Fleetwood Mac Songs: 9 Hits Played, 1 at Number One

By Charlie · Published October 12, 2026

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Fleetwood Mac songs of the 1970s split into two eras, and this page plays nine from the second one.

Only five made a Year-End Hot 100, and Dreams reached number one for a week in June 1977.

Rumours, the album behind four of them, was recorded while two couples in the band were splitting up.

Press Play on every hit below, then read the story behind each one.

Fleetwood Mac, from left: Mick Fleetwood, Christine McVie, John McVie, Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham, in a 1977 Rumours advertisement.

Image credit: Warner Bros. Records, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons (Billboard, June 25, 1977).

Fleetwood Mac Songs: Play All 9 Hits

Here are nine Fleetwood Mac singles from the 1970s.

Five come from this site's Year-End Hot 100 data, and four charted on the weekly Hot 100 only.

Press Play on any row to watch it here, and tap a heading to sort.

Year is the year-end list year for the five ranked songs.

For the other four, it is the single's release year.

Year-End Rank is the song's spot on that year's Billboard Year-End Hot 100.

It is blank for songs that list left out.

Weekly Hot 100 Peak comes from each song's Wikipedia article.

The #1 Hit flag comes from this site's own weekly data.

The Numbers Behind the Hits

Only five Fleetwood Mac songs made a 1970s Year-End Hot 100, and they all landed in 1976 and 1977.

The band had no entry in 1970, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1974, 1975, 1978 or 1979.

That is a tight window, because the lineup behind them had only come together at the end of 1974.

Three Ways to Read Fleetwood Mac Songs

The year-end list and the weekly chart tell different stories here.

• Dreams ranks #39 for 1977, the best year-end rank of any Fleetwood Mac song.
• It was also their only number one in the decade.
• Go Your Own Way ranks only #94 for 1977, even though it reached number 10 on the weekly chart.
• Tusk and Sara reached number 8 and number 7 on the weekly chart.
• Neither is on a year-end list in this site's data.

For every chart-topper of the decade, see the full list of 70s number one hits.

Two Fleetwood Macs: Blues Band to Pop Giants

Peter Green and a London Blues Band

Peter Green formed Fleetwood Mac in London in July 1967, after he left John Mayall's Bluesbreakers.

Mick Fleetwood was his rhythm-section partner in that first band.

It grew out of John Mayall's blues group, a long way from the radio sound the name carries today.

Peter Green and Mick Fleetwood on stage in Hannover, Germany, March 18, 1970.

Image credit: Photo by Herbert Weber, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

The Bob Welch Years

Bob Welch, an American singer and guitarist, joined in 1971 after the band heard a tape of his songs.

Wikipedia says they hired him without ever playing with him first.

He stayed until 1974, then left to go solo, just before the lineup everyone remembers arrived.

New Year's Eve, 1974

Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks joined on New Year's Eve 1974.

Mick Fleetwood had met Buckingham at Sound City Studios.

Nicks came on the condition that she be included too.

Mick Fleetwood on drums and John McVie on bass stayed on.

Christine McVie played keyboards and sang, according to Wikipedia.

Every song in the playable list above comes from that five-person band.

If you want another act from the same decade, the Random Artist Picker will pull one for you.

The 1975 Album That Took More Than a Year to Reach Number One

The first album with the new lineup was simply called Fleetwood Mac.

It came out on July 11, 1975.

It was recorded at Sound City Studios in Van Nuys, California.

It debuted at number 183 on the chart dated August 2, 1975, and first peaked at number nine.

Then it climbed again.

It reached number one on the chart dated September 4, 1976, more than a year after it entered.

The RIAA certified it 9 times platinum for US sales.

Three songs from it are in the playable list, and the first single is the least remembered.

Over My Head

Christine McVie wrote Over My Head and sang the lead.

Reprise chose it as the lead single, and it came out in September 1975.

It reached number 20 on the Hot 100, according to Wikipedia.

It was the warm-up for the two singles that followed.

Rhiannon

Stevie Nicks wrote Rhiannon after reading a novel called Triad by Mary Bartlet Leader, which mentions a Welsh legend.

She said she had to write something about the character.

She only learned in early 1978 that Rhiannon was a Welsh goddess.

The single followed in February 1976 and reached number 11.

Nicks often introduced it live as a song about an old Welsh witch.

Mick Fleetwood later recalled her performance of it as being like an exorcism.

The song was played on every Fleetwood Mac tour from 1975 to 1982, according to Wikipedia.

Say You Love Me

Christine McVie wrote Say You Love Me too.

It was the first song the band rehearsed for the album.

The single came out in June 1976 and also reached number 11, holding there for three weeks.

The single version adds overdubbed guitar and a faster fade-out than the album cut.

It is a good example of the gentler 70s soft rock side of the band.

Rumours: Four Top 10 Singles From a Breakup Record

Rumours came out on February 4, 1977.

Most of it was recorded in 1976 at the Record Plant in Sausalito, California.

Wikipedia says the sessions took place while Christine and John McVie divorced.

Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks also ended their relationship for good.

Mick Fleetwood's wife also left him for his best friend.

Two of the singles below were written about those splits, and the band recorded them together anyway.

Rumours spent 31 non-consecutive weeks at number one on the Billboard 200.

