Christine McVie

Speaker 40:00

This is the

Speaker 10:01

B B C

Presenter0:02

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young. Welcome to Desert Island Discs, where every week I ask my guests to choose the eight tracks, the book, and the luxury item that they'd want to take with them if they were cast away on a desert island.

Presenter0:15

For rights' reasons, the music on these podcast versions is shorter than in the original broadcast. You can find over two thousand more editions to listen to and download on the Desert Island Disc's website. This is an extended edition of the original broadcast.

Presenter0:53

My castaway this week is the musician Christine McVeigh. As an essential part of the supergroup Fleetwood Mac, the singing, songwriting, and keyboard playing she contributed to their sound was era-defining. You Make Loving Fun, O Daddy, Little Lies, Everywhere, and Songbird are a few of her most enduring compositions. But whilst Fleetwood Mac's output represents the ultimate in mid-seventies melodic rock, their backstage behaviour was often less than harmonious, with break ups, booze, drugs, and egos making life in the band

Presenter1:25

Well, complex. Yet through it all, my castaway seemed to steer a relatively straight path, never entirely giving way to the worst excesses of the rock'n'roll playbook. Maybe it was something to do with her background. Her father was a concert violinist, her grandfather an organist at Westminster Abbey, and her maiden name is, I kid you not, Christine Perfect. She says of the glory years with Fleetwood Mac, the music was all we lived for. That was what tied us together. While everything else was falling apart.

Presenter1:56

We were all living in this dream world, doing too many drugs and drinking too much, all busy getting divorced and fighting among ourselves. And therein lies quite a tale, Christine McVeigh. But usually I think musicians and artists

Presenter2:08

Tend to be when I speak to the most passionate about the things they are doing right now. And what you have been doing right now is touring. Tell me a bit about the music that you are currently making.

Christine McVie2:18

Well, I've just finished an album with Lindsay Buckingham, which has turned out to be a bizarre happening because you may or may not know that I left Fleetwood Mac for 15 years. And that happened for a number of reasons. Primarily my father had been ill and I'd been living in America for 30 years. I decided I had to go back and see him. I was afraid of flying.

Presenter2:28

Yeah.

Christine McVie2:43

And uh for multiple reasons I just felt I wanted my roots back and that meant, you know, I w would have to leave the band and I was ready, you know, I've been living out of a suitcase for so many years. I hate suitcases to this

Presenter2:58

Day. And so making music with Lindsay Buckingham, of course, legendarily part of Fleetwood Mac as well. What has that experience been like, the two of you making music together?

Christine McVie3:07

Fantastic. When I first rejoined Fleetwood Mac I started to r write again, which I hadn't done for many years. I barely even looked at a piano. Really? Uh, yeah, it's weird. I don't know why, but that's the way it happened. But anyway, I started writing songs again and sending them over to Lindsay.

Presenter3:18

Really?

Christine McVie3:26

who's my favourite guy to work with, and between the two of us we compiled quite a few bits of material. And before the tour started, he said, Why don't you come over a bit earlier?

Christine McVie3:37

And we'll try and put these down in the studio to reconnect, in other words, because we didn't know if we had any chemistry, because we hadn't seen each other for so long. And we both walked into the studio not knowing what was going to happen, and it was as though it was only yesterday when I had left the band. It was amazing.

Presenter3:56

I mentioned some of the enduring songs that you've written, among them You Make Loving Fun, O Daddy, Little Lies Everywhere, but I'm going to fan bomb you now. Songbird, which is one of my favourite. Yeah, I'm going to throw the love at you. Songbird is one of my favourite, and I'm going to take absolute advantage of the fact that I've got you here to ask you how it was written. Such an immaculate and beautiful love song.

Christine McVie4:05

My favourite one. Yeah.

Christine McVie4:15

Well, that's a mystery to me as well, because all I know is that we were recording rumours, and Stevie and I were sharing a condominium in Sausolito, and I'd gone to bed, and I couldn't sleep, and I I've got this song in my head, and fortunately I had a piano in my room. Nothing to record it on.

Christine McVie4:35

But I had to play this song. It was as if I'd been channelled or something. And the song came out the whole song? The whole song, complete, chords, words, everything, within half an hour. This was at three o'clock in the morning, and I couldn't go to sleep in case I forgot it.

Christine McVie4:52

So I had to play it all night long.

Christine McVie4:54

Until I could get in the studio about nine o'clock the next day and I just had to get it on a two-track tape. How do you explain that? I can't explain it. I wish all songs could come that easy. I just felt as if it was a universal kind of prayer or something. I just don't know where it came from. It's never happened to me since or before.

Presenter5:15

Let's start with your first choice of the day. Tell me a little bit about this piece of music, specifically why you've chosen it.

Christine McVie5:21

Well, this always reminds me of my father,'cause my father, with being a concert violinist, I always used to hear him practising in the front room, as we called it, and he was often playing Vivaldi.

Speaker 45:49

Uh

Presenter6:44

That was the second movement of Vivaldi's Four Seasons, Concerta No. Four in F minor, Winter, with Nigel Kennedy on violin, accompanied there by the English Chamber Orchestra. You said to me, Christine Motvie, during that, that it took you right back to watching your father play and his what his his beard would be going and the whole sort of house would be reverberating with this music.

