Go Your Own Way

"Go Your Own Way" is a song by British-American rock band Fleetwood Mac from their eleventh studio album, Rumours (1977). The song was released as the album's first single in December 1976 on both sides of the Atlantic. Written and sung by Lindsey Buckingham, it became the band's first top-ten hit in the United States. "Go Your Own Way" has been well received by music critics and was ranked number 120 by Rolling Stone magazine on their list of 500 greatest songs of all time in 2010, and re-ranked number 401 in 2021. They also ranked the song second on their list of the 50 greatest Fleetwood Mac songs. Recorded in three separate studios, the track was developed over a period of four months. As with most tracks on the Rumours album, none of the instruments were recorded live together; the tracks were instead completed through a series of overdubs. Lyrically, "Go Your Own Way" is about Buckingham's breakup with bandmate and former lover Stevie Nicks. Composition "Go Your Own Way" was written at a house the band rented in Florida between legs of their Fleetwood Mac Tour and was the first song Buckingham presented to the band for the Rumours album. Mick Fleetwood, the band's drummer, remembered that the house had a "distinctly bad vibe to it, as if it were haunted, which did nothing to help matters…". Buckingham wrote "Go Your Own Way" in what he described as "a stream of consciousness". "There was nothing about it that was thought out. It was just the raw expression of the emotion behind the song." When Buckingham presented the song to producer Ken Caillat, the latter was unsure if the song had any potential. "Lindsey was beating his acoustic guitar as hard as he could and screaming his lungs out. The first time I heard it, I thought, What the heck is going on? It sounded so non-musical. I didn’t know if anything would come from it."