It won Album of the Year at the 1978 Grammy Awards, according to Wikipedia's article on the album.

Wikipedia also says it had sold over 40 million copies worldwide as of February 2023.

The top of the chart was crowded, as the story of Carpenters songs from a few years earlier shows.

Go Your Own Way

Lindsey Buckingham wrote Go Your Own Way as a reply to his breakup with Stevie Nicks.

It was the lead single, released on December 20, 1976, and it reached number 10 on March 12, 1977.

Buckingham was inspired by the drum feel of the Rolling Stones' Street Fighting Man.

Mick Fleetwood built his own pattern across the tom-toms, with the bass drum on the middle beat.

He described his playing as capitalizing on his own ineptness.

Don't Stop

Christine McVie wrote Don't Stop, and it came out in the US in June 1977.

It reached number three on the Hot 100 in September 1977.

She wrote it about her separation from John McVie after eight years of marriage.

Wikipedia says he did not know what it was about until the record came out.

The basic track was cut on March 16, 1976, under the working title Yesterday's Gone.

Buckingham sang the first verse and McVie the second, with Nicks on backing vocals.

In 1992 Bill Clinton used it as the theme of his presidential campaign.

It played during the balloon drop on the final night of the Democratic National Convention.

After he won, Clinton asked the band to play it at his 1993 inaugural ball.

You Make Loving Fun

Christine McVie wrote You Make Loving Fun as the fourth and final single from Rumours.

It came out in September 1977 and reached number nine.

Wikipedia says it was inspired by her affair with the band's lighting director, Curry Grant.

To avoid trouble with her husband, she said the song was about her dog.

The record leans on a Rhodes piano, a Hohner Clavinet through a wah-wah pedal, and a Hammond organ.

Dreams: One Week at Number One, Then 2020

Stevie Nicks wrote Dreams, and Wikipedia quotes her saying she wrote it in about 10 minutes.

She wrote it at the Record Plant in Sausalito, during the Rumours sessions.

It was released on March 24, 1977.

On June 18, 1977, it became the band's first number one in this site's weekly data.

It held the top spot for one week, and ranks #39 on the 1977 year-end list.

A Skateboard and a Cran-Raspberry Juice

In 2020 a man named Nathan Apodaca posted a video of himself skateboarding to work.

He drank Ocean Spray cran-raspberry juice and lip-synced to Dreams.

Wikipedia says the video drew over 50 million views.

The song reached number one on the Billboard Rock Digital Song Sales chart in October 2020.

It also re-entered the Hot 100 at number 21 on October 17, 2020.

The next week it rose to number 12.

Wikipedia adds that Rolling Stone ranked it number nine on its 2021 list of the 500 Greatest Songs.

To test what you know about the decade, take the 70s Music Trivia Quiz.

Tusk and Sara: The 1979 Double Album

Tusk arrived in 1979 as a 20-track double album.

Two singles from it are in the playable list.

Neither made a 1970s year-end list in this site's data.

Tusk and a Marching Band

Lindsey Buckingham wrote Tusk and sang it, and it came out on September 21, 1979.

It reached number eight on the Hot 100 and held there for three weeks.

It grew out of a rehearsal riff Buckingham played at sound checks, with the working title Stage Riff.

Mick Fleetwood asked for the USC Trojan Marching Band.

The band recorded with 112 members at Dodger Stadium.

The venue was secured for free through Dodgers player Ron Cey.

Sara and Its Many Subjects

Stevie Nicks wrote Sara, and it came out on December 5, 1979, as the second single from Tusk.

It reached number seven on the Hot 100, according to Wikipedia.

The album version runs 6 minutes and 22 seconds, and the single edit runs 4 minutes and 37 seconds.

Nicks said in the early 1990s that it was partly about her friend Sara Recor.

Don Henley claimed it was about their unborn child.

In a 2014 Billboard interview, Nicks said that account was accurate but not the entirety of it.

Who Wrote What: McVie, Nicks and Buckingham

Three writers share all nine Fleetwood Mac songs in the playable list.

Christine McVie wrote four, Stevie Nicks wrote three, and Lindsey Buckingham wrote two.

The table shows who wrote each song and when it came out.

It also shows how high each climbed on the weekly Hot 100.

Keep Exploring

Fleetwood Mac songs of the 70s are the sound of five people turning private trouble into public hits.

The year-end list keeps only five of them, and the weekly chart tells the rest of the story.

Sources

Year-end ranks and Hot 100 number ones come from this site's own Billboard data, described on the methodology page.

Every list on Music of the 70s plays inside the page.

Peaks, dates and stories behind the Fleetwood Mac songs above can be checked against these outside sources:

• Wikipedia: Fleetwood Mac for the formation, the Bob Welch years, and the 1974 lineup.
• Wikipedia: Fleetwood Mac (1975 album) and Rumours for release dates, chart runs and the recording sessions.
• Wikipedia: Dreams for the writing, the number one and the 2020 revival.
• Wikipedia: Go Your Own Way and Don't Stop for the writing stories and the Clinton campaign.
• Wikipedia: Rhiannon, Say You Love Me, Over My Head and You Make Loving Fun for peaks and recording notes.
• Wikipedia: Tusk and Sara for the 1979 singles.

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