Christine McVie7:03

Yes, that you could virtually hear nothing else. It it was just a wonderful thing. You could be in the kitchen cooking or mum would be cooking in the kitchen and dad with his playing away and a few mistakes here and there.

Presenter7:15

It was just a delight. And so dad was Cyril. He was a music lecturer. He made a living at as well as being a performer. You once described him as eccentric. D tell me more about that.

Christine McVie7:21

See that

Christine McVie7:26

Well, he was he was a man, I think, that kind of lived above his means. Always I remember him in his uh evening suit with his Dickie Bow on, and'cause he was forever going out to concerts with his beard and uh had long grey hair and his violin in hand, and he used to be gone a lot, but he he was a one for going to the bar afterwards and having a couple of scotches with the chaps, you know.

Presenter7:50

Not uncommon among

Christine McVie7:50

Among musicians.

Christine McVie7:53

Yes. But I mean and how did your mother feel about that? Well, I don't think she liked it very much'cause uh she didn't drink and, you know, you wouldn't get back till midnight or something and

Presenter7:55

And how did your mother feel about it?

Christine McVie8:02

But he taught during the day at taught music at a teacher's training college. And you played together as a family? Christmas time we did, yeah. My mum used to attempt to play the viola. She was not musical, my mother. But my brother played second violin, my dad played first, I played cello, and somehow we managed to crawl through several Christmas carols and things. We mostly ended up laughing the whole time. It was good fun. So your mother's.

Presenter8:29

Didn't drink. She wasn't particularly musically gifted. What was she like as a mother? When you conjure her up, what do you see?

Christine McVie8:33

No

Christine McVie8:36

Well, she was the most amazing mother. She was actually a psychic, very psychic woman, and actually was a healer. Right. Tell me more about that. Well, she uh I I mean my experience, my memory of it, I was only aware of it once concerning myself when I had uh a big water under my nose right there. I still have a little scar. But it was huge and it came from nowhere I think I was eleven or something like that. And my mum tucked me up in bed one night and put her finger on it, and she said, That'll be gone in the morning.

Christine McVie9:10

And it was. The next morning it was gone.

Christine McVie9:12

And did people come to the house to see her and to see her? No, no, no. She kept that side of her s I mean I I wanted her to as well. She kept herself quite quiet about all that. That side of her kind of scared me when she went to her bedroom and shut the door and did whatever she did. And so that side of her life I really d kind of didn't want to hear about because I was growing up, I was nine, ten, eleven when I was aware of this side of my mum, but I just wanted her to be an ordinary mum. But she secretly had a a group of friends that she would have seances with, and she belonged to the Psychic Society of Birmingham, I think. And she would yes, she would go to seances and she had a spirit guide and she couldn't paint at all, but whilst she was in a trance she drew a painting of her spirit guide who was called Silver Shadow or something, Indian, with the head dress and everything. It was a profile of this American Indian.

Presenter10:07

It was a

Christine McVie10:09

What do you make of all that now? I don't know. I I get chills when I talk about it actually. I don't know.'Cause my m mum died actually quite young. She was fifty two and she died of cancer. So she died really young. And it's such a pity.

Presenter10:23

Yeah.

Presenter10:23

Let's have some more of your music, Christine. We're going to listen to your second track. Just tell me a little bit about this and why it's on your list today.

Christine McVie10:30

Well, I used to study classical music growing up, and um I was in there practising one day and I looked in the piano stool and there was a book of Fats Domino music which belonged to my brother and I I hadn't seen it before so I picked it up and started sight reading it and this was one of the songs and I think that's how I got interested where my boogie left hand came from and that's kind of stayed with me throughout all my songwriting years. Even when my songwriting style changed, there's always been a little bit of that boogie bass, so that's what this is all about.

Speaker 110:58

Even if

Speaker 410:58

Yeah.

Speaker 411:06

You made me cry when you said goodbye be that ash

Speaker 411:17

My chill fell like rain

Speaker 411:21

Be there ashamed.

Speaker 411:25

You're the one to blame.

Speaker 411:30

You broke

Speaker 411:32

My horse

Speaker 411:34

When you see it

Speaker 411:35

We'll point a shame.

Presenter11:40

That's domino and that is shame chosen by you, Christine McVie, because you said that was the moment when, if you will, the classical scales fell from your eyes. You find the bit of sheet music in the piano still. Um, you had been classically trained up until then as a musician. Did you enjoy that process? Because for a lot of kids it's pretty arduous and unpleasant.

Christine McVie11:53

Yeah.

Christine McVie11:56

It it was arduous. I had a piano teacher up the road called Madame Amelia Hirons and she was one of these really strict teachers that had the metronome on top of the piano and the asper distras in the windows and she was really strict and she had a ruler and I actually hated it.

Speaker 112:07

Yeah.

Christine McVie12:16

Fortunately my parents were very forgiving about that. They let me stop going to classical lessons and I I just started going my own way and started to play the blues. When did you discover then that you could write?

Presenter12:29

Songs

Christine McVie12:30

Um, well I I the first song I ever wrote was at home when I think I was about sixteen. I played it to my mum and dad. It it was called uh I'll Never Stop Loving You. I can remember it to this day. Would you would you sing a bit of it? Yeah, I think it's pretty plebby. And I can't remember all the lyrics. The rivers may run dry, da da da da da da but I'll never, no, I'll never aha stop loving.

Presenter12:57

At sixteen, not bad. The aha is good.

