Of the four Fleetwood Mac songs I have on my phone – I do have 13 on my ‘Liked Songs’ list on Spotify, which I look forward to using more often when I’m done with this – three of them are by everybody’s favourite, Lindsey Buckingham. I joke. I think it’s very clear, somehow, that Stevie Nicks runs miles clear as being something of the face of the band, even though the strength of the Mac was always based on the variety provided by the three main songwriters (Buckingham, Nicks and Christine McVie). But I don’t know what it is when it comes to Buckingham’s songs. They always seem to scratch an itch when it comes to my own taste. I like many more McVie songs than Nicks’ too, but I’m digressing. It’s a Buckingham song I’m on about today, and it opens up an album I know, you know, everybody knows. The one, the only, Rumours.

We know the story. The record was recorded at a time when no-one in the band was in each other’s good books to say the least, and so the songwriters started writing about each other in their respective numbers. ‘Second Hand News’ opens the LP up with the lyric that encapsulates the entire situation, ‘I know there’s nothing to say/Someone has taken my place’. In this case, Buckingham and Nicks had ended their relationship and were most likely seeing other people. But ‘Second Hand News’ isn’t so much of a put down. Not like ‘Go Your Own Way’, sheesh. Instead, it’s more of a note to Nicks, seemingly waving her off and wishing her well as she goes into another relationship while also cheekily laying down the option that, if things don’t work out with this other guy, he’ll be there to be the rebound.

First time I heard Rumours was sometime in 2012, around then, and I gotta say ‘Second Hand News’ was an immediate hit with me, solidifying itself as one just after Buckingham comes in with those wordless vocals that act as the chorus after the introductory verses. You always need a good opener on an album. Something to get you excited for what’s to come. And I’ve always thought ‘Second Hand News’ does a good job in that department. It possesses a real driving momentum from the moment that acoustic guitar strides into the frame in the opening seconds, and the goodness only continues to build from there. Elements slowly enter the soundscape bit by bit, like those harmonising “ahh-ahh” backing vocals that come in before the second ‘chorus’ or that droning organ that comes during the second half of it, all among the propelling direction of the music led by the chair percussion and propelling acoustic guitar chords. The song reaches its cathartic peak as Buckingham belts out the song’s title in the middle of more harmonies and a rocking guitar solo that eventually closes everything out. And bear in mind, this is just how the album starts. Thumbs up from me.