Mick Fleetwood thinks it’s “cool” that his band’s classic tune “Dreams” is climbing the charts again.
Last month, Nathan Apodaca posted a TikTok video of himself skateboarding and chugging cranberry juice while lip-syncing to the Fleetwood Mac 1977 hit “Dreams.” The clip has been viewed over 30 million times, resulting in Apodaca being gifted a cranberry-hued truck from Ocean Spray and the Stevie Nicks penned song gaining over 8 million on-demand streams last week.
Fleetwood, 73, even made his own TikTok copying Apodaca and the two met up via a Zoom chat.
The British-born musician is humble about the video’s success chalking it up to a “moment of connectivity” that “just resonated.”
“It was a reach out with a smile,” he told Page Six from his home in Hawaii. “Here I am and here we go. It’s so what we need right now. And how cool is that?”
“It was sort of a huge accident. This is hugely gratifying and it’s fantastic,” he said.
Fleetwood Mac are as famous for their songs that defined the ’70s as much as their internecine squabbling, which has led to members leaving and returning.
The most recent was in 2018 when guitarist Lindsey Buckingham was fired.
Fleetwood, who says he spoke to Buckingham recently, “has no idea” if Buckingham will ever return.
He explained in a not very clear or succinct way: “I think the reality is without going into huge detail, one of the things I always say is that the disconnect happened and there were emotions that were somewhat not removable and there are personal things within the band and Lindsey’s world.
“All I can say is really openly is that Lindsey Buckingham and the work he has done with the band is never going to go away and we have a functioning band with the changes that we made. You know time heals and it was lovely to be able to talk with him.”
Fleetwood said the two spoke by phone after Fleetwood Mac founder Peter Green passed away age 73 in July.
“Lindsey said, ‘I know you’re really sad and of course, I was.’ And that’s what reconnected me and Lindsey. We had the greatest talk. It was like we’d just spoken five minutes ago.”
The drummer is looking forward to a post-COVID time where he can perform again and “there has to be a positive outcome of stories to be told by all of us.”
Fleetwood Mac's 'Rumours' is the "greatest gainer" this week on the Billboard Top 200 albums chart as it explodes in sales and jumps up the Top 200 albums chart to #13 from #27 last week as a result of Nathan Apodaca’s viral TikTok video featuring 'Dreams'. I believe the last time the album was this high on the charts was back in May, 2011 when the entire 'Rumours' album was featured in the Glee episode and it reached #11.
The 1988 Greatest Hits release also sees a major boost on the chart, jumping up to #61 this week from #103 last week.
DREAMS ROCKETS UP THE BILLBOARD HOT 100
'Dreams' re-enters the Billboard Top 100 singles chart at #21 this week based on sales, streams and radio play. The song took off following Nathan Apodaca’s viral TikTok video flying up the iTunes and Spotify song charts. The song is currently No.1 on iTunes in the US and has been for a number of days. This is the first time the song has been on the Hot 100 since August, 1977!
Mick Fleetwood And Friends are excited to be releasing a limited edition, green vinyl 12” of ‘The Green Manalishi (With The Two-Prong Crown)’ live from The London Palladium as part of Black Friday on 27th Nov to support independent record stores. This was recorded at the all-star, one-of-a-kind concert honouring the early years of Fleetwood Mac and its founder Peter Green and features Billy Gibbons and Kirk Hammett.
Huge impact on Fleetwood Mac's music particularly in the US but also in other countries (UK, Australia, New Zealand, Canada) where "Dreams" is having an impact as a result of the viral video featuring the track.
USA
Rumours moves up 20 spots on the Billboard Top 200 albums chart to #27 from #47 last week. Greatest Hits released in 1988 moves up to #103 from #169 last week. The Alternate Rumours limited edition vinyl album released for Record Store Day on September 26th enters the Billboard Top 200 at #164 on sales of 7,000 unit.
Elsewhere on the Billboard Charts:
Billboard Global 200 (popular songs [streams and downloads] on the planet)
#51 Dreams (new)
Billboard Global 200 Excl. US (outside the US, streams and downloads)
#161 Dreams (new)
STREAMING SONGS TOP 50
#36 Dreams (new)
DIGITAL TOP 50 SONG SALES
#9 Dreams (new)
TOP 25 ROCK DIGITAL SONG SALES
#1 Dreams (up from #19 last week) #10 The Chain (re-entry) #23 Go Your Own Way (re-entry) #25 Gypsy (new)
TOP 100 ALBUM SALES
#12 The Alternate Rumours (new) #29 Rumours #46 Greatest Hits
Stevie Nicks on Her Hopeful New Single ‘Show Them the Way’ and Her Fears for the Next Four Years.
