Former Fleetwood Mac guitarist and singer Lindsey Buckingham never got “closure” with his ex Stevie Nicks following their breakup in the early days of the group.
The couple joined Mick Fleetwood and John and Christine McVie in the band in 1975, but called time on their romantic entanglement months later – with their heartbreak spilling into follow-up album ‘Rumours’.
According to Lindsey, the Go Your Own Way star struggled to move on once the pair’s relationship had broken down as they were still making records.
He told Nile Rodgers on his Apple Music 1 show ‘Deep Hidden Meaning Radio with Nile Rodgers’: “That was part of the deal with Stevie and me was that we had to spend an awful lot of time together without ever having gotten closure from each other.
“Most people, when they break up, they don’t see each other again for a long time or maybe ever again.
“But you’re not constantly having to not only see someone but, in my case, make the choice to do right for someone when I didn’t always feel that I wanted to, you know?”
Lindsey, who departed Fleetwood Mac in 2018 and was replaced by Crowded House star Neil Fin and ex Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers rocker Mike Campbell, admitted it “came at a price” to work with Stevie to make sure the band remained musically creative.
“In order to take a song of hers, like Dreams, which needed so much construction around it to take those same two chords and make them evolve from section A to section B to section C. And the love and the choice to do the right thing and to have the integrity to do that,” he reflected. “It comes at a price sometimes, you know?
“It comes at the price of having your defences come up, and sometimes over a period of time, it’s hard to get those down.
“So I think Big Love was really about someone who was functioning quite well in his professional world but had become quite guarded emotionally, had an emotional moat around him, say, in his personal life.”
Despite Fleetwood Mac’s latest line-up change, Mick previously confessed he’s confident Lindsey could return to the fold in the future and be part of an upcoming tour.
“I’ve really enjoyed being re-connected with Lindsey, which has been gracious and open,” the drummer recently confessed. “And both of us have been beautifully honest about who we are and how we got to where we were.”
On the prospect of Lindsey rejoining Fleetwood Mac, he added:
“Strange things can happen,” says Fleetwood. “I look at Fleetwood Mac as a huge family. Everyone plays an important role in our history, even someone like [early ’70s] guitarist Bob Welch, who was huge and sometimes gets forgotten.
“Lindsey’s position in Fleetwood Mac will, for obvious reasons, never been forgotten, as it should never be forgotten.
“My vision of things happening in the future is really far-reaching. Would I love to think that [reunion] could happen? Yeah.
“I’d love to think that all of us could be healed, and also respect the people who are in the band, Neil Finn and Michael Campbell.”
