she said - he said why Lindsey Left
 

in the Drama of the Moment there is no easy way ......oy vey!

hers

http://www.gigwise.com/news/79204/St...s-going-to-die

his

http://b1027.com/buckingham-recalls-...fleetwood-mac/

The "other he" said...
 

I don't believe Stevie theory. As she said "And I think one of the reasons that Lindsey left is because I was very, very high... " so she wants to think that way, but even if it was true, I guess it was a very very little reason compared with the others.

What Mick described in his book (an episode that generated several threads and discussions here), coincides better with the Lindsey article and to this day I still believe on it:

August 7, 1987.

We gathered at Christine's house, where from the start feelings ran high. No one wanted to face the humiliation of a canceled tour it was like a hideous specter from our distant past except for Lindsey, who just wanted out. The meeting was civil for about five minutes. Stevie felt devastated. She took Lindsey's rejection of us personally. "You can't do this," she said. "Why are you doing this?"

Lindsey apologised. "Look, I'm sorry. I just can't do any more. I've given twelve years of my life to this band! I've done it all arranged, produced, played guitar, sang. I just can't... hack it... and do it all anymore." Christine spoke now. "What do you mean, Lindsey, do it all?" Her tone was withering. It was her singles, after all, that got played on the radio, not Lindsey's. This was a sore spot, because in interviews Lindsey had been describing his role in the band as the grand interpreter of Chris's and Stevie's music to the world as if he felt he had carried the rest of the band. Nobody liked this, especially now. Lindsey was silent. No one knew what to say. Lindsey had given his answer.

I looked over at Stevie, who was brushing back tears. "Lindsey," she said, "you've broken my f***ing heart on this." "Hey," he said, turning on Stevie and becoming agitated, "don't do this again. Don't start attacking me." "Watch out, Lindsey," Stevie said. "There's other people in the room besides yourself." "Oh s***!" Lindsey shouted. "Get this bitch out of my way. And f*** the lot of you!" A great hue and cry now ensued. Lindsey headed out to his car, and Stevie followed him outside to the courtyard, trying to change his mind. It was a terribly sad moment, because I could tell that even in her anger, a part of Stevie still loved Lindsey Buckingham and didn't want him to leave Fleetwood Mac. She didn't want him to go. They exchanged words in Chris's courtyard for a few moments. I didn't hear what he said, but Stevie cried out, "Hey, man, you'll never be in love with anyone but yourself!"

Then it got physical. Lindsey grabbed Stevie and slapped her and bent her backwards over the hood of his car. Was he going to hit her again? He'd done it before. Suddenly Dennis Dunstan and Stevie's manager Tony Dimitriades pulled Lindsey off her and told him that was enough. Lindsey then came back into the house, very distraught. He shouted, "Get that woman out of my life that schizophrenic bitch!" Christine was furious. "Lindsey, look at yourself, screaming like a madman." There was a silence. And John McVie quietly said to Lindsey Buckingham, "I think you'd better leave now."
"You're a bunch of selfish bastards," Lindsey said, and walked out. He sat in his car in the driveway for fifteen minutes, obviously distraught, but nobody wanted to go to him. Eventually, we heard him start his motor and leave.

John has confirmed he said that but he was meaning leave the house, not the band.

I believe it, for the most part. Not that it was the ONLY reason he left - but I think it most likely played a pretty big part in it. And even Stevie didn't say it was the only reason - just that it was one of the reasons

Stevie has a very dramatic way of wording things, for sure, but I think the essence of it probably rings pretty true - he didn't want to be around her anymore, really, and I'm sure that was influenced by her behavior/state of being at the time.

I doubt if that is just some theory that randomly came into Stevie's mind in that moment. I'm sure they've discussed his departure in the 20+ years that have transpired since. And as crazy as Stevie is, I don't think she'd say something like that if it wasn't something that had come up before. In the article, the interviewer said she turned to Lindsey half-way through her statement, as if to confirm with him that what she was saying was true,

Again, the sensational way in which she described it - "his beloved ex-girlfriend was going to live" so he could join FM again :lol: - probably (maybe definitely :laugh) a little over the top. But in essence, I don't see that it's all that bizarre of a "theory."