Presenter13:04

I'm trying to think I I was trying to think of female singer-songwriters that you might have had as role models. I could only pathetically come up with one, Joni Mitchell, towards the sort of mid and end of the sixties, beginning of the seventies. Were there any women you were looking at and thinking, I'd like to do what she's doing. I'd like to do it my way, but I'd like to do what she's doing.

Christine McVie13:24

No, I don't think so. I I was very reticent about writing. It was Mick that really encouraged me,'cause I didn't think I was any good. I made a solo album with a couple of songs I'd written myself, which I really had no confidence in whatever. And you won female vocalist of the

Presenter13:38

And you

Presenter13:40

You were well regarded for your voice, but but you didn't regard your voice particularly.

Christine McVie13:47

Not particularly, no, I think because I I there weren't that many singers around at that time. There was Julie Driscoll and me.

Presenter13:55

The first ever band that you joined was, I think, Sounds of Blue. That might give us a clue. I mean, what sort of music were were you making in the band? Well, it was blues.

Christine McVie13:58

That might give us a

Christine McVie14:01

Well, it was a blues, but we also the there was a flautist in the band called Chris Wood, who then went on to be in I think it was Traffic, with Steve Winwood, who also became a friend of mine. All these guys from Birmingham, you know. So, yes, it was a blues band, but I played bass. And what did your dad make of this? They let me go. They really let me go. I mean, they really wanted me to teach, because I went to Birmingham Art College and studied sculpture. But I was meant to have gone on and done a final year for a teaching diploma, and I knew I didn't want to teach, so I said, No, I'm going to leave now. I've got my national diploma in design. And then I thought, well, now what do I do? You can't go and get a job as a sculptress, can you? And I got a job as a window dresser in Regent Street.

Christine McVie14:49

Uh

Presenter14:50

And

Christine McVie14:51

Uh

Presenter14:51

I hated it. I'm going to ask you about that in a second. For now, Christine McVeigh, let's have a little bit more of your music, and I want to hear your third track. Just tell me about this.

Christine McVie15:00

This is

Presenter15:00

Bowler.

Christine McVie15:00

Over Beethoven? My parents bought me the Beatles album for Christmas and and uh it was during Beatlemania and I was one of the Beatlemaniacs. I must have been about nineteen, I guess, twenty and uh oh, I played this record until there was nothing left of it over and over and over again and I used to look at myself in the mirror as every young girl did, holding a brush or something and singing along to the tracks and shaking my head and and and that sound that was so new and so fresh at the time, what impact did it have on you? Well, I think that it it was so sparse.

Christine McVie15:38

I mean, there was barely any instrumentation. It was all about the melody, the songs, the harmonies. The voices were so upfront and so crystal clear. And I I think that their use of space in the music was crucial and it it just gave them

Christine McVie15:56

Well the song is held up for themselves, just brilliant, brilliant songs, one after the other.

Speaker 416:02

Little ladder, gonna make it to my local DJ

Speaker 416:07

It's a rocky little record, I want my jockey to play

Speaker 416:13

Well the bees old and gotta hit it again today

Speaker 416:19

You know my temperature's rising at the jukebox pull of fuel

Speaker 416:26

A heartbeat rhythm and my soul keeps a singing of the

Speaker 416:31

Roll over Beethoven, a teletrica number

Presenter16:36

The Beatles performing the Chutberry classic rollover Beethoven. Christine McVie, you mentioned the job that you hated and it was at Dickens and Jones, a West End store in London, round about nineteen sixty six. What did they make you wear as a window dresser? What was your use?

Christine McVie16:49

Oh, it was dreadful. I mean, it the all the girls had to wear tapered woosted trousers with a zip at the side and a grey cardigan, which was lunch.

Presenter16:56

Nice.

Presenter17:00

And this was London in nineteen sixty six, yeah.

Christine McVie17:01

1966, yeah. But it wasn't even cashmere, it was really itchy fabric and it just drove me nuts.

Christine McVie17:07

Yeah.

Presenter17:07

You hated the job, and by nineteen sixty seven you mentioned this band uh Chicken Shack. By nineteen sixty seven you had joined Chicken Shack and you debuted in'68 at the Windsor Jazz Festival.

Presenter17:18

Up on stage singing. How did that feel? Did you enjoy the limelight? Well, I didn't know what an

Christine McVie17:22

I was doing there, really. You know, I this friend of mine from Sound of Blue was walking past the window of Dickens and Jones one day and saw me in the window and knocked on the window. So I went out to meet him on a coffee break and he said, You want to join a band? Me and Stan are forming this uh group called The Chicken Shack, you know, we we need a keyboard player.

Christine McVie17:44

So I said, But I can't really play the blues. He says, Well, I'll give you lots of records. You can just, you know, have a little So that's what I did. I listened to tons and tons of blues records and stole a few licks here and there and got myself a little library of stuff to play. So that so that's when I joined Chicken Shack and God knows I had no idea where I was going. It was better than being a window dresser though.

Presenter18:07

Tell me then about the time when you

Christine McVie18:09

That was in Nottingham, I think. It was the solo tour I did. What happened?

Christine McVie18:16

I don't know. I just knew that the solo thing wasn't for me. I couldn't sustain an entire performance, just me. I'm part of a group. I'm comfortable with two, like Lindsay and I, for example.

