“I think anyone who creates will tell you that it’s very difficult to work completely linearly to get what you’re after,” Lindsey Buckingham has said of The Chain. The only song credited to all five members of Fleetwood Mac’s 1977 line-up, The Chain was assembled with disparate links and spare parts and a lot of arranging ingenuity. Recorded during a period of romantic break-ups and high tension within the band, it has come to represent the remarkable endurance of one of rock’s most volatile bands.
It began in 1976, during the sessions for the Rumours album. Christine McVie brought in a song-in-progress called Butter Cookie (Keep Me There). On the Super Deluxe Edition of that now classic album, you can hear the song evolve through early demos and instrumentals. A feathery, Van Morrison-like groove gives way to a swampier chug, as the band search for the right feel and Christine McVie experiments with words. But it never quite rises above what might have become a solid album track. Then in the last minute it suddenly roars to life, powered by the entrance of John McVie’s memorable low-end bass riff.
