"Over My Head"

Fleetwood Mac may have gone bold in 1975 by opening their first album sporting a reshuffled line up with a song that featured one of the brand new members.  But when it came to choosing the first single from that album, their record company played it safe and chose a song by long time band member and familiar vocalist Christine McVie.

Not that her voice would have truly meant anything to radio audiences.  By 1975, Fleetwood Mac was nothing more than a mid-level rock band with a handful of album cuts that had been FM radio favorites.  And only a couple of those had featured Christine.  It wasn’t as though fans were clamoring for something new by her.

But once the album Fleetwood Mac had come out in July of 1975, the first single chosen from the record that fall was Christine’s song “Over My Head.”  It was a choice that surprised everyone in the band.  Christine herself admitted to Keyboard Magazine that she thought it was the “least likely track on Fleetwood Mac to be released as a single.”  But someone at the record company clearly heard the song’s potential.  “Over My Head” also surprised everyone in the group by reaching the Top 20 on the Billboard charts.  And with that accomplishment, it became the first single to make the Hot 100 since Peter Green’s “Oh Well” took Fleetwood Mac to #55 six years earlier.

A good part of the appeal of “Over My Head” may be that it was written to express a genuine emotion.  When Lindsey Buckingham first started collaborating with Christine in the studio, Lindsey recalled that “it was so clear that right away that Christine and I had this thing.  She was just really looking for direction.  She was open to me taking liberties with her songs. So early on,…the first thing that hit me about being in Fleetwood Mac was being extremely aware that I had something to contribute to Christine’s songs as a producer and possibly as a co-writer.”

You can imagine the excitement Christine must have felt to have an eager and talented partner to create music with.  And you can hear how she felt in the song.  It may have been overwhelming to be working with that newly revitalized line up in Fleetwood Mac, but as Christine herself put it, “I’m over my head, but it sure feels nice.”

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Skip ahead to 4:05 to hear the live version of “Over My Head” recorded for the TV program The Midnight Special.