This Fleetwood Mac Song Is the Only One Credited to All Five Members of the Band

When singer Stevie Nicks and guitarist Lindsey Buckingham joined Fleetwood Mac, they changed the band and music history forever. And while most of the band’s songs can be attributed to one or two members, just one has the distinction of being credited to all five in the 1977 lineup.

In 1977, the band went into the studio to record Rumours, a time that’s famously tumultuous for the band due to numerous personal issues, including rampant drug use, the breakdown of Christine and John McVie’s marriage, and Nicks’ and Buckingham’s breakup. They both used this as inspiration in their songwriting, leading to Nicks writing the lyrics for “The Chain.”

After she presented the band with the lyrics, “The Chain” was, for the most part, cobbled together from pieces of other songs, which can be heard in the band’s demos from the era. The introduction was pulled from the Buckingham Nicks song “Lola (My Love),” while John McVie’s iconic bassline was originally part of track written by Christine McVie called “Butter Cookie (Keep Me There).”

“That song was put together as distinct from someone literally sitting down and writing a song,” drummer Mick Fleetwood said. “It was very much collectively a band composition.”

Originally, the song was put together when Buckingham spliced together tapes with a razor blade, and when the arrangement was finished, the band went into the studio to record it. Buckingham later noted that the title “The Chain” came about “because it was a bunch of pieces.”

“We literally pulled pieces from everywhere and forced them to work together,” Buckingham said. “It became a metaphor for us; this idea that no matter what was happening, the music was the bond.”

Fleetwood also addressed the way each individual piece came together.

“But it ultimately becomes a band thing anyway, because we all have so much of our own individual style, our own stamp that makes the sound of Fleetwood Mac,” Fleetwood said. “So it’s not like you feel disconnected from the fact that maybe you haven’t written one of the songs. Because what you do, and what you feel when we’re all making music together, is what Fleetwood Mac ends up being, and that’s the stuff you hear on the albums. Whether one likes it or not, this is, after all, a combined effort from different people playing music together.”