Mick Fleetwood felt like the “Grim Reaper” when he told Stevie Nicks ‘Silver Springs’ wouldn’t be on ‘Rumours’.
The 74-year-old Fleetwood Mac drummer joked his bandmate has made him “suffer inordinately” ever since the track – which she wrote about her split from Lindsay Buckingham – was snubbed from the classic LP and instead became the B-side for ‘Go Your Own Way’.
Mick told Zane Lowe on Apple Music 1: “I ended up in a car park having to tell young Stevie that… a great song – and truly, truly, truly, truly, we were so intent on [including it]… at that point when you master an album, getting it to sound, and we simply couldn’t, unless we sacrificed the level of the dynamic of the album, when you put the needle down.
“And we just felt something had to go, and then that was the song… But that song became legendary, but no doubt was really supposed to be part of this album.
“And it was a forever… Like I was the Grim Reaper in the car park, that had to break the news, and Stevie’s made me suffer inordinately ever since.”
Meanwhile, Mick also reflected on how having a co-ed lineup – which at the time of ‘Rumours’ also featured Christine and John McVie – helped the group.
He explained: “Believe me, it was crazy and that’s no news to anyone out there, public knowledge, but somehow there was some decorum about who and what we did as people.
“And it was always emotionally driven, which had it been quite literally a bunch of lads in a band, I think it would’ve been… Certainly, again, you’ll probably hear it about 3,000 times, speaking for myself, I think having the ladies in the band, as it should, it reined us in on some damn level.
“And we, I think, benefited from that, certainly, as a band.”