Christine McVie was one of the most influential members of Fleetwood Mac.
The legendary songstress wrote and performed on some of the band’s most beloved songs during their heyday in the late 1970s. But only one song could be considered her signature anthem, and that song was “Songbird.”
Written solely by McVie and appearing on the iconic 1977 album Rumours, “Songbird” wasn’t released as a single. But it became a fan favorite and one of Fleetwood Mac’s most iconic songs from their No.1 album.
The delicate piano ballad featured lyrics about strength and unconditional love and hope.
McVie, who died in 2022 at age 79, once revealed that “Songbird” came to her out of nowhere.
“For some peculiar reason I wrote ‘Songbird’ in half an hour,” she told People magazine in 2017. “I’ve never been able to figure out how I did that.”
“I woke up in the middle of the night, and the song was there in my brain… chords, lyrics melody, everything,” McVie shared. “I played it in my bedroom and didn’t have anything to tape it on. So I had to stay awake all night so I wouldn’t forget it, and I came in the next morning to the studio and had [producer] Ken Callait put it on a 2-track. That was how the song ended up being. I don’t know where that came from.”
In 2015, McVie told Mojo that “Songbird” felt like a “gift from the angels,” per American Songwriter.
But she also worried she would forget the song overnight. McVie once admitted she was nervous to play the song for her bandmates, Mick Fleetwood, Stevie Nicks, Lindsey Buckingham, and her ex-husband John McVie.
“That was a strange little baby, that one,” McVie told The Guardian of the song. “I woke up in the middle of the night and the song just came into my head. … I sang it from beginning to end, everything. …I was frightened to play it again in case I’d forgotten it.”
“I played it nervously, but I remembered it,” she continued. “Everyone just sat there and stared at me. I think they were all smoking opium or something in the control room. I’ve never had that happen to me since. Just the one visitation. It’s weird.”
Not only did the band love the song, but fans did too.
Nearly 50 years later, “Songbird” is still remembered as one of the most beautiful songs on the Rumours album, after having become a concert showstopper for decades.
“When Christine played ‘Songbird,’ grown men would weep,” John McVie once said, per Rolling Stone. “I did every night.”
Related: Stevie Nicks Recorded One of Her Most Beautiful Songs Three Times—But It Was Never Released as a Single