We go a bit farther back today, back to the 70’s, back to my childhood days. Today we take a listen to “Never Going Back Again” by Fleetwood Mac.

What are your thoughts, feelings, and/or memories about this song?

“Never Going Back Again” by Fleetwood Mac
from the album, Rumours (1977)
My Top 5 – February 3, 2011

“You don’t know what it means to win.
Come down,
and see me again.”

My Top Five Thoughts on “Never Going Back Again” by Fleetwood Mac

1. Rumours is one of about five albums that I vividly remember listening to as a child. I loved the album then, and I love it even more now.

2. At my first advertising job, in the late 90’s, I sat in a pool of cubicles filled with fellow assistants, like me. We shared a clock radio/cassette player between us that we’d play music on. The player had only one weak speaker that emitted a “tinny” sound, but it was the only way we could share music between us (our computers were all speaker-less). At about 2pm  nearly every work day we’d listen to Fleetwood Mac. It became a thing with us, a routine, an office tradition. After awhile we started calling the 2pm hour “Mac-time”.

3. I’ve always had a crush on Lindsey Buckingham’s voice.

4. It seems to me that whenever the word “never” is used it is always a later proven wrong proclamation. How many times have you swore “I’m never going to” do something, say something, be with someone, go back to someone, drink again? And how many times later – sometimes a lot later, sometimes only hours or days later – have you gone and done that never thing, the one you swore against with all of your vigor and conviction? I love the “been down one time, been down two times” line, and the opening of how “she broke down and let me in.” It all seems fraught with that “I promise you, never again…yet here I am…again” sentiment. For such a small and simple song, I feel like so much is conveyed.

5. I would have loved to seen Fleetwood Mac play during the Rumours tour. I’d love to see them now. They are one of those bands that I hope I get to cross of my Music “bucket list” someday.