Christine McVie18:30

And um I'm very very happy within the

Christine McVie18:34

Framework and Fleet were back at the moment.

Presenter18:36

And so round about that time then, just looking back for a moment longer, elsewhere, Peter Green's forming Fleetwood Mac in its original incarnation, named after two of his fellow founding members, Mick Fleetwood and John McVeigh. How did you get to meet John?

Christine McVie18:51

Well, Fleetwood Mac and Chicken Shack were on the same circus. The blues clubs and the halls above pubs and things, and Fleetwood Mac had a massive following. They were huge and justifiably so, they were fantastic. And often Chicken Shack would open for them at certain shows. And so I met them all and knew them all quite well. And it was actually, I think it was Peter Green I had a bit of an eye on. He was rather gorgeous, wasn't he? He was rather gorgeous. But actually, I started talking to John and I just fell head over heels about him.

Presenter19:20

Yeah.

Presenter19:27

And so you were sort of co-opted into the band to be part of the line up?

Christine McVie19:30

Eventually, I mean, I was still in Chickenshack. I then left Chicken Shack because otherwise John and I would never have seen each other because we would have been meeting on the doorstep with suitcases going in opposite directions. So I left Chicken Shack and became a housewife. And then it was then when Peter was given some tab of acid at a party in Germany and he kind of never came back.

Presenter19:58

The labyrinthine comings and goings of the members of Fleetwood Mac and who was in and out of the band could make an entire series, and indeed has on occasion, I think, on other networks.

Christine McVie20:05

And I think on other networks.

Presenter20:06

I want to wind forward to 1974 when Fleetwood Mac went to America and decided that they were going to try to make their music and maybe even make their fortune there. It was in a, I think, a Mexican restaurant in Third Street in Los Angeles when you first met Stevie Stevie Nicks, Lindsay Buckingham. They'd had a relatively long-term romance together. Can you remember what your impressions were of them meeting them for that first time in that little Mexican joint?

Speaker 420:23

Yeah.

Christine McVie20:32

I remember vividly. It was fantastic, and I just saw the five of us sitting around the table, and I just thought.

Christine McVie20:41

This has to happen. Did you? Yeah.

Presenter20:42

Did you

Christine McVie20:44

And Mick had already said to me that it was down to whether I got on with the girl. Right. Because I w had always been the only girl in the band. And he said, Well, if you don't like her, we're kind of uh screwed. Fortunately, when I met her, I immediately took to her. I just thought she was charming and funny. I just remember her sense of humour, which she still has to this day, and I adore her. Plus, Lindsay was the god. He was such a good looking guy, still is. And then the chemistry flowed from there.

Presenter21:17

Let's have some more music, Christine McPhee. We're going to listen to your fourth track of the day.

Christine McVie21:22

Yes, this is Peter Green. This is towards the end of his musical career with Fleetwood Mac. I think you can hear it's a quite reflective song on his life. It's a beautiful song. It really gives me a little tear in my eye, to be honest. This is just before he left. And one can only wonder what he would have written had he stayed, because he was just finding his feet in a different direction in music from the blues.

Speaker 421:53

Shall I tell you about

Speaker 421:56

Nine

Speaker 421:58

They say I'm a maiden

Speaker 422:04

I've flown across every time

Speaker 422:10

I've seen lots of pretty girls

Speaker 122:21

I guess I've got everything I need

Presenter22:28

Fleetwood Mack, man of the world, you seemed, Christine McVeigh, very deep in thought.

Christine McVie22:33

Yeah, it just makes me sad, really, to think what he could have been doing when you listen to how beautiful that song is.

Presenter22:41

And indeed was regarded as possibly one of the finest music makers and guitarists of his generation. But for now you you said it was it was quite brilliant. Your face lit up when you said, you know, the f I looked at the five of us sitting round that table in that Mexican diner and I just thought this has got to happen. When you when particularly the three of you, Stevie and Lindsay and you were standing round the mics and making those exquisite harmonies together, what struck you? Um well there's one partic

Christine McVie23:09

particular time, the very first rehearsal in LA, and I'd written a song called Say You Love Me, which ended up being on the White Flute of Mac album. And uh I said, Oh, it goes like this and I came in with the chorus and Stevie and Lindsay just

Christine McVie23:26

chimed in with the perfect harmonies first time through.

Christine McVie23:30

And uh we all just got goosebumps. John McVeigh went, What?

Christine McVie23:37

How can that possibly be be? So, um, it was a thrill. And that first album, the white album we made, I I remember being the most fantastic time.

Presenter23:48

More so than rumours. So rumours, it came out in 1977. You'd spent much of 1976 recording the album. It would go on to sell 40-odd million copies and counting, still being sold for it. I mean, low, but it's still there, hovering around there. So many songs on it that have gone on to become rock classics. Brilliant for those of us who have loved it.

Christine McVie23:59

It's good in the charts, apparently.

Presenter24:11

What was it like for you to listen to that music and to watch it connect with so many millions of people?

Christine McVie24:18

I mean, I think we were in a state of disbelief. I think we knew we'd got a great record. There was no question of that. But I think because of all the internal angst that we were all going through, I I don't think we c we could really believe it and it became quite normal for it to be n

Presenter24:36

Number one.

Christine McVie24:36

Yeah.

Presenter24:36

And of course, aside from this brilliant music, it was essentially the sort of back to back diary of two relationships falling apart. I mean, that's what the songs were about. It was. Take me back to that moment. How were you relating to each other?