And while I enjoyed Mick's book, I don't take any of the specific details as cold hard facts. Lindsey isn't British. ;)

I can believe that being around 3 Brits (and more if you count family & crew), that by '87, Lindsey could've through osmosis gained some typically Brit ways of expressing himself.
:nod:
I know if I'm around my sister-in-law & brother-in-law from Oklahoma for more than 2 days, this native Californian can subconsciously acquire an authentic Okie accent fairly quickly. (When my band toured Canada back in the Eighties, I was talking like a native Canuck by week 3) I can only imagine if I were around them full-time. Probably the same with both Lindsey & Stevie when Fleetwood Mac was together a majority of the time (the tours & recording sessions from '75-80) And, some of those ways of verbal expressions may have stuck.

^^Lindsey has said he had to get away from all the craziness - Stevie's drug problem was obviously one of the main defining points of that. After what he had gone through with the recording, he was just over it.

This is not really a he said / she said anyway. Lindsey's wording wouldn't be the same of course, but I agree the essence was there - and his concern only increased over time. I think in '87 it was more anger.

there's a video of it - the text in that interview was transcribed from one of these village recorder videos they did... it's buried somewhere in that 2013 press thread. LB didn't say yay or nay when she said that... it probably fit in and added up with the other reasons he had - so both of them are probably telling just one part of the multilayered story. :shrug:

This exactly!
I think that he was close to being "disgusted" by Stevie at the time. I think that when you love someone so much and that person stays crazy (or "schizophrenic" :D), and you personally have grown and changed, you push that person away because you can't believe you were with that person. In the end, it's a part of yourself, your past, that you want to erase (the fact that you could tolerate a person like that means you were a lot like that). So it's not just Stevie. But it's also really Stevie.

I don't recall seeing this particular discussion in video format at all. And I thought I'd seen everything. :shrug:

yeah look through 2013 press thread and CBS thread - it's in one of those 2 (Stevie's side of the story). people were discussing it in that thread too.

I've looked through them all, and I can't find it. But I could be blind.

As far as I'm aware, this all originated with the Rolling Stone interview.

Both quotes are taken from there, just one of the writers decided to use Lindsey's words and the other used Stevie's :lol:.

Multilayered! Excellent description.

Great point!

I would love to see that too!

Lol! This has always amused me - one I notice is they say "my pleasure" a lot which is not necessarily just British but I think they must have picked it up from the Brits. :)

Thanks for the info.

Was She said - He said a game show awhile back.

I think it's on the one hand typically Stevie-centric thinking, but on the other hand, it's a case of Stevie more publicly acknowledging that her behavior during that time was out of control and had an impact on what transpired within the band. She's simultaneously romanticizing it and not romanticizing it which is a pretty hard thing to do!

I suspect that it was also Mick's behavior and even John's issues that got to Lindsey as well. He has said as much in the past-- and when he's talked about getting back together with the band for The Dance seeing not just the changes in Stevie but also in Mick was really good. (I think he says something about this in the DR doc as well).

I also think Lindsey's use of the term "red rover" may have come from them.

It's not totally foreign to Americans, but after the song Red Rover his using it in SATC too just struck me as odd. It's more common for the English. And CAH mentioned them all saying "punters."

It's like Chris saying Stevie told her she was knackered. Stevie may have said that, but Christine might have been paraphrasing.

Yes, Mick has said it was his own behavior that Lindsey didn't like and Lindsey always gripes about wanting to have more regular hours by that time and so them recording at his house got sort of trying -- for his girlfriend too. In the old days, Lindsey was right there with Mick pulling an all nighter and not minding one bit, but by 1987 maybe he had changed or was ready to get more sober before Mick and Stevie.

As for Stevie, when she listed the things that the Klonopin caused her to lose, she did mention that she might have gotten the band together sooner, if she hadn't been on the drug. So, even years ago she was thinking that the Klonopin kept them apart, even if she didn't also think it broke them apart. I think she might imagine that they could have come together after the BTM tour if she'd been straight.

As for John, I think it's kind of funny on the DR video when Lindsey was telling Stevie what the reunion meant to him and is crying and saying something about "John the way he is now." I don't know exactly what that sentence means, but it amused me, mainly because I think Lindsey was deliberately trying to soften Stevie up and throwing in everything he could think of.

