Photo by: REX USA/Andre Csillag.
If Stevie Nicks is the main character in the romantic comedy that is Fleetwood Mac, then Christine McVie is her sidekick. You know, the deeply undervalued best friend who doesn't make the movie poster, despite having some of the best lines.
That has to get to any sane person after a while, and it did. Over a decade ago, McVie dropped out and took up residence in a remote English 17th-century castle as one does when they retire from an iconic '70s rock band.
"She went to England and she has never been back since 1998 ... as much as we would all like to think that she'll just change her mind one day, I don't think it'll happen," Nicks had said in a 2012 interview as she prepared for another world tour.
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Not so fast. This week, McVie told The Guardian she wants back in. "I miss them all. If they were to ask me I would probably be very delighted but it hasn't happened so we'll have to wait and see."
The band is on a current break from touring as Nicks ventures onto the set of American Horror Story, so nobody's responded to her request yet. In the meantime, I'd like to drum up some support on her behalf.
Fellow Stevie fans, we have totally overlooked Christine McVie, and for no good reason.
Like Nicks, McVie also wrote a bunch of based-on-a-true-story love songs that could break your heart. "Hold Me" was about a Beach Boy (way better than an Eagle, in my opinion) and "You Make Loving Fun" was about an affair she had with a lighting director while she was married to bandmate John McVie. How's that for stormy? Sure, she channeled the pain with bouncier beats, but not always. "Songbird" is kind of her "Landslide." Unfortunately, it was also TomKat's wedding song, so that kind of put a damper on it.
I would also argue that McVie is as worthy a style muse as Stevie, she just didn't get to show it off as much. Heavy bangs, a men's tweed blazer and some bell-bottom jeans on the Tusk album art? Yes, please. McVie embodied the yacht-rock vibe before it even had a name. She even did her own version of the goldust-gypsy thing on the back of the Rumours album, with a silk-patterned head scarf and billowing sleeves. We forget, because she didn't make the album cover. So unfair.