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Fleetwood Mac · S9 E3
Lindsey Fired
January 2018. After decades of tension, Mick and Stevie let him go. The most controversial decision in the band's history
MusiCares Person of the Year gala, New York, January 26, 2018. Fleetwood Mac takes the stage together, all five classic members, and nobody in the room knows it is the last time they will ever perform as a group.
"I Won't Back Down" (Tom Petty, official music video, 1989). The lead guitar on this track belongs to Mike Campbell, Tom Petty's right hand for forty years. Four months before this gala, Petty died of an accidental overdose. Within weeks of Lindsey's firing, Campbell will be standing in his spot in Fleetwood Mac.
The Ultimatum
The tensions had been building for months, but it was the MusiCares performance that pushed things over the edge. Stevie Nicks reportedly felt disrespected by Lindsey's behavior on stage and gave Mick Fleetwood a choice: either Lindsey goes, or she does. Mick chose Stevie. The band's management delivered the news to Lindsey at his home.
Sources
Rolling Stone. "Lindsey Buckingham Sues Fleetwood Mac Over Firing." October 2018.
Buckingham, Lindsey. CBS This Morning interview, October 2018.
I Won't Back Down, Tom Petty (1989)
Mike Campbell co-wrote this song with Tom Petty, and his guitar defines the track: that clean, ringing tone sitting somewhere between country twang and rock grit without committing to either. Campbell spent forty years as Petty's musical partner, the quiet architect behind songs heard by hundreds of millions of people. When Petty died on October 2, 2017, Campbell lost his creative home. Fleetwood Mac gave him a new one.
Sources
Petty, Tom. "Conversations with Tom Petty." Omnibus Press, 2005.
Campbell, Mike. Interview with Guitar World, 2018.
TAP TO REVEAL: How did Lindsey Buckingham respond to being fired?
Heart and Voice
Less than a year after the firing, Lindsey Buckingham required emergency open-heart surgery. The procedure saved his life but damaged a vocal cord, forcing him to relearn how to sing from scratch. He has said the experience put the band drama into perspective, though the hurt of being dismissed after four decades never fully went away.
Sources
Buckingham, Lindsey. Interview with Rolling Stone, 2021.
People Magazine. "Lindsey Buckingham on His Recovery After Open-Heart Surgery." 2020.
The Firing: By the Numbers
Don't Dream It's Over, Crowded House (1986)
Neil Finn wrote this at twenty-seven, and it became one of the most beloved pop songs of the eighties. When Mick Fleetwood called to ask him to join the band, Finn brought this same instinct with him: the ability to write a melody that sounds like it has always existed. He was handed the job of singing Lindsey Buckingham's vocal parts, one of the most distinctive voices in rock, and somehow made them feel natural.
Don't Dream It's Over, Crowded House (1986)
Finn's lyrics walk a line between hope and resignation that few songwriters manage. The repeated insistence that outside forces "won't win" reads differently in the context of Fleetwood Mac, a band that spent fifty years letting conflicts tear it apart and then somehow putting itself back together. Until now.
Who replaced Lindsey Buckingham in Fleetwood Mac after his 2018 firing?
Two strangers walk into Fleetwood Mac and inherit forty years of history, heartbreak, and harmonies overnight. Next: how a Heartbreaker and a Crowded House frontman made the old songs feel new.
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