In a conversation with Variety, Nicks describes the new song as "nonpartisan" and "a prayer." But she has strong feelings about everything from Ruth Bader Ginsburg to wearing masks, and talks about her fantasy exit path if we get four more years of the same.
Stevie Nicks wrote the lyrics for her new single, “Show Them the Way,” exactly three election cycles ago. But in the Cameron Crowe-directed video for the song, when someone is pictured holding up a sign that says “November is coming,” it’s clear that it’s this year’s election that’s weighing heavy on her mind.
“I did hold it back since 2008, and I just knew that right now, with the presidential election and everything else that’s going on, that this was the time,” Nicks tells Variety. “I hope that this song and its words will be seen as a prayer — a prayer for our country, and a prayer for the world. It’s a pretty heavy song. And,” she says of the newly recorded version, with Greg Kurstin as producer and Dave Grohl on drums, “I think it’s just a spectacular song.”
Is it a political one? “I hope people understand that it’s nonpartisan — that it’s not for Republicans, it’s not for Democrats. It’s meant to be a moment of peace for everyone, and… you know the silly thing where people say ‘Can’t everybody just get along?’ It’s like, can we just figure a way out of this horrific thing that we have walked into? That’s why I released this now.”
But calling the song nonpartisan doesn’t mean she lacks strong opinions about the seismic changes affecting the country, and which way she hopes things swing in a month. Asked what she means by “this horrific thing that we have walked into,” Nicks answers, without ever naming any names: “I just mean what’s happened to the country. Racism in the last four years is so much worse than it was. I’m 72 years old. I lived through the ‘60s. I’ve seen all this. I fought for Roe vs. Wade; that was my generation’s fight. And I don’t want to live in a country that is so divisive. I go, like, well, if this starts over and there’s another four years of this, then I’m going — but we’re not welcome anywhere. So where can I go? And I’m thinking: Oh, space. Maybe I can talk Elon Musk into giving us a jet and letting me pick 50 people, and we’re like the arc, and someone can take us and let us live on another planet until the next four years are over.”
Nicks says she’s releasing two versions of the song. “There’s an acoustic piano version with me and Greg Kurstin, my amazing producer,” she says, referring to the two-time Grammy producer of the year winner famous for Adele’s “Hello.” “And then we did this rock ‘n’ roll version of it too, with Dave Grohl playing drums and Dave Stuart (of Eurythmics fame) playing lead guitar from the middle out. And. Greg is the most amazing keyboardist; I was so blown away.”
The lyrics are, by her account, essentially a transcription of a dream she had during the Democratic primaries leading up to the 2008 presidential election, when she was in the studio and would come home every night and watch news and historical political documentaries on television every night.
“One night I had a dream that was so real, I was pretty sure it had happened,” Nicks says. “It’s a cinematic story; it had a beginning, a middle and an end, and every detail, every color, every smile was there. And I wrote the story when I woke up. The dream was: I was invited to a party to play the piano and sing a few songs. And nobody’s ever really asked me to come and be the entertainment for anything by myself, because I don’t play that well — so that’s how you know this was a dream, right?” she laughs. “But I had done three benefits in the Hamptons before, so that was up there in my brain somewhere. There were all these political people there, in the dream. The next day I wrote down the words, and then I made it into a poem, then I wrote the music the next day. And since I never recorded it till now, I felt that now was its time, its reason. I understood what it meant then and what it means now.”
Nicks hopes that it is a balm amid one of the most turmoil-fueled times the nation has known — but admits she finds little reason for abject calm with the coronavirus still running rampant. “I would never have put this song out if I didn’t hope that it might put some hope out into the world,” she says. “Because I think that everybody is very afraid and nervous, and we’re all locked in and can’t go anywhere and can’t do anything. People aren’t paying attention with their masks, and other people are getting it. And this virus has never going to go away if the whole world doesn’t get in the game and start wearing their masks and start doing everything you have to do. It’s like a creeping fungus. And it’s going to keep us all locked in our houses and it’s not going to help the economy. Nobody’s ever going to be able to really go back to full-on work, and nothing’s ever going to be the same unless we can get ahold of this thing.”
