Fleetwood Mac ‘Go Your Own Way’: Watch 24 Different Versions

This fascinating early take from the Rumours sessions shows Buckingham wrestling with the lyrics (“You can go your own way/You can roll like thunder”), experimenting with a falsetto part he wisely dropped, and still not unveiling the “shackin’ up” line that would further inflame his rocky, post-breakup relationship with Nicks. The soaring electric guitar solo at the end is also absent. It was eventually pieced together from multiple takes by Rumours producer Ken Caillat while Buckingham was taking a break for Christmas in Lake Tahoe.

Fleetwood Mac spent seven months recording Rumours in 1976, working whenever their busy touring schedule allotted them time. (The Fleetwood Mac LP was released in July 1975, but didn’t explode until February 1976, when “Rhiannon” dropped.) The long gestation period gave the group time to write new songs and carefully refine their work. That’s how “Go Your Own Way” was able to slowly evolve into its final form. And on an album packed with hits, they wisely selected it as the first single. (“Silver Springs” was relegated to a B-side. That meant Nicks had to endure not only the indignity of the “shackin’ up” song being the first single, but her own spin on the end of their relationship — one of the best songs she ever wrote — not even making the album.)

The 1975 Fleetwood Mac LP turned the group into superstars capable of packing arenas. But nothing prepared them for the reaction to Rumours. They were suddenly on the cover of Rolling Stone and headlining the biggest venues in America, while their singles dominated the charts for months on end. And while “Dreams” and “Don’t Stop” were bigger hits, “Go Your Own Way” became the showstopper every night of the Rumours tour. They played more than 100 shows that year, usually saving the song for near the end of the main set. In this video from a stop in Japan, you can practically smell the cocaine.

The easy move after Rumours would have been a follow-up that sounded just like it, once again drawing lyrical inspiration from their messy personal lives. Instead, they went in a very different direction by challenging their fans with Tusk, a double album that didn’t have anything like another “Gold Dust Woman,” “Don’t Stop,” or “Go Your Own Way.” On the long Tusk tour, which stretched well into 1980, however, they were significantly more willing to please the masses. They played “Go Your Own Way” at all 110 stops. Lindsey clearly got the memo every other rock star received on Jan. 1, 1980, and chopped off his long hair.

The power balance within Fleetwood Mac changed a bit in 1981 when Bella Donna and the hits “Edge of Seventeen” and “Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around” turned Stevie Nicks into a solo star. She could have easily pulled a Diana Ross and walked away from the group, but she decided to go the rare Phil Collins route and make the time to balance both the band and her own career. When she came back to the group for 1982’s Mirage, they cut an album with way more commercial potential than Tusk, generating the hits “Gypsy” and “Hold Me.” But they still played nearly the entirety of Rumours on tour, as they would nearly every time they toured over the next several decades. What nobody realized, however, is that they’d have to shack up with a replacement Lindsey for the next 15 years following the conclusion of the tour.

The smart money was on Stevie Nicks quitting Fleetwood Mac at some point in the Eighties so she could focus on her solo career. But in reality, it was Lindsey Buckingham who walked away. He developed somewhat of an aversion to touring in the Eighties, not even going out to support his 1984 solo LP Go Insane, and he balked when the group agreed to a 69-date tour to promote 1987’s Tango in the Night. Buckingham was the key creative voice behind that record, but the sessions were tense, and Nicks was largely disengaged from the process. He’d simply had enough. To replace Buckingham, they recruited Billy Burnette, son of rockabilly icon Johnny Burnette, along with guitarist Rick Vito. “We did a great version of [‘Go Your Own Way’] with the band,” Burnette told Rolling Stone in 2022. “The band that Rick and I were with was a really great band. Lindsey, of course, was one of my favorite guitar players and artists in the world. That part of it was tough.”

The Tango in the Night tour was challenging for fans since Buckingham wasn’t a part of it, but at least they were supporting a great album that produced the hits “Big Love,” “Little Lies,” “Everywhere,” and “Seven Wonders.” That wasn’t the case three years later when they went back on the road in support of 1990’s deeply underwhelming Behind the Mask, which was the first Fleetwood Mac album created without Lindsey Buckingham in over 25 years — even if he played acoustic guitar on the title track. They only performed three Behind the Mask songs on the tour, as opposed to six from Rumours. Keeping with tradition, they wrapped up the main set with “Go Your Own Way,” again with Burnette and Vito doing their best to fill the Lindsey-sized hole. When the 101-date tour ended at the Forum in Inglewood, California, Buckingham himself came onto the stage for a handful of old hits, including “Go Your Own Way.” But the reunion tour everyone wanted to see didn’t materialize for several years. In the more immediate future was one of the bleakest chapters in Fleetwood Mac history.

