The pair were never exactly well known for seeing eye to eye – to put it lightly – with their feud broiling all the way from their disastrous breakup in the 1970s until 2018 when Buckingham was ultimately fired from the group.
The song ‘Come’, from the 2003 album Say You Will, it’s a rarer occasion, at least from that era, that the album was dominated by Buckingham’s vocals, and indeed on this song. But it wasn’t necessarily by choice. As it turns out, the reason Buckingham took the lead was because Nicks flat-out refused to sing it.
Speaking at the time of the album’s release, he sermonised his feelings by saying: “Stevie sees herself as being defined within a certain set of boundaries, outside of which things probably don’t ring true to her, or to the people who listen to what she does. But at the same time, I think she’s intrigued by the idea of pushing the envelope, especially on this album. She never wants to go too far with it, though.”
asked her to sing on the song, and she wouldn’t. I think she thought it was dirty,” Buckingham explained. Without knowing Nicks’ true reasons for not wanting to sing the song, it is difficult to say whether her former bandmate’s claims stand up to contention, but regardless, it didn’t stop him from speculating a bit more and, of course, having a bit of a dig. He just can’t help himself.
“That tells you something about someone who has been a rock icon but, in some ways, is still quite a conservative person. And I don’t see her as someone who has lived her life very conservatively. So, there’s an interesting dichotomy there.”
In this context, it seems a little oddly suspicious that ‘Come’ never made it onto a Fleetwood Mac setlist and was rarely performed live, bar from Buckingham’s own solo live album, One Man Show, in 2012. Although it’s far from a terrible song, it’s pretty clear that it must’ve gone down as a bit of a lead balloon with the rest of the band. Stevie Nicks refusing to sing explains a lot – because evidently, it was her who really wore the trousers. (Farout reports)
