Christine McVie, Fleetwood Mac, Fourth Grade, and You Make Loving Fun

Christine McVie of Fleetwood Mac died last week at age 79. Her death--like the deaths of pretty much every celebrity in the last several years--got me to reminiscing about my earliest associations with her and Fleetwood Mac. So, that took me back to 1977-78 and fourth grade. That was when Fleetwood Mac's blockbuster album Rumours was released. Now, of course, I don't remember the album being released, nor would I have had any interest in that. When you're a nine(ish) year old kid, music just sort of appears. You hear it on the radio and it never occurs to you where it came from or how it was created. 

When I think of Rumours, my mind invariably goes back to a girl who was in my fourth grade class at Peter Vetal Elementary in Detroit. I can still remember that she had meticulously braided dirty blonde hair, thick glasses, a prominent nose, she loved horses, and she loved Fleetwood Mac's Rumours. I don't remember this girl's name anymore, but I remember that she brought in several Breyer model horses for show-and-tell and she knew everything about them, and I remember she also brought in a vinyl copy of Rumours that our teacher, Mrs. Papa, let her play it on one of those bulky school record players that was wheeled around on a cart. (It was probably on a day right before a school break). The girl probably liked Rumours because her mom and/or dad liked it. The album does not strike me as one a kid finds on his/her/their own. But who knows?

Beyond hearing the album played in my fourth grade class, Rumours was ubiquitous in the late '70s. Almost the entire album was played on the radio at one time or another. "You Make Loving Fun" was the song that made the biggest impression on me at that time. There was something about that Christine McVie-penned (and sung) song that seemed very adult to me. It had a sultry and slinky quality that made it sound like something that I wasn't supposed to be hearing. I was old enough to have at least a vague idea of what sex was, and this song sounded like sex, like very grown-up sex with very grown-up ideas. At the same time, it was an earworm like most every other Christine McVie (and Fleetwood Mac) song. "You Make Loving Fun" is among a handful of songs that intrigue me as much now in 2022 as it did when I was a kid in the 1970s....and for that, I say, thank you Christine McVie.