Christine McVie24:50

Oh, there were little groups of us that got on really well. So who did you get on with? Well, I got on with everybody but John.

Christine McVie24:58

Your husband at the time, yes. And and Stevie got on with everybody but Lindsay. And Lindsay got on with everybody but Stevie. And Mick was in the middle going through a divorce of his own with Jenny Boyd. So uh yeah, so there were groups of us that got on fine, but you got the wrong people in one room. That could be difficult, you know.

Presenter25:20

Uh

Christine McVie25:20

Uh

Presenter25:20

I mean, it's such a hackneyed old cliche, isn't it? That, you know, out of pain comes great arts, but what do you make of it?

Christine McVie25:26

Well, if if rumours is anything to go by, I I think it has to be true. We need more angst.

Presenter25:32

Yeah. What's remarkable is probably if we had talked to any band, certainly maybe around the same time, and I'm guessing even now, you know, there are all the interpersonal comings and goings. People have affairs within groups of people, they're touring together, there's a lot of booze around sometimes, a lot of drugs. That is the perfect alchemy for that sort of chaos. But what happens is, everybody says, I'm chucking it, and they leave. Why did you stick with the band?

Christine McVie25:55

Well I think

Presenter25:56

Yeah.

Christine McVie25:56

It was because of the music, because of the art.

Christine McVie26:00

I think we just knew that we we had an alchemy.

Presenter26:04

Was it tense at the time, there and then? I mean, were in the studio? Yeah. Oh, yes.

Christine McVie26:06

In the studio. Yeah.

Christine McVie26:08

Perhaps it was.

Presenter26:08

Yeah.

Christine McVie26:09

And there was one control room, one studio, and one lounge. And then, of course, there was all the hangers on, and the and it was a lot of drugs. Everybody was making hash brownies, and so it was all very psychedelic if you wanted to go that way. And somehow, this music came out of you know, we were talking about music having space. This record, when I listen to it today, has still got that kind of space when it's so cleverly produced.

Speaker 126:26

I'm somehow

Presenter26:39

How it was done, I'll never know. Christine McVead, now we're going to listen to some more of your music. This is your fifth. Tell me about this and why you've chosen it.

Christine McVie26:46

Oh no, the Everly brothers. Well, when I was

Presenter26:48

Yeah.

Christine McVie26:48

I was at college. I was a huge Everly Brothers fan, me and my girlfriend, Theresa. And we started playing guitars and singing all the Everly Brothers songs. I was Phil and she was Don. And they came to play in the Birmingham Odeon. And Theresa and I skived off school and took our art pads and decided to set up and sketch the back door, the stage door of the Odeon. Such a stupid story. Anyway, it was freezing cold. Somehow we managed to get into the backstage and hide in a cupboard. Finally, I think they'd already been on stage and we were still in this cupboard. We decided we couldn't take any more. We got out and just mingled with a bunch of people. Nobody took a blind bit of notice of us. And there was Phil standing there, Phil Everly. And I had my sketchbook and he said, gee, I see those. So I showed him my sketchbook and I said, could I have your autograph, please? So he gave me his autograph. And then years and years later, I met him when I was Christine McVeigh from Fleetwood Mac. And we did a duet together. And I told him that story and he remembered.

Speaker 428:07

Uh

Speaker 428:10

Turkey

Speaker 428:12

Is that for sure?

Speaker 428:18

I die each time I hear this sound.

Speaker 428:26

Here he comes that's Kathy's clown.

Speaker 428:34

I gotta stand tall.

Presenter28:37

That was the Everley Brothers and Cathy's Clown. Christine McVeigh, you have touched throughout our chat this morning on the years of excess and I feel it deserves a good few questions all of its own because it was quite a period, that time when Fleetwood Mac were the supergroup, they were touring the world, they were selling multi-millions in volumes of record sales. There were how many limousines picked you you up at the airport? There were like fourteen limousines.

Christine McVie29:01

Oh, not well, not quite that many. There'd be one per band member. So that's five and then plus two or three trucks for luggage. Mainly.

Presenter29:05

So I

Presenter29:10

Mainly

Christine McVie29:10

Mix or only mix luggage.

Presenter29:13

Um, the money started rolling in. The excess was happening. What do you spend your cash on?

Christine McVie29:18

Well, one particular occasion I remember we were rehearsing for the Tusk album because it takes a little while for the money to come creeping through. So we got some big whopping checks just around that time, and I just took it upon myself to call up my business manager and say, I want to buy Rolls-Royce today, and I want to drive it out of the showroom. So I did. And was it a

Presenter29:42

And was it enjoyable?

Christine McVie29:44

Yeah. The first half hour of it well, the first hi half hour was terrifying'cause I was afraid I was gonna crash the thing. But no, I mean, it was just totally over the top. And I mean, I didn't need a Rolls-Royce, you know. I ended up getting rid of it and getting something smaller. But it was just the fact that

Presenter30:02

That I could. And you say, well, rumours was being made, you know, that Hash Brownie's around a lot of drug taking, and that you produced this exquisite piece of music and went on to do more. People, of course, get very exercised about that. They say this is a very you know, we shouldn't talk about these things positively because, of course, drugs wreak havoc and misery and destruction through people's lives. Absolutely. Why?

