Stop the clocks, the Songbird is gone into That Good Night

For you, there’ll be no more crying

For you, the sun will be shining 

And I feel that when I’m with you

It’s alright, I know it’s right


To you, I’ll give the world

To you, I’ll never be cold 

‘Cause I feel that when I’m with you

It’s alright, I know it’s right


And the songbirds are singing, 

Like they know the score

And I love you, I love you, I love you 

Like never before

            -Christine McVie, “Songbird”


Today I found out that Christine McVie, a member of the band Fleetwood Mac, has died. I feel shocked by it. From what I can gather, this was unexpected and sudden. It is very weird for me because I love the band so much. I was lucky enough to see them live a few years ago, but now I can’t ever again, at least not in the same way. 

Like what happens a lot when famous musicians die, I feel like I need to listen to all their music, especially the songs Christine McVie wrote. I already have, and I keep thinking about her one song off of the band’s album Rumours, “Songbird.” I have included a small section of the lyrics in the beginning of this post and a link to the full song below. Before today, I didn’t really pay that much attention to the song, but now I can’t stop listening. It is comforting and reassuring, hopeful and beautiful, captivating and lovely. 

I don’t know if its just a strange coincidence that we have been reading poems about death and grief this week in class, including W.H. Auden’s “Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone” and Dylan Thomas’ “Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night.” In both poems, the speakers convey a sincere and passionate outpouring of grief over the death of significant figures in their lives. (One could read Auden’s poem as too dramatic and emotional, and thus as a kind of satire. But instead, I think it is an accurate depiction of grief as something that is exaggerated and irrational.) I obviously did not know Christine McVie personally, and I cannot mourn her like I did, but I can’t help but feel connected to her. Her and Fleetwood Mac’s music means a lot to me. It just resonates with me in a way I can’t quite explain it. (It doesn’t hurt, either, that they have written such incredible and moving lyrics, like with “Songbird”.) 

The despair the speakers express is not equal to my feelings about Christine McVie’s passing, but, to someone else it is. Someone else is in this moment of great emotion and grief; somebody else is feeling this way about somebody else too. And in these moments of baffling emotion, it is no wonder we turn to others—to their art, music, songs, literature, and poems—so that we can know we are not alone in our emotions. Right now I can’t relate to Auden or Thomas’ grief, but that doesn’t mean someone else in the world can’t either. It doesn’t mean that someone else is listening to “Songbird” and not feeling anything toward it. And that is what I love about art. It makes us feel, it shows that we are not alone in the world, and it unites us all together. 

I will miss Christine McVie very much, but I will always have her songs when I need them. 



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