Fleetwood Mac - I Don't Wanna Know

Fleetwood Mac aren't the kind of band you choose to write about lightly. This is a whole new league.

I was a latecomer to Fleetwood Mac fandom. I'm particularly ashamed to say that I didn't even own a copy of Rumours until late 2013. But that happened to be a particularly tumultuous period in my life and if ever there was a right time to discover the Mac, it was then. I had a little ritual back then. Whenever I was having a bad day (of which that year gave me plenty) I'd put this album on in my car wherever it was I was driving and turn it up loud. Depression and darkness would be erased almost completely within the 3 minutes and 15 seconds it took for this song to finish.

These are not a particularly deep set of lyrics. But the greater of the problems that plagued me then were, as ever, at least somewhat related to love. Yet at the time I found no solace in traditional love songs because all they ever offered me was a description of someone else's heartache, or a lament for the lack of love felt.

So when I heard the first line of this song, I was pleased to find a very mature and balanced approach to the madness that is being in love.

I don't wanna know the reasons why / love keeps right on walking down the line / I don't wanna stand between you and love honey / I just want you to feel fine.

And I didn't. I didn't care about reasons anymore. I guess I felt like more reasons weren't going to change anything. Whether or not reasons made me feel better was really irrelevant. Because they couldn't change what had happened. So driving around with the windows down and this song blaring was my remedy for the darkness that tried its best to invade my life at that time. There would be a time for uncovering reasons, but it wasn't then.

I now know the reasons, but that doesn't change my love for this song and the gratitude I still feel for the role it played in maintaining my sanity. In 2015 I saw Fleetwood Mac perform live here in my home town as part of their first tour with the original Rumours line up since 1998. Some people inevitably enter a stadium feeling as if they're owed something purely because they bought a ticket; but not me. For me, it was simply be a privilege to watch some of the world's most talented musicians do their thing.