Presenter30:24

Well, not why, but do you think that they had something to do with the brilliance of the music you were producing? Do you think you needed that to make that music?

Christine McVie30:34

Well, that's something that we're never really going to know. What are your thoughts on that? My thoughts are that.

Presenter30:38

On that

Christine McVie30:41

I don't know if I would have written Songbird.

Christine McVie30:45

Had I not had a couple of

Christine McVie30:48

tuts of cocaine and a and a half a bottle of champagne.

Christine McVie30:52

And I just couldn't sleep.

Christine McVie30:55

Or um

Christine McVie30:57

Or written

Christine McVie31:00

Any of the songs.

Christine McVie31:02

that were on that album because I mean I think we were all pretty loaded.

Presenter31:08

And again I ask you, how come in those circumstances the whole thing didn't fall to bit? I mean at one point you were you did this eighteen month world tour in nineteen seventy nine after Tusk, you were in Germany, you shared the bill with Bob Marley, you walked out in front of two hundred and fifty thousand people, I imagine every single one of them delighted to see you.

Presenter31:29

How does one hold it together to go out and perform?

Presenter31:33

And do it every night after night after night when all that is going on backstage.

Christine McVie31:38

I think you just you get the adrenaline from the audience, because the adrenaline is so amazing that they give you the energy and the adrenaline rush and the kick, and you give it back, and they make the whole reason for performing live.

Christine McVie31:56

Complete.

Christine McVie31:57

At its wildest, how did it get for you all of that crazy life? For me, well, I think I was probably the most restrained of the lot. I mean, I I did have lots of days of staying away from it all and getting to bed early and being fairly sensible, but I I was no angel.

Presenter32:15

And what is very interesting about you as a group is that you all look fantastic. How come? Because you should look I mean, by rights, you should be a bunch of shambling wrecks.

Christine McVie32:25

I I don't have the answer for that. It's very true.

Presenter32:25

Uh

Christine McVie32:28

Everybody does look great. And all clean and serene now. Clean and sober and happy and yeah. You mean healthy. Somehow we crawl through the cracks. All five of us are all healthy. Speaking of which, um uh just tell me about your sixth choice.

Presenter32:35

You make it healthy, yeah.

Presenter32:41

Speaking of

Christine McVie32:45

Ah, yes. Dear old Dennis, who was a boyfriend of mine from Dennis Wilson from The Beach Boys. Yes, he's one that didn't get through the cracks, sadly. He was a mess. But he was charismatic, charming, and really handsome. And he swept me off my feet big time. And we had a very, very roller coaster affair for a couple of years. I just adored him. It was bass, but it was the drugs. Anyway, this song he I think Carl Wilson wrote this, but he wanted Dennis to sing it. He's got a very husky voice. I don't think Dennis is acclaimed enough. He was quite a talented guy.

Presenter32:50

Dennis Wilson is

Speaker 433:29

Are the puzzles laid out on my table?

Speaker 433:33

Pieces don't fit

Speaker 433:38

Move from chair to chair.

Speaker 433:43

That empty ones there where she used to sit.

Speaker 433:49

Sitting here going out of my mind

Speaker 433:53

But she's gone away.

Speaker 433:57

Yeah.

Speaker 433:58

She couldn't wait now I

Speaker 434:02

I'm afraid it's too late.

Speaker 434:06

Wait till my angel comes home.

Presenter34:09

With Dennis Wilson, your one-time love, on vocals there. That was The Beach Boys and Angel Come Home. Tell me, Christine McVie, about this. It sounds.

Presenter34:17

Well, fascinating for my purposes, this period in your life when you entirely withdrew. You'd been living in California with the Cream Rolls Royces and the hot and cold running Dom Perignon, whatever else.

Speaker 134:26

Old running dog.

Presenter34:28

And you decided that this isn't for me any more. I'm going to sell up. I'm going to buy an old sort of broken down manor Jacobean manor house in Kent, I think it was. I'm going to give it all up.

Christine McVie34:36

I think it was

Presenter34:39

What did you think your life was going to become?

Christine McVie34:43

I think I had the uh

Christine McVie34:45

some kind of wild image in my mind that I was going to become a country lady.

Christine McVie34:51

Complete antithesis of somebody in the rock and roll world. So why did you want that? I think I wanted to settle. I wanted a nest. I wanted to be back in England again. I wanted to tread on English soil. Everything had to be really English. The Arger, the Range Rover, the Hunter Boots, the Barber Jacket, even the Horsey Scarf.

Christine McVie35:13

And did you take part in country pursuits? No, no, no.

Presenter35:17

I never so much as saw a horse. They don't get on the back of one. People have m people must have said to you, Don't go, or you won't like it, or what on earth are you talking about?

Christine McVie35:25

Yeah, they did. I mean, every single band member individually and collectively tried to dissuade me from leaving. But I think because my dad was ill to start with and and then had died, I wanted to be close to the rest of my family. My brother lives in Kent and that's that's why I moved to Kent.

Presenter35:45

Could you just sort of take on a different persona or did people bother you? Did they say, I've got my can you sign this for me? I've got rumours in the local sort of corner show.

Christine McVie35:52

No, I didn't really nobody paid much attention to me. It was quite amazing. I a few people that obviously knew who I was, but nobody bothered me. And I was di I was miles away from any homes, I mean, except for the local village.

