{"id":106329,"date":"2025-07-31T01:49:17","date_gmt":"2025-07-31T01:49:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/106329\/"},"modified":"2025-07-31T01:49:17","modified_gmt":"2025-07-31T01:49:17","slug":"silver-springs-and-fleetwood-mac-why-evolution-is-true","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/106329\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cSilver Springs\u201d and Fleetwood Mac \u2013 Why Evolution Is True"},"content":{"rendered":"

A friend sent me a short article on this song from the Boston Globe called \u201cHow Gen Z made Fleetwood Mac the hottest band in America<\/a>,\u201d, with the subtitle, \u201cFifty years later, \u2018Silver Springs\u2019 remains a breakup ballad for the ages.\u201d The point the sweaty columnist Ren\u00e9e Graham is trying to make is that a particular Fleetwood Mac song has captured the hearts of Generation Z. That song is \u201cSilver Springs<\/a>\u201c, written by Stevie Nicks.\u00a0 It was intended to be put on Fleetwood Mac\u2019s fantastic album Rumours<\/a>, but didn\u2019t make it on.\u00a0 As Wikipedia notes:<\/p>\n

\n

The subject of the song is the breakup of the romantic relationship between Nicks and Fleetwood Mac guitarist and vocalist\u00a0Lindsey Buckingham<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Conflicts over \u201cSilver Springs\u201d led Nicks to leave Fleetwood Mac in 1991. The song appeared on Fleetwood Mac\u2019s 1992 box set,\u00a025 Years \u2013 The Chain<\/a>. A live version of \u201cSilver Springs\u201d was released as a single from the band\u2019s 1997 album\u00a0The Dance<\/a>; this version of the song was nominated for the\u00a0Grammy Award for Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals<\/a>\u00a0in 1998. A version of \u201cSilver Springs\u201d appeared on a remastered edition of\u00a0Rumours\u00a0in 2004, and the song was also included in Nicks\u2019 2007 compilation album,\u00a0Crystal Visions \u2013 The Very Best of Stevie Nicks<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Written by Stevie Nicks, \u201cSilver Springs\u201d describes Nicks\u2019 perspective on the ending of her romantic relationship with guitarist Lindsey Buckingham.\u00a0 She said:<\/p>\n

\n

I wrote \u201cSilver Springs\u201d about Lindsey. And we were in Maryland somewhere driving under a freeway sign that said\u00a0Silver Springs<\/a>\u00a0[sic]. And I loved the name\u2026 Silver Springs sounded like a pretty fabulous place to me. And \u2018You could be my silver springs\u2019 \u2013 that\u2019s just a whole symbolic thing of what you could have been to me.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The \u201csic\u201d refers to the town of \u201cSilver Spring\u201d (ergo the \u2018sic\u2019), located in Maryland near Washington, D.C.; I used to live right by it.<\/p>\n

Regardless, those of us of a certain age are well aware of the romantic issues that not only beset the band (Nick and Buckingham broke up, and Christine and John McVie divorced, with Nicks having a brief fling with drummer Mick Fleetwood), but provided some of the best material for their songs. And, according to this article, \u201cSilver Springs\u201d is emblematic of the breakup of Nicks and Buckingham.\u00a0 But first, let\u2019s listen to the song that\u2019s the subject of the Globe article. It\u2019s a live studio performance from 1977, part of a wonderful set.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

The lyrics clearly reflect the anger of a woman whose love is not returned since the man she loves (Buckingham) is apparently involved with at least one other women (there were actually several). As far as what happened to cause this famous breakup, well, your mileage may differ<\/a> depending on what source you read. All that\u2019s clear is that they had a very tight relationship but ultimately couldn\u2019t get along, but were still forced to play together.\u00a0 And so they worked out their emotions in their music, resulting in some of the finest songs of the era. \u201cRumours\u201d is #7 on Rolling Stone\u2019s list of the \u201c500 best albums of all time<\/a>\u201d (Marvin Gaye\u2019s \u201cWhat\u2019s Going On\u201d is number 1).<\/p>\n

Those who dismiss Fleetwood Mac as \u201cpabulum\u201d don\u2019t know what they\u2019re talking about. But the Boston Globe is a bit hyperbolic too! Surely \u201cSilver Springs\u201d, while very good, shouldn\u2019t be the only song that Gen Z loves.\u00a0 Is that generation obsessed with breakups? What about the other great songs from the band, songs like \u201cRhiannon\u201d or \u201cEverywhere\u201d?<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s an extract from the Globe piece:<\/p>\n

\n

Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham have taken over social media.<\/p>\n

To be exact, what\u2019s swarming millions of timelines is their suddenly inescapable 1997 performance of \u201cSilver Springs\u2019\u2019 from a Fleetwood Mac concert that saw the classic lineup \u2014 Nicks, a singer and the band\u2019s most affecting songwriter; singer-guitarist Buckingham; singer-keyboardist Christine McVie; bassist John McVie; and drummer Mick Fleetwood \u2014 reunited for the first time in a decade.<\/p>\n

What was a breakup ballad became a mad scene that could have been plucked from a Verdi opera. Nicks looked at Buckingham, her former lover, while singing about the end of their relationship. \u201cTime cast a spell on you, but you won\u2019t forget me,\u2019\u2019 she sings as she warns him that he\u2019ll \u201cnever get away from the sound of the woman that loved you.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n