Michele

Right! In mid 80s, Mick was a heavy cocaine addict, Stevie was in cocaine and then Klonopin. And John was a heavy drinker (Mick told in his book he was suffering a serious artistic block). It wasn't the best context to produce a good album, however Tango in the Night did it more than fine. Probably Lindsey felt exhausted, tired, angry and saturated after a big effort to produce and collaborate in a FM album (he didn't ask for in the first place) among people not doing their best. But that doesn't mean it was "because Stevie" specifically.

Part of him was horrified that his beloved ex-girlfriend would die, part of him was horrified she wouldn't.

Michele

exactly! :cool:

Ill believe Lindsey's story over Stevie`s because its more of whatvI think is the truth. I do think that Stevie's poor health might have been *part* of what caused Lindsey to leave.

They're not conflicting stories, though. The fact that they got split into two different articles is unfortunate because it makes it seem as if these things were said independently of one another, when they weren't.

Stevie just exaggerated elaborated more than Lindsey did.

Mick said that Stevie told Lindsey he'd never love anyone but himself and that makes me think what he said that caused her to respond with that line. Did he say something about love?

Michele

I was wondering the same thing. I would infer that he must have.

He might have said, "you're my beloved ex-girlfriend and I can't bear to see you like this." :laugh:

She responds: "You'll never love anyone but yourself."

He then says, "Get this schizophrenic b---- off of me!"


Michele

And the truth comes out!

I've always thought that this was the worst thing to happen in Fleetwood Mac's history. They had just produced this great album which Lindsey had put alot of effort into and played a big part in, but then pulled out of the tour to support this album. I have nothing against Billy Burnette and Rick Vito. They were good players, but Lindsey should've been on that tour and played a big part in it, just like he had done on the Tango In The Night album. It wouldn't of been so bad if he had left at the end of the tour and then made way for Billy Burnette and Rick Vito to join the band to work on the follow-up album (which turned out to be Behind The Mask), plus the two new tracks on the 1988 Greatest Hits album.

Right. That was the plan for a moment, according to Mick:
Finally, Mo Ostin persuaded Lindsey to tour with us for ten weeks. The news was flashed over the telephone. Hey! It's on! ****ing hell! Great! There was a big meeting at Christine's, and Lindsey was enthusiastic. I was thrilled! It's on!

But a week later Lindsey called John Courage and said he had changed his
mind, that he couldn't go through with the tour.

I agree it was a really bad thing that happened to the band, not sure the worst but one of the worsts I think. However it's easy to us the fans to say and wish he shouldn't left FM. But who know how the recording sessions were. The only document I found about it is Mick's book, and it's not as detailed as the Rumours episode. I think they didn't enjoyed it, specially Lindsey. The record was great but probably meant a great effort. A hidden effort to the public.

But the tour is differente. They MUST enjoy to do it. Cause if you don't enjoy something (specially in public), it's better not to do it, you shouldn't do it, because then it will become wrong and the whole thing will collapse and... it would be very embarrasing.

That's why, even though I wish to see Christine with them again, I'd hate to see an upset Christine on stage. She must enjoy it, otherwise it's better not to see her with the band.

Right. That was the plan for a moment, according to Mick:
Finally, Mo Ostin persuaded Lindsey to tour with us for ten weeks. The news was flashed over the telephone. Hey! It's on! ****ing hell! Great! There was a big meeting at Christine's, and Lindsey was enthusiastic. I was thrilled! It's on!

But a week later Lindsey called John Courage and said he had changed his
mind, that he couldn't go through with the tour.

I agree it was a really bad thing that happened to the band, not sure the worst but one of the worsts I think. However it's easy to us the fans to say and wish he shouldn't left FM. But who know how the recording sessions were. The only document I found about it is Mick's book, and it's not as detailed as the Rumours episode. I think they didn't enjoyed it, specially Lindsey. The record was great but probably meant a great effort. A hidden effort to the public.

But the tour is differente. They MUST enjoy to do it. Cause if you don't enjoy something (specially in public), it's better not to do it, you shouldn't do it, because then it will become wrong and the whole thing will collapse and... it would be very embarrasing.

That's why, even though I wish to see Christine with them again, I'd hate to see an upset Christine on stage. She must enjoy it, otherwise it's better not to see her with the band.

I don't know. From all accounts, she really wasn't happy during The Dance, but that worked out pretty well for me!;)

Michele

Oh Michele.. don't be that cruel:rolleyes: .
You are right, but that was 16 years ago.