Presenter36:06

And honestly, honestly, was there a bit of you that was bothered by that? That people didn't think

Presenter36:12

It's Christine McVeigh.

Christine McVie36:14

Outraged.

Presenter36:14

Uh

Christine McVie36:14

Uh

Presenter36:15

Maybe not I will, but come nobody knows who I am. Around here. You have your eagle fed for all these years, and then it isn't. Is that fine?

Christine McVie36:19

No, you

Christine McVie36:21

Yeah.

Presenter36:24

Well I kind of like

Christine McVie36:25

it for a while. I mean, I must admit, when I did leave the band, I left it a hundred percent. I think I left my ego behind as well. Did you? To a degree, yeah.'Cause I I

Presenter36:36

Just led a completely different life. And you were married for the second time by then. Did you want a family life? Was that part of the idea?

Christine McVie36:40

Did you want to f

Christine McVie36:42

Uh no, I don't think not as far as children go. No, I think I've got well past the age and I'd never wanted children anyway. But that marriage was on the point of breaking up. Long story short, we got divorced and I ended up in that big house on my own. And did you I mean, where was music in your world at that point? Were you were you playing piano? No, there was a beautiful piano there in the study, never played it.

Presenter36:45

Mm-hmm.

Presenter37:01

No, because of

Christine McVie37:05

Yeah.

Presenter37:05

This is peculiar.

Christine McVie37:06

Yes, it's odd.

Christine McVie37:07

It's like the blank canvas again, the perfectionist in me.

Christine McVie37:11

Every time I sat down to play the piano I wanted to write Songbird again.

Christine McVie37:16

So I was afraid to sit down and try.

Presenter37:19

Yeah.

Christine McVie37:19

Bye even

Presenter37:19

In the meantime, Fleetwood Mac continued to make music, they continued to tour, and the point came in, I think it was two thousand nine, when you went to to watch them. What what were your feelings at that point? I thought they were great. I thought they sounded fantastic. Did you think they were missing something?

Christine McVie37:37

I didn't. It was an interesting set for me because they put all kinds of songs in that they wouldn't have done had I been in the band.

Christine McVie37:45

But uh there was always that empty spot where I would have been. They never filled that up. It was

Presenter37:51

The door was left empty.

Christine McVie37:52

Yeah.

Christine McVie37:52

Yeah.

Presenter37:52

And so you went backstage, presumably, afterwards, and they said what?

Christine McVie37:57

Oh, they were all thrilled to see me. I mean, Stevie was always t bending my arm, trying to get me to come back, you know. But I at that point was not ready. People used to say, Are you ever going to go back to Flibermack? and I go, N I'd rather lick the bottom of my car or something like that, something crass, you know. But uh I can't tell you how happy I am that I changed my mind.

Presenter38:20

Mind about that. Yeah.

Presenter38:21

It was 2013 then, I think, when you changed your mind. At the beginning today, when we were talking, you said.

Presenter38:26

You know, I developed a a chronic fear of flying and I had other issues. Can you elaborate on that?

Christine McVie38:32

Well, i issues of isolation and uh I developed agoraphobia, dreadful fear of leaving my front doorstep. I mean I couldn't even get in my car. That's how bad it was. And so then this therapist said, Well, first of all, you have to get someone to drive your car out of the garage so it's close to the house. So that happened. He said, Now go and touch the car, have a look inside it, then the next day sit in the driver's seat. And it I did that for about two weeks, and within two weeks I was driving again.

Presenter38:37

Nice.

Christine McVie39:07

How

Presenter39:07

Extraordinary.

Christine McVie39:08

Everything started to move for me then. The stars were aligned, I'm sure.

Presenter39:13

Tell me about your next piece of music then. What are we

Christine McVie39:14

Yeah.

Presenter39:15

Your seventh

Christine McVie39:15

This is a Larcas Ending, Vaughan Williams. It hearkens back to my father again, but also when I first heard this piece of music, I collapsed in tears with emotion. I just thought it was probably the most beautiful piece of music I ever heard. And also, interestingly, Peter Green was very influenced by this piece of music. It hearkens to some of elements of what Peter's playing in his guitar playing when he plays Albatross and other such pieces of music. And I just love this. It's like a prayer.

Presenter40:59

That was part of Vaughan Williams' Lark Ascending and the soloist there was Tasman Little with the BBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by Andrew Davis. Christine McVeigh, would it be fair to say that the most enduring relationship of your life has been with Fleetwood Mac and its band members? It seems to me that that has been above all else the thing that you have sustained.

Christine McVie41:20

What

Presenter41:21

But it has been.

Christine McVie41:21

You know, I was married to one of them for seven years and John and I somehow came out of all that chaos and are now really good friends, well like brother and sister. Mick, I was always in touch with Mick and he said, Come on, Chris, you've got to get on a plane, come out and see me, you know. So it took me a while to do it, but I did it. And so, yes, they have sustained me for 45 years and longer,'cause I I was there before Stevie and Lindsay joined.

Presenter41:51

You're going to embark on a tour in 2018 with Fleetwood Mac, a world tour, up on stage again. And of course with, as you say, Stevie, Stevie Nicks, Mick Fleetwood, John McVeigh, Lindsay Buckingham.

Christine McVie41:55

Yeah.

Christine McVie41:57

Of course.

Presenter42:02

Describe

Presenter42:04

Can you playing on stage with people that you have so much both musical and personal history with, what is that like when you step out with them?

