Big Love

“Big Love” is the opening track on Fleetwood Mac’s 1987 album “Tango in the Night”, which was released through Warner Bros.

The pop-rock song is one of the group’s most interesting tracks vocally, with many grunts and noises on the track that led to many questions on who was actually singing on it. Despite many people thinking that Nicks sung on the track alongside Buckingham, it was actually only Buckingham, who used a variable speed oscillator to mimic a woman’s voice on some parts of the song. However, Nicks’ vocals do appear on the 12-inch version of the song.

Lyrically, the song could be interpreted as Buckingham trying to keep a love so pure and wonderful, that he’ll go the lengths of building “a house on a hill”, presumably away from anything and anyone that could disrupt their “big love”, hence the title of the song.

However, in an interview with Rolling Stone in 2005, Buckingham revealed his meaning behind the song:

“It was about a guy who was kind of a lonely guy on a hill in a house, kind of hanging out by himself. When I look back on it now, I’m still living on the same hill, but in a new house and with a family, from a whole different perspective. So the song has taken on kind of an irony.”

The music video for “Big Love” was filmed in 1987 and was directed by Daniel Kleinman. It was uploaded to Fleetwood Mac’s YouTube in 2018, and had a total of 8.7 million views as of the 18th August 2023.

Read the lyrics to “Big Love” here. 

*All information accurate at the time of publishing (18th August 2023).