To her, this is still nonpartisan talk, though it may not be taken as such by all. “The whole thing has become so political. It’s not political, everybody! It’s not. It’s a virus. It doesn’t care what side you’re on. It’s going to kill you. And I’ve said that if I get it it’ll kill me. I have compromised lungs. I was really sick last year. The night of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame [which she was inducted into in 2019 as a solo artist after previously being in as a member of Fleetwood Mac], I knew before I went on stage that something was off, so I had to really like pull it together. The next day I got really sick, and I ended up going into the hospital in Philadelphia for a week in ICU with double pneumonia and and asthma. And talk about your oxygen levels going down — my oxygen levels were hardly existing. If I was to go on a ventilator… My mom was on a ventilator for a month, and she was hoarse for the rest of her life. All the other side effects that come along with this virus… You may get over it and just be like, ‘Great, I’m good. It’s gone.’ It’s not gone. It comes back in little ways to attack you forever.
“So you don’t want to get it. It’s like I’ve built a thin shield of magical plastic around me, you know? Because I don’t want my career to be over. I don’t want to not pull on those leather boots again.”
The “Show Them the Way” video includes a brief glimpse of the Ruth Bader Ginsburg. To many of the rest of us, she may be “RBG” for short, but to Nicks, “I just call her Ruth. Ruth — oh my God, I was just so sorry she couldn’t have hung on for a couple more months. But God bless her. I think she had pancreatic cancer about five different times. It’s the worst cancer you can get, and how she did it, and worked out with her trainer every day — how in the world did that little lady do it? Because she knew how important it was that she stay on this earth as long as she could. And she did her best. She’s our little icon. We’ll never forget her.”
Nicks was speaking with Variety not just about her new studio single, but about her live concert film, “Stevie Nicks 24 Karat Gold The Concert,” which will be hitting theaters and drive-ins — the ones that are open, obviously — for a two-night engagement Oct. 21 and 25, to be followed by a live audio album of the same material Oct. 30. For an in-depth interview with Nicks about that project, look to Variety next week.
Stevie Nicks has released the powerful rock ballad “Show Them the Way.” This is Nicks’ first new solo song since releasing her 2014 LP 24 Karat Gold.
Greg Kurstin produced the anthemic new track. Two official versions have been released: an acoustic, piano-only take and a full-band recording that features Dave Stewart on guitar and Dave Grohl on drums. Citing Martin Luther King Jr., John Lewis and John F. Kennedy, Nicks looks for guidance from great leaders while looking to the future. The song is inspired by a real dream Nicks had where she was playing a benefit in the Hamptons, preparing herself to sing for the likes of MLK Jr., Lewis and the Kennedys. “Someone said, ‘Sing us a song, there’s a piano’/And handed me a drink/The room was full of hope/A song would set them free,” she delivers on the vivid tune.
In an interview arriving at a later date, Nicks revealed to Rolling Stone that she had originally penned the song in 2008. She was in St. Charles, Illinois editing a concert film at the time and returned to the house she was staying in to flip through the TV channels. Over the course of the two months that she lived there, she ended up watching several historical documentaries about the same figures that inspired “Show Them the Way.”
“I watched it all,” she tells Rolling Stone. “Then, what happened was, one night I went to bed and I had this dream. I dream a lot, but I almost never remember the dreams. I’ll wake up and I’ll go, ‘I remember a train with some people smiling and waving at me that went by really fast,’ and that’s it. This dream was so really real that there was a little bit of me, for a minute, when I sat up was like, ‘Did that just really happen?’ So I wrote it down just in prose. I didn’t write it down in a seven verse poem. I wrote down what had happened.”
Towards the end of “Show Them the Way,” Nicks meets a shadow who represents her mom, who worked at a prisoner of war base outside of Phoenix. The figure reminds her: “Don’t forget what we were fighting for,” a quote the singer’s mother had repeated throughout her life.
She considered putting “Show Them the Way” on her 2011 album In Your Dreams, but had presented it to her collaborators at the time too late. “I said, ‘OK, I totally get it, and it really doesn’t go with the rest of these songs, it would be an outlier on this,'” she explains, adding that she wanted it to feel like the right time for the song to be out in the world. “I think the world is calling for it right now.”
Later this month, Nicks’ 24 Karat Gold concert film will screen at select cinemas and drive-ins for two nights only.
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