Buckingham Nicks A/U Series Part 1: Over My Head

And It Sure Feels Nice

***Foreshadowing and dirty stuff ahead!***

Sound City Studio
Los Angeles, California
Monday, January 6, 1975
(Afternoon)
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"It's called 'Landslide' and I wrote it in Aspen."

Stevie was standing in the middle of the studio, holding a bunch of hand-written lyrics on paper, a few notations about guitar chords in the margins. It was their first official day as members of Fleetwood Mac, and Stevie knew that she'd only been invited to join the band because of Lindsey, so she'd come with her A-Game...or at least that's what she'd called it to Lindsey this morning in bed, while the sunlight streamed in from the windows and she groaned her way into his arms for one last tired moment before getting up to take care of the dog and get into the shower. She had a long day ahead; she'd given Clementine's two weeks' notice and she was on shift after this band rehearsal. Mick had told her she was crazy to do such a thing, but she'd simply smiled and shrugged in her bell-bottom jeans and her white blouse tied halfway up her flat stomach, and said, "My mother told me there's dignity in all jobs and therefore you should treat each job with dignity."

Mick was already in love with her.

"When were you guys in Aspen?" Christine asked, setting up a few features on the keyboard as she prepared to warm up before playing. "That's a place Johnny and I were saying we'd like to go do some skiing...Aspen or Breckenridge. Which do you recommend, Stevie?"

"Neither! I am a Southwest gal!" Stevie chuckled, tucking a strand of hair behind her ears as she looked through the papers in her hands. "Besides, we didn't ski...Lindsey was working...it's a long story."

Stevie had known Christine McVie for exactly a week and she liked her a lot...a lot more than she'd anticipated so quickly. Christine was five years older than she was at thirty-one, and she'd told Stevie over dinner that she'd been in a music band in one form or another since she was fourteen years old, having been in Chicken Shack for years before Fleetwood Mac and her marriage to John. She was a witty woman, a lot of fun, a riot without even meaning to be...but Stevie wasn't ready to open up to her about Aspen - Lindsey's failed attempt at working with Don Everly, her time spent networking the city and wondering if she was better off quitting her music and her relationship and moving back home, the big fight with Lindsey that had ended with him abandoning her with strep throat and only forty dollars and crying to her parents for a plane ticket, and the baby they'd conceived and then lost just weeks before Keith Olsen's phone call.

"Well...let's hear 'Landslide', Stevie," Christine said, lighting a cigarette and sitting down at the keyboard facing the other direction to watch Stevie.

"Linds, grab your guitar and play for me?" She looked over at Lindsey, who'd been oddly quiet all morning. She was smiling at him, looking at him so sweetly that for a moment, and Lindsey smiled back as he took up his guitar and sat down, as if they were speaking a hidden language to each other without words. Christine got a little jealous of the love that she saw between them.

"I took my love and I took it down," Stevie began to sing, not into a microphone but just sitting in a chair beside Lindsey, who was accompanying her on the guitar. "I climbed a mountain and I turned around...and I saw my reflection in the snow-covered hills till the landslide brought me down..."

Stevie sang the entire song for the three people who'd never heard it before, and Lindsey sat beside her and played. Christine, John and Mick sat and listened, and no one moved an inch until the song was over. When it was over, the three of them clapped, and Stevie hid her face in her hands until Mick stood up and said, "I think we're rich, kiddo. That was amazing! Are there more?"