Lindsey Buckingham took an extended break from his solo career following the release of 1984’s Go Insane, and he took a long time to unwind following his departure from Fleetwood Mac in 1987. He finally reemerged in 1992 for the solo LP Out of the Cradle. This was the peak of the grunge movement, and there was little appetite for even Fleetwood Mac, let alone Buckingham solo, and the album peaked at No. 128. But it did put him back on the road for the very first time as a solo artist. The set was heavy on Fleetwood Mac songs, including a frenetic “Go Your Own Way,” where he’s joined by guitarists Janet Robin and Steve Ross.

Fleetwood Mac could have easily split up once Stevie Nicks left the band following the Behind the Mask tour. But Mick Fleetwood and John McVie have maintained a “never say die” attitude ever since the formation of the group in 1967, and it’s hard to argue that the men who put the “Fleetwood” and the “Mac” into Fleetwood Mac shouldn’t be able to carry the band forward. Two decades after bringing Nicks and Buckingham into the fold, they recruited Traffic’s Dave Mason and Bekka Bramlett — daughter of Delaney and Bonnie Bramlett — to join them. Christine McVie stuck around to help record their ill-fated 1995 LP Time, but decided not to tour. That was probably wise, since they were sharing the bill with REO Speedwagon and Pat Benatar. It’s the only tour in Fleetwood Mac history where they played “Go Your Own Way” minus both Stevie and Lindsey. And to be fair, Bramlett and Burnette were very impressive. (They also repeated history by having their own offstage shack-up.) This just wasn’t a version of Fleetwood Mac the public was ever going to accept. “We ended up with a bunch of talented people playing good music, but they should not have been touring as Fleetwood Mac,” Mick Fleetwood wrote in his 2014 memoir Play On. “There were too many essential pieces missing from the machine this time.”

By 1997, mega-successful reunion tours by the Eagles, Kiss, Jimmy Page and Robert Plant, and even the Sex Pistols, proved that the 20-year rule of nostalgia was very much a thing. And so Fleetwood Mac copied the Eagles playbook down to the smallest details by booking a soundstage in Los Angeles, bringing the classic-era lineup back together for a concert they could perfect through multiple takes, releasing it as a TV special and live album, and hitting the arena circuit. It played out beautifully. The Dance not only excited older fans who hadn’t given much thought to Fleetwood Mac, but it introduced their work to an entirely new generation. Buckingham’s recent solo shows kept his chops up, and he delivered yet another blazing rendition of “Go Your Own Way” that night and throughout the brief tour.

Fleetwood Mac played a mere 47 shows on the Dance tour, solely at American arenas. They could have taken the tour all across the globe and probably played an additional 150 concerts, but Christine McVie simply refused. She’d been dreaming of retirement for years, and no amount of money was going to change her mind. It wasn’t until they played a show at the White House in 2001 to say goodbye to President Clinton and thank him for making “Don’t Stop” into a hit again on his 1992 campaign that they realized the band had a path forward without McVie. This led to the creation of the group’s 2003 double LP Say You Will, and a series of tours where Stevie and Lindsey fronted the band on their own, even playing “Stand Back” from Stevie’s solo career. As always, the main set concluded with “Go Your Own Way.”

With all due respect to Bo Bice, Constantine Maroulis, and the other American Idol contestants in 2005, they simply didn’t stand a chance once Carrie Underwood entered the competition. If scientists 10,000 years in the future designed a perfect cyborg to go back in time and win American Idol, it would be no different from Carrie Underwood. She proved that once again at Fashion Rocks in 2007 when she sang the opening verse of “Go Your Own Way” and then invited Buckingham onto the stage to help her finish it. It’s impossible to match the Stevie/Lindsey chemistry, but this is still a very impressive take on the song.

In the 2000s, Buckingham found the balance he’d been seeking for decades by releasing solo albums and touring them whenever Fleetwood Mac were inactive. In 2008, he went on the road behind his solo LP Gift of Screws. This was a much leaner band than in 1993, featuring just guitarist Neale Heywood, bassist/keyboardist Brett Tuggle, and percussionist Walfredo Reyes. By this point, it was just a given that “Go Your Own Way” would end the set, and the guitar solo would be appropriately transcendent.