Gen Z has discovered what generations before them recognized \u2014 the raw melodrama and polished pop of Fleetwood Mac. And they can\u2019t get enough.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just know that \u2018Silver Springs\u2019 is an actual spell that Stevie cast on Lindsey so he would never truly be over her,\u2019\u2019 one woman posted on Instagram. Numerous women are making videos of themselves showing Nicks\u2019s performance to their boyfriends or husbands and schooling them on the song\u2019s history.<\/p>\n

The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, which inducted Fleetwood Mac in 1998, recently called that song \u201cthe performance that launched a thousand TikToks.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n

Capitalizing on their newfound audience, Buckingham, 75, and Nicks, 77 \u2014 who met in high school \u2014 recently announced that on Sept. 19, Buckingham Nicks, their pre-Fleetwood Mac duo, will reissue a remastered version of their eponymous 1973 album, which has long been out of print and isn\u2019t available on music streaming platforms.<\/p>\n

On social media they teased fans into a frenzy with a line from their song \u201cFrozen Love.\u2019\u2019 On Instagram, after Nicks posted \u201cAnd if you go forward,\u2019\u2019 Buckingham finished the lyric: \u201cI\u2019ll meet you there.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cBuckingham Nicks\u2019\u2019 flopped when it was released, although it did catch Fleetwood\u2019s ear, which changed music history. But it\u2019s now one of the year\u2019s most anticipated releases.<\/p>\n

Rolling Stone once called Fleetwood Mac \u201cthe lovingest, fightingest, druggingest band of the \u201970s.\u2019\u2019 They were also one of the best when Buckingham and Nicks joined the British band in 1974. The couple\u2019s unraveling relationship and creatively fruitful aftermath made the band pop music\u2019s most enduring soap opera. As Buckingham and Nicks were breaking up, so were the McVies, and then Nicks had an affair with Fleetwood \u2014 all while recording the monumental \u201cRumours.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n

Released in 1977, that album is a diary of anger, fragile hope, and the irreparably frayed bonds of love flung open to the world. Unlike today\u2019s artists who create vexing guessing games around which romantic partner is being referenced, with Nicks and Buckingham there was nothing to decipher. Pretty much every song they wrote was a message to the other.<\/p>\n

(\u201cSilver Springs\u2019\u2019 was cut from that album, surfacing only as a B-side to Buckingham\u2019s biting hit, \u201cGo Your Own Way.\u2019\u2019)<\/p>\n

Like the band itself for decades, Buckingham and Nicks broke up but never fully broke apart. And the authenticity of their tribulations keeps finding new, eager audiences.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The Globe article included this screenshot from the video (at 2:38), showing Nicks glaring at Buckingham. But it exaggerates the truly conflicted feelings both of them had after the breakup. (See the end of \u201cLandslide,\u201d below.)<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Well, yes, perhaps \u201cSilver Springs\u201d could be getting as popular as the article notes, but remember the other songs with the same theme, including this one:<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

And the rancor wasn\u2019t on tap in this song from the same session, which happens to be my favorite Fleetwood Mac song (it\u2019s a Nicks product, of course). Be sure to watch at the end.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

The lyrics from LyricFind<\/a>: (these don\u2019t correspond precisely to what Nicks sings above).<\/p>\n

\n

You could be my silver spring<\/p>\n

Blue-green colors flashin\u2019<\/p>\n

I would be your only dream<\/p>\n

Your shinin\u2019 autumn ocean crashin\u2019<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t say that she\u2019s pretty<\/p>\n

And did you say that she loved you?<\/p>\n

Baby, I don\u2019t want to know<\/p>\n

So I\u2019ll begin not to love you<\/p>\n

Turn around, see me runnin\u2019<\/p>\n

I\u2019ll say I loved you years ago<\/p>\n

Tell myself you never loved me, no<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t say that she\u2019s pretty<\/p>\n

And did you say that she loved you?<\/p>\n

Baby, I don\u2019t want to know<\/p>\n

And can you tell me was it worth it?<\/p>\n

Baby, I don\u2019t want to know<\/p>\n

Time cast a spell on you, but you won\u2019t forget me<\/p>\n

I know I could have loved you<\/p>\n

Time cast a spell on you, but you won\u2019t forget me<\/p>\n

I know I could\u2019ve loved you, but you would not let me<\/p>\n

I\u2019ll follow you down \u2019til the sound of my voice will haunt you<\/p>\n

You\u2019ll never get away from the sound of the woman that loves you<\/p>\n

I\u2019ll follow you down til\u2019 the sound of my voice will haunt you<\/p>\n

You\u2019ll never get away from the sound of the woman that loves you<\/p>\n

Time cast a spell on you, but you won\u2019t forget me<\/p>\n

I know I could\u2019ve loved you, but you would not let me<\/p>\n

I\u2019ll follow you down \u2019til the sound of my voice<\/p>\n

PUBLISHERS<\/p>\n

Lyrics \u00a9 Wixen Music Publishing<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

I guess what I\u2019m trying to say with this post is that if you idolize a band because a single one of your songs expresses your feelings about a relationship, you\u2019re going to miss a lot of the other great music from that band.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A friend sent me a short article on this song from the Boston Globe called \u201cHow Gen Z…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":106330,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[171,975,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-106329","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-music","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-unitedstates","12":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114945338008210399","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106329","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=106329"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106329\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/106330"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=106329"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=106329"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=106329"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}