit “Dreams” about the impending breakup, while Buckingham responded with the “angry and nasty” “Go Your Own Way.” Nicks would later call Buckingham’s lyrics “extremely disrespectful,” to which he famously countered, “that’s the way you write songs.” The raw, unfiltered emotion fueled an album that spent 31 weeks at No. 1, turning their private pain into a global sensation. The entire project, according to the album’s engineer, was fueled by heartache, rage, and a “community bag of cocaine,” with Nicks developing her own addiction “just to get through” the grueling process.
The Splits and the Solo Journeys
The recording of Rumours was the beginning of the end of their creative and personal cohabitation. Nicks launched a hugely successful solo career in the 1980s, finding relief from the “tense” dynamic of being in Fleetwood Mac. Their strained relationship led to their first major band split in 1987 when Buckingham refused to tour, prompting Nicks to remember that she “tried to strangle him.” She eventually left the band herself in the early ’90s, after a fight with Fleetwood over a song she wrote about Buckingham. For decades, their professional careers ran on parallel tracks, with Nicks finding her own path and Buckingham exploring his.
A Troubled Peace and an Unresolved Legacy
In 1997, the classic lineup of Fleetwood Mac reunited for The Dance, a successful tour that seemed to offer a momentary truce. Fans were treated to a brief show of peace, with Nicks and Buckingham sharing a stage for the first time in years. But the reconciliation was fragile. In 2018, Buckingham was ousted from the group, with Nicks telling Rolling Stone that she “had dealt with Lindsey for as long as I could.” Now, less than a year after their bandmate Christine McVie’s death brought them into brief contact, the surprise announcement that Buckingham Nicks will be available for streaming for the first time on September 19 has once again captured the imagination of fans. Whether this is a true reconciliation or simply a pause in an unending feud remains to be seen. What is clear is that a love story born and broken in the studio continues to define the art they create together, a complex and beautiful legacy for the ages.