Tango In The Night was originally supposed to be a Lindsey Buckingham solo album, until Warner Bros. started putting pressure on the band to record another album, so Tango In The Night ended up becoming a Fleetwood Mac album. Maybe he felt bitter because of this. Maybe he didn't really want Tango to be a Fleetwood Mac album, and maybe this was one of the reasons he left... just a thought.

He's often complained about that, but truth be told, nobody held a gun to his head. He was well-compensated for his choice to record the material under the moniker of "Fleetwood Mac." It's not as if he gave up creative control of his songs or had to sacrifice quality to put them on an FM album, so what's the problem? I think it was just an excuse for not putting out more than one solo album between the years of 1985-2005. Thankfully he no longer needs any excuses.

THANK YOU! Ridiculous!

What's the problem? The name in the album. Tango is remembered as a Fleetwood Mac album, not Lindsey's. Who knows about him being the creative key? Just people involved and the extreme fans. (I remember somebody posted that at the Tango shows some people even didn't realize there were 2 guys replacing a former member).

Mick also mentioned about Lindsey's being upset, during that August 7, 1987 episode:
Lindsey apologised. "Look, I'm sorry. I just can't do any more. I've given twelve years of my life to this band! I've done it all arranged, produced, played guitar, sang. I just can't... hack it... and do it all anymore." Christine spoke now. "What do you mean, Lindsey, do it all?" Her tone was withering. It was her singles, after all, that got played on the radio, not Lindsey's. This was a sore spot, because in interviews Lindsey had been describing his role in the band as the grand interpreter of Chris's and Stevie's music to the world as if he felt he had carried the rest of the band. Nobody liked this, especially now. Lindsey was silent. No one knew what to say. Lindsey had given his answer.

A bit unfair from Mick anyway, cause Big Love was played on radios too (at least peruvian radios;) ). But I do believe these words express Lindsey's thoughts at that time.

I can't paste right now, but in the Telegraph Mick talks about the sweet moment when Stevie said in front of Lindsey that he had to leave the band because he didn't want to see her destroy herself. Mick said just talking about the exchange brought tears to his eyes.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/m...ho-we-are.html

Here's the article:


Mick Fleetwood: 'Rumours is who we are’
With their 35-year-old album back in the charts, the Fleetwood Mac drummer Mick Fleetwood talks to Neil McCormick about its stormy story and long legacy.


By Neil McCormick


'It’s good therapy,” says Mick Fleetwood, settling back to talk about Rumours, an album released 35 years ago that continues to haunt the lives of everyone involved. “There’s still a fascination about it, it’s who we are and what we are, the reason why we made all that music. It forces you to think about yourself, how you’ve developed or undeveloped, screwed up or not, what you learnt from that, and whether you have truly moved on from the hurt, fear and loathing.”

Fleetwood Mac’s classic 1977 album is back in the charts, a reissued expanded edition going straight in at No  3 this week. “It’s this mutant thing, with a life of its own,” says Fleetwood about the enduring appeal of an album that has already sold more than 40 million copies. “It shaped me as a person, because we went through a damage, making that album,” admits the tall, hirsute, elegantly attired 65-year-old drummer. “I know it sounds like, 'Oh my God, when will those people grow up?’ Well, the reality was maybe we didn’t actually ever grow up. But it’s never too late. We’re not finished yet.”

In February 1976, the five members of the Anglo-American rock band convened at the Record Plant in Sausalito, California to record a follow-up to the previous year’s four-million-selling Fleetwood Mac album. After eight years of shifting line-ups and stylistic changes, the band formed by Fleetwood with bassist John McVie had achieved new success. But on a personal level, they were in deep trouble. The bassist and his wife, keyboard player and vocalist Christine McVie, were in the throes of divorce, ending nearly eight years of marriage. The other couple in the band, guitarist-vocalist Lindsey Buckingham and vocalist Stevie Nicks, were high-school sweethearts whose intense 10-year relationship was falling apart.


HAIM - Don't Save Me on MUZU.TV.

Drummer Fleetwood had domestic problems of his own, his marriage to model Jenny Boyd at the end. “It was a poignant moment,” says Fleetwood. “It could have exploded and imploded the band right there. We could have got half-way through and everyone tell everyone to ---- off.
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“But because we kept going, we emotionally crippled people, we’ve carried this with us ever since.”

