"Over My Head" is a song recorded by British-American rock band Fleetwood Mac for their self-titled 1975 album. The song was written by keyboardist and vocalist Christine McVie. "Over My Head" was the band's first single to reach the Billboard Hot 100 since "Oh Well", ending a six-year dry spell on the American charts.[2]
Christine McVie composed the song using a portable Hohner electric piano in a small apartment in Malibu, California, where she and then-husband John McVie (Fleetwood Mac's bassist) resided after completing a concert tour to promote Heroes Are Hard to Find, which was the album that preceded the band's 1975 self-titled release.[3]
Christine McVie said that the lyrics were inspired by her relationship with bandmate Lindsey Buckingham. "I think that was based on a sort of fantasy about Lindsey, really. I think that was a sort of an ode to the gorgeous Lindsey at the time."[4][5] The original rhythm track consisted of just vocals, drums and a Dobro. Other instruments were added later to embellish the song, including McVie's Vox Continental organ.[6] Buckingham used open D tuning on the studio version and also kept a Fender Stratocaster with the same tuning onstage for early live performances.[7] He also played some guitar harmonics during certain portions of the song.[8] In a 2025 interview with the Library of Congress, Buckingham said that he was also responsible for reworking the song's bridge.[9]
The first night of rehearsal, we did [Christine’s] "Over My Head" and I changed the bridge. It was too angular originally. It didn’t go from where the song begins and it was hard to come back to where it had to go. Christine was open to it; she saw that the song immediately improved.
In the U.S., Reprise Records selected "Over My Head" as the lead single from the 1975 LP Fleetwood Mac, a decision that surprised McVie, who believed that "Over My Head" was an unlikely choice for a single.[6] Nevertheless, the song reached No. 20 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in early 1976. The single's success helped the group's eponymous 1975 album sell eight million units.[10] The commercial success of "Over My Head" was partially attributed to a $25,000 AM radio campaign that used the recording as its theme song.[6]
Single remix
The 45 RPM single version of the song released for radio airplay was a remixed, edited version that differed from the version on the Fleetwood Mac album.[8] The decision to remix the song was made by Paul Ahearn, who the band hired as an independent PR man to provide suggestions on attaining radio airplay. Ahearn believed that some of the songs, including "Over My Head", were not mixed properly for radio and needed to be remixed.[3]
The single version is distinguished by a cold start rather than the fade-in intro on the LP version, louder guitar strums in the choruses, and different vocal harmonies.[2][3] Additionally, the single version fades during its three-bar instrumental outro[11] whereas the album version tape-loops it to six bars upon fade-out. Further, while the album version has a relatively wide stereo image, the single version is mixed narrowly (essentially mono) with stereo reverberation effects on some bongo passages and select guitar flourishes. The single remix was completed by Deke Richards, who had previously worked with the Jackson 5 on some of their earlier hits.[3]
The aforementioned remixed/edited version is the one included on the compilation album The Very Best of Fleetwood Mac. The single version is also available as a bonus track on the 2004 remastered CD release of the album Fleetwood Mac.[12]
Critical reception
Cash Box wrote that "versatility is again demonstrated with a boiling rhythm subtly driving a soft McCartney-like