World Turning

The first ever collaboration between keyboardist Christine McVie and guitarist Lindsey Buckingham, this song is loosely based on a track titled "The World Keeps on Turning," written by Fleetwood Mac founding member Peter Green. That tune, which can be found on the band's first album, also titled Fleetwood Mac, was released in 1968. Christine McVie recalled to Uncut: "Lindsay had this lick and didn't know what to do with it. We knocked around some vocal ideas and it happened very quickly - about half an hour."

McVie and Buckingham, who share lead vocals on the track, completely transformed "The World Keeps on Turning" to the point where they're the only credited writers. Peter Green's version that served as the original template is a blues song where he sings about his worries and longs for a woman. "World Turning" is much livelier, with a more philosophical lyric: People may get you down, but the world will keep turning, so you just need to keep pushing forward. It's a song that draws a clear dividing line between Peter Green's blues-based Fleetwood Mac and the new guard with Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks, who entered in 1975 (Green left in 1970). With those two in the lineup, their songs got a lot catchier and the band surged into the mainstream.

When Fleetwood Mac played this live, it was a showcase for drummer Mick Fleetwood, who would take his tom-tom to the front of the stage and do a solo. In later years, he rigged up a flak jacket with electric drum pads so he could put the tom-tom down and play himself, working the crowd with a headset mic.