CNN
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There’s a reason why Christine McVie was considered the heart of Fleetwood Mac.
The band’s keyboardist, who passed away on Wednesday at the age of 79 after a short illness, was also the author of some of the group’s most beloved songs.
Here are just five of those numbers:
This one is tied to some drama.
Fleetwood Mac is known in part for their tumultuous relationships, especially when it came to romantic relationships.
Bandmates Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham had a thing that ended badly and McVie was famously married to, then divorced, their other bandmate, John McVie.
He reportedly thought the song, with the lyrics “Sweet, wonderful you / You make me happy with the things you do / Oh, can it be / This feeling follows me wherever I go”, was about their dog when the McVies got married on time.
But it turns out that Christine McVie had written the love song in honor of the band’s lighting director with whom she had an affair.
Another tune from their famous album “Rumours”.
“Do not stop” turned out to be a hopeful anthem for the future, so meaningful to former President Bill Clinton that he used it as his 1992 campaign song.
On Wednesday, he tweeted a tribute to McVie.
“I am saddened by the passing of Christine McVie. “Don’t Stop” was the theme song of my ’92 campaign – it perfectly captured the mood of a nation yearning for better days,” he tweeted. “I am grateful to Christine & Fleetwood Mac for entrusting us with such a meaningful track. I will miss her.”
This one was actually a solo song for McVie.
The first single from her self-titled solo album, it sounds like it could be a Fleetwood Mac song with its exuberant rhythm and catchy chorus, “Ooh, I got a love / I got someone / This love got me.”
Plus, Buckingham plays guitar here, giving it even more of a Fleetwood Mac feel.
“Say you Love Me” is an upbeat tune that has become a mainstay on rock and easy listening radio stations.
She reflected on the sweet harmonies she, Nicks and Buckingham achieve on the tune in a 1990 interview.
“The first time I started playing ‘Say You Love Me’ and I reached the chorus, they started singing with me and fell right in,” The Performing Songwriter magazine reported her saying. “I heard this incredible sound, our three voices… and my skin turned into goosebumps.”
It feels good that so many on social media used this song to honor McVie after her passing.
The ballad she wrote has been cited as the perfect reminder of someone who is lost.
Playing now after her death seems terrifying as she pours her heart into the opening lyric: “For you there will be no more crying / For you the sun will shine / And I feel that when I’m with you / It’s alright, I know that it’s good.”