Christine McVie42:14

Um, well, it's a great feeling of belonging, something that I felt so strongly about when I came back after fifteen years of not playing music, when I'd rediscovered my love for that and I'd trod on the stage for the rehearsal, besides rehearsing, and it was so familiar to me. And I felt as if all those years melted away, and I have this great feeling of huge respect and love for these f it's my musical family, and I adore every single one of them. And combined, we just create something.

Christine McVie42:49

Even we feel it on stage and I can't imagine what it must like must be like to be in the audience if you're a Fleetwood Mac fan, because it feels so great for us.

Presenter42:59

And tell me about your ego then, because I get in spite of all this extraordinary success, I get a sense of somebody who seems rather to have their feet planted on the ground.

Christine McVie43:08

I mean, I suppose it it would make me cross if my instruments weren't working. Things on stage, you know, professionally that ought not to happen. Microphones falling off, things like that. I'm really not, I suppose, maybe I don't have as big an ego as I think I do. Yeah, but I'm aware of who I am. Whereas I don't think I did before. I'm aware of my status in the band now. It's it's secured because, you know, they've said to me, you've got to commit. If you want to come back, you've got to commit. So I said, I commit, I commit, I do commit. So I can't leave. I promise I won't.

Presenter43:12

Yeah.

Presenter43:46

And you are one of the very first women to have ploughed your own furrow in the way that you decided to make your rock and roll career. No, I will not be forced to be the front woman. I am contributing great, big, hefty hits. I'm in no sense second place.

Presenter44:02

How do you look upon yourself a a as a

Presenter44:05

I think I can fairly say a role model.

Christine McVie44:07

Ah

Presenter44:07

Yeah.

Christine McVie44:07

Um

Christine McVie44:08

You've got to love it.

Christine McVie44:10

I say go for the love of the music, not for wanting to be famous, for being famous's sake. You've got to go f do your tenure, get out on the road, work, play.

Presenter44:21

Elive

Christine McVie44:21

Mm.

Presenter44:22

Given that you had that period of isolation and withdrawal from the world, the idea of plonking on a desert island seems unbearably cruel now. How do how do you think you would?

Presenter44:31

I do think it's hateful of you. I do too. How would you get on, do you think?

Christine McVie44:31

I feel like

Christine McVie44:35

Well, funny enough, I have been on desert islands, albeit with uh a lodge and banders and things, and I should imagine it would be quite a challenge to not have anything at all.

Christine McVie44:48

How long would I be on the island? Indefinitely. Oh, forever. Possibly.

Presenter44:52

Possibly.

Presenter44:54

Well

Presenter44:55

I better choose a good book, hadn't I? We're coming to that. For now, just tell me about your eighth choice of

Christine McVie44:59

It was uh suggested that I record this by Mike Vernon who was our music producer at the time with Chicken Shack. And uh I thought it was a great song and I I thought I don't know if I can really sing this though and of course he talked me through it and uh I managed to sing it and unbelievably to me it went into the charts and uh this kind of heralds the beginning of my career really.

Speaker 445:32

I would rather, I would ever go blind, boy.

Speaker 445:41

Then to see you walk away from me, child

Speaker 445:50

So you see, I love you so much.

Speaker 445:53

Then I don't wanna watch it leave me, baby

Presenter45:59

That was Etta James singing I'd Rather Go Blind. It's time now, Christine, for me to do what I do with all the Castaways. I give them some books, the Bible you will get, and the complete works of Shakespeare, and you get to take another book along with them. I wonder what yours is going to be.

Christine McVie46:12

I have a great fascination for Henry VIII. Right. So I was going to say the largest, biggest, fattest book that I could possibly have of the life and times of Henry VIII, including the social history.

Presenter46:15

Right.

Presenter46:25

We'll find that for you. A luxury too, something that would just make life a little bit

Christine McVie46:29

More livable on this island. F for me, it's obvious. It would have to be a piano, right?

Presenter46:35

Uh any particular piano?

Christine McVie46:37

My Songbird piano, which is the one I used to take on the road with me, just happens to have a beautiful sound. It's a baby grand. I don't know what happens when it goes out of tune, though.

Presenter46:44

Divide.

Presenter46:47

That's your problem.

Christine McVie46:47

Want to fix some of your family?

Presenter46:48

Well, I'd have plenty of time to. Not giving you a tune or two.

Christine McVie46:49

Not giving you a tune up to you.

Presenter46:51

Um, if you had to save just one track from the eight that you've chosen, which one track would you save from the waves?

Christine McVie46:58

I think oh my goodness gracious me I think it would

Christine McVie47:02

Ooh it's a toss-up between Man of the World and Vaughan Williams.

Presenter47:08

Okay, Braun Williams. It's yours. Christine McVeigh, thank you very much for letting us hear your Desert Island discs. Thank you very much. It's been my pleasure.

Presenter47:34

I hope you enjoyed that interview with Christine McVie, and you'll find over two thousand other programmes to listen to at bbc.co.uk slash desert island discs, including editions with Annie Lennox, George Michael, Joan Armour Trading, Elvis Costello and Ed Sheeran. And I have a favour to ask.

Presenter47:53

If you could rate and review the programmes wherever you download your podcasts, it'll really help other people find us. Thanks for listening.

Speaker 448:30

This is the BBC.