The Mac went back on the road in 2013, ostensibly to promote their new EP Extended Play, which features the overlooked classic “Sad Angel,” but it was really just a chance to get back on the arena circuit. Christine McVie had been AWOL for 15 years, and they felt any sort of return was an absolute impossibility. “I would say there’s no more a chance of that happening than an asteroid hitting the Earth,” Stevie Nicks told Rolling Stone shortly before it launched. “She is done. You know when you look in somebody’s face and you can just tell? She doesn’t want to do it anymore.” At the end of the tour, an asteroid hit the Earth when McVie came onstage to perform “Don’t Stop” and agreed to a tour. Before that could happen, however, they had to finish the 2013 world tour. And yes, “Go Your Own Way” was the last song of the main set. They’ve played many shows where “The Chain” was moved to song two rather than song one, but the “Go Your Own Way” slot never budges.

If Christine McVie hadn’t agreed to return, Fleetwood Mac would likely have taken off a few years following the 2013 tour. But there was so much excitement about the reformation of the Rumours five that they booked a 120-date tour that ran from Sept. 30, 2014, to Nov. 22, 2015. The reunion meant they could finally add in songs like “Little Lies,” “Songbird,” “You Make Loving Fun,” and “Everywhere” that they hadn’t been able to do since 1997. To make room, they did have to lose some recent standards, including Stevie’s solo hit “Stand Back,” but there were better odds of 500 asteroids than “Go Your Own Way” getting dropped or losing its honored place as the set closer. And now they were able to replicate the exact harmony blend from the original recording.

Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham disagree on a great many things. One of the bigger ones, at least career-wise, is the importance of recording new Fleetwood Mac music. Lindsey wanted the group to keep creating new work. Stevie, quite simply, did not. “I don’t think there’s any reason to spend a year and an amazing amount of money on a record that, even if it has great things, isn’t going to sell,” she told Rolling Stone in 2017. “What we do is go on the road, do a ton of shows and make lots of money. We have a lot of fun. Making a record isn’t all that much fun.” In 2017, Buckingham grew so impatient with the impasse that he made a new record with John McVie, Christine McVie, and Mick Fleetwood. This was essentially Fleetwood Mac minus Stevie Nicks, but they released it as Buckingham/McVie. Mr. Fleetwood and Mr. Mac didn’t participate in the tour, which hit largely theaters. It was a rare chance to see two-thirds of the singing Fleetwood Mac members in a small venue. The shows were magnificent and included the first “Hold Me” by any version of the group since 1982. And the pre-encore set concluded with…we no longer even need to say it, do we?

In the middle of the Buckingham/McVie tour, longtime Fleetwood Mac manager Irving Azoff organized the Classic East and Classic West concerts in New York and Los Angeles — essentially his response to Desert Trip the prior year — with many of his acts on the bill, including the Eagles (playing for the first time since the death of Glenn Frey) and the Mac. It must have been weird for Lindsey and Christine to take off their Buckingham/McVie hats for the night and go into Fleetwood Mac mode, but they pulled it off. The second and final Classic East/West show took place July 30, 2017, at Citi Field in Queens. Nobody knew it at the time, but it was the last full show the Rumours five would ever play together.

The return of Christine McVie was supposed to be the start of a copacetic period for Fleetwood Mac, especially after Buckingham found an outlet for his new music in Buckingham/McVie. But after Buckingham pissed off Nicks at a 2018 Radio City Music Hall tribute show by mocking the length of her speech and complaining about their walk-on music, she informed management she wouldn’t remain in a band with him. A Stevie-free tour would have been a very hard sell, so Lindsey got the boot, sparking a legal spat they eventually settled out of court. For a tour later that year, Neil Finn from Crowded House and Mike Campbell from Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers were invited into the fold. It meant Fleetwood Mac could now play “Don’t Dream It’s Over” and “Crowded House,” but it also meant Nicks had to sing “Go Your Own Way” with a guy she literally met at tour rehearsals. Mike Campbell did a splendid job on the solo, and Finn is a fine singer, but it was more than a little weird. (But it wasn’t quite as weird as Finn singing “Second Hand News” earlier in the show.)