Rumours is justly celebrated as one of the great break-up albums, conjuring up a bittersweet tension between the strong emotional content of songs like Don’t Stop, Go Your Own Way, Dreams, Songbird and Oh Daddy and the gently rocking, beautifully harmonised, shimmering arrangements. “There’s a duality to the album,” acknowledges Fleetwood. “It sparks all of the personal stuff but I don’t listen to the music differently. I’m really happy that we didn’t overproduce, because we were all of a mindset of being pure.

“It’s not full of fluff and, to my perception, it doesn’t sound dated, because there’s no weird echoes or plastic drums. A lot of our contemporaries were doing funny things in the studio that spoils stuff from that period. But Rumours could have been made yesterday.”

Stylistically, he says, there was no masterplan, it was just a culmination of the music they all liked, embracing a Laurel Canyon singer-songwriter blend of intimacy and melody with sleek, harmonic Seventies Californian soft rock and an undercurrent of the grittier British blues-rock roots of the long-serving rhythm section. “We knew, in a very organic way, that something was horribly right about what we were doing. We were in charge of our own destiny, and yet our destinies were all falling apart on a personal scale.”

Fleetwood claims that recording was straightforward, on a musical level at least. “We made decisions on songs fairly early. The real work was stripping it down to stuff that sounds very simple, and then layering it up, especially the vocals.” Two CDs of out-takes (released as part of the new Rumours package) illuminate the process, both in terms of the care taken with arrangements and the core strengths of songs that sound perfectly formed even as rough demos. Emotionally, it was another story. “It’s not the easiest thing to imagine having to be with someone 24-7 when you don’t want to be or, even worse, you want to be with but can’t.”

Fleetwood characterises the band’s whole career ever since as being one of dealing with the aftermath of Rumours. “The album was our baby. You and your wife break up, you wanna do the right thing, not to hurt the children. That’s what made an impossible thing possible. It was like, 'Let’s do our best to turn up and go to that play together and let those children know Mum and Dad are here.”

the 'Rumours’ line-up, circa 1982

For Fleetwood, there was a long period of denial and escape. “You anaesthetised yourself emotionally. The wound was cauterized but underneath was chaos. Fleetwood Mac became the bandage, just wrap it up and keep it wrapped up.” For he and Nicks (who had an affair behind the back of Buckingham during the recording of 1979’s experimental double album Tusk) “the bandage included a whole lifestyle of toys and substances, a big old circus that never stopped, with loads of jugglers with balls being thrown up and catching them just in time.

“And that’s what Lindsey eventually ran away from. And I don’t blame him.”

Buckingham left the band after the recording of 1987’s Tango in the Night.

McVie retired in 1998, and though relationships remain strong she has made it clear she does not wish to be involved any more.

“I’ve had to agree to stop asking her,” notes Fleetwood, with a guilty smile. In 2003, Buckingham returned to the fold, which seems to have opened up old wounds and helped heal others. “Me and Stevie are very similar, a couple of old drama queens who got into the whole drug thing. We were nuts, totally out of our minds at one point. Lindsey was just not that type of guy. He’s very metred about stuff. Well, to see Stevie, just a week ago, saying to Lindsey that she understood that he left because he couldn’t stand to see her destroy herself in front of his eyes. Because he loved her.

“It was a heavy, good moment.” Fleetwood gets suddenly moist- eyed. “See, I’m moved even talking about it,” he sniffs.

Although they last toured in 2009, the band haven’t released an album since 2003’s Say You Will. But Fleetwood reveals that they have been recording again. “The seeds have been sown. I will be cheeky enough to say it’s the best stuff Lindsey’s done since I first met him. It’s all coming good.”

Fleetwood Mac have announced UK dates for September and October this year, and Fleetwood hopes they will have new music out by then.

“The biggest misconception to me is that these people really don’t like each other. That’s the worst rumour about Rumours,” says Fleetwood. “There’s bands out there, usually a bunch of guys, who don’t give a ---- about each other. They just come to an arrangement. We can’t do that! We’re all ex-lovers, so we don’t have that corporate, guy thing where it’s just 'get the job done’. I think it bodes in our favour that, in a funny, shaky way, there is some integrity. We do actually love each other, for real. Unfortunately. ’Cause it’s tough.”

Mick can be so sappy sometimes.

I love it. :]