I’d had enough of flying,” she says now. “I didn’t want to get on another plane. And I’d had enough of living out of a suitcase. I missed my roots. Because I’m a Cancer, you know. We’re domestic bodies. We like to cook, and we like our nests. And I was aching for my nest. Rees, Dafydd; Lazell, Barry; Jones, Alan (1983). "The Top 100 UK Albums". Chart File Volume 2. London: Virgin Books. pp.82–83. ISBN 0-907080-73-1. Top Pop Albums of 1983". Billboard.biz. 31 December 1983. Archived from the original on 31 December 2012 . Retrieved 29 April 2014. McVie had only recently left Dennis Wilson, the once golden but now burnt-out Beach Boy who would drown while drunk on December 28, 1983, a year after Mirage’s release. His self-destruction had been too extreme for her to tolerate. Her love songs on Tusk and Mirage were based on their difficult, full-on months together.

The pressure from Warner was to make an album,” McVie remembers. “And of course they’re all praying for another Rumours. And I think that might have been quite a self-conscious decision we made, that we ought to go for something un- Tusky. It’s pointing a finger towards Rumours– one finger.It had to be England, close to my brother, just outside Canterbury. The green, green grass of home. And for a few years, it was fantastic – the dogs, the Aga. I was the quintessential retired country gal. But it wasn’t what I thought it was going to be.” Jonze, Tim (15 December 2016). "Fleetwood Mac: Mirage box set review – high-calibre songs that outshine the imitators". The Guardian . Retrieved 8 December 2017. By now, the story of Bob Welch is well told, and it is not a feel-good one. Arriving in Fleetwood Mac at their lowest, he had the unenviable task of radically reinventing the group’s sound, sometimes in opposition to other singer/guitarists who were hired for the same purpose. He allowed the band to survive and even thrive, set the template for their eventual success, and bowed out with enough momentum to establish the beginnings of a solid solo career. a b "Offiziellecharts.de – Fleetwood Mac – Mirage" (in German). GfK Entertainment Charts. Retrieved 6 July 2022.

In 2009, another DVD incarnation of the Mirage concert was released under the title Fleetwood Mac – In Performance by the Showline label on a region-free disc. Despite the band holding a prominent place in popular British music, and despite Peter Green’s dalliances with LSD, Fleetwood Mac never really embraced psychedelic music when it became all the rage towards the tail end of the 1960s. Still enamoured with the blues, but falling apart due to Green’s fragile mental state, Then Play On finds the Mac at their first major crossroads.

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More typical was the time McVie returned to her LA home on her birthday and found her manic boyfriend had excavated a hole in her garden in the shape of a heart. “That’s true. I didn’t react very well. My gardeners didn’t, either. Especially when I got the bill!” She laughs heartily at the memory of Wilson’s foolishness now. “He had everybody standing around the edge of the heart, holding a candle, while sinking in the mud, waiting for me to come up so they could sing Happy Birthday. That didn’t go down too well.”

I just went with the flow,” McVie says, when asked if she had misgivings about Tusk. “In the studio I said, ‘Whatever.’ And at that time, there was an awful lot of drugs and alcohol being consumed, and I’d just met Dennis Wilson from the Beach Boys, and I was going out with him and in love with him, and one thing led to another. And if Lindsey wanted to go into the bathroom and do drums on an empty Kleenex box, fine. Why not?” Collis, Clark (April–May 2002). "Fleetwood Mac: Mirage". Blender. No.7. Archived from the original on 19 October 2006 . Retrieved 9 December 2017. Santana’s slinky, conga-heavy cover version is more famous, but Fleetwood Mac’s first Top 40 hit is darker, more raw and exciting. It feels live, as if someone pressed record during a rehearsal; the mood is ominous, and it’s punctuated with frequent pregnant pauses. Nevertheless, it’s commercial. 26. Only Over You (1982)As such, you can detect its faint influence on everyone from REM to Prefab Sprout. When modern-day folk-pop acts like Bat For Lashes or Vampire Weekend want to add a little ’80s sparkle to their music, this is the album that they plunder. Even on autopilot, Fleetwood Mac’s brilliantly unique permutation of singers and players were able to spin gold from the barest of ingredients. Oricon Album Chart Book: Complete Edition 1970–2005 (in Japanese). Roppongi, Tokyo: Oricon Entertainment. 2006. ISBN 4-87131-077-9.