Before the Radio City spat, Buckingham was already trying to get Fleetwood Mac to delay their tour a few months so he could do a solo run. That no longer became an issue once they kicked him out. This gave him the freedom to play an extensive series of shows in the States that year, backed by bassist Federico Pol, drummer Jimmy Paxson, keyboardist Michael Kianka, and guitarist/keyboardist Brett Tuggle. For many years, Tuggle was a member of the Fleetwood Mac touring band as well. He was originally supposed to be on the 2018 tour, and even rehearsed with the Neil Finn lineup in Hawaii. “Something felt weird with Stevie,” he told Rolling Stone in 2020, two years before his tragic death. “I could tell something was off with her. I think she had already made up her mind about me being Lindsey’s guy. I think my fate was already sealed whether I was there or not. I was really shocked when I got the call that they weren’t going to use me. I also realized that I was in the middle of the politics of Lindsey and Stevie and this band and there was nothing I was going to be able to do about it.”

In February 2019, Lindsey Buckingham had a severe heart attack that required emergency surgery. His vocal cords were damaged when a tube was inserted into his throat, and it was unclear if he’d ever be able to perform again. Miraculously, he was back on the road two and a half years later with a mended voice. Kianka was back on keyboards, but this was otherwise a new band that included bassist Neale Heywood and drummer Michael Urbano. (If Tuggle wasn’t nearing the end of his battle with cancer when it began, he certainly would have been there too.) The set was a bit rearranged, and he saved most of the big Fleetwood Mac songs until the very end. And it wouldn’t have been a Lindsey or Fleetwood Mac show if the regular set didn’t conclude with “Go Your Own Way.”

When the Killers recorded their 2020 LP Imploding the Mirage, guitarist Dave Keuning was taking a break from the band. This presented them with some pretty severe logistical challenges. “We got to the point where it was like, ‘Okay, time to put some guitars on it.’ Then we’d be like, ‘Fuck, Dave’s not here,’” Killers drummer Ronnie Vannucci Jr. told Rolling Stone in 2020. “We were having Thai food one night, kind of pissed, and I jokingly said, ‘Okay, we’ll call Lindsey fuckin’ Buckingham!’” They happened to share the same PR firm, allowing them to summon Buckingham to their studio the next day. He wound up playing guitar on their song “Caution.” Two years later, when the Killers played a show at Banc of California Stadium in Los Angeles, Buckingham made a surprise appearance for “Caution,” “Go Your Own Way,” and a super-jam on “Mr. Brightside” that also included Johnny Marr of the Smiths. As far as we can tell, no member of the group has done the song live since Buckingham stepped away from the road later in 2022 due to “ongoing health issues” that he never specified in detail.

The Cranberries had plenty of their own hits by the time they went on the road behind their 1999 album Bury the Hatchet. But midway through the set most every night, they fired up the crowd with “Go Your Own Way.” It was a spectacular version that showcased the strengths of every member, especially drummer Fergal Lawler and guitarist Noel Hogan. It remained in their live repertoire for the next three years, and they wound up playing it more than any other cover outside of Dolores O’Riordan’s solo work.

In the second season of Glee, Finn (Cory Monteith) was still dating Quinn (Dianna Agron), but look at the way he’s eyeing Rachel (Lea Michele) while she’s singing “Go Your Own Way” as he drums. Rachel aims “loving you ain’t the right thing to do” and “if I could, I’d give you my world” right at him, and a scowling Quinn feels the spark. She knows she’s about to lose him. The allure of “Go Your Own Way” is much too strong.

Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham are finally back on speaking terms after many years of estrangement. It’s giving fans some faint hope there may be one last tour, especially since next year marks the 50th anniversary of Rumours and a new documentary is coming, directed by Frank Marshall. But it remains no more than just a hope. They have only vaguely hinted at such a thing. At the moment, Nicks doesn’t even have any solo shows on the books. It’s forced fans to turn toward tribute bands to get their fix.

The best of the bunch is Rumours of Fleetwood Mac, featuring Jess Harwood as Stevie Nicks and James Harrison as Lindsey Buckingham. As you can see from this video, they do a stellar job on “Go Your Own Way.” Our only note is that Stevie is supposed to turn her mic and glare at Lindsey during the “packing up/shacking up” line even as she sings along. There’s supposed to be genuine hurt and anger, completely undiminished by the passage of time. That emotion gave birth to Fleetwood Mac’s most enduring work, and it’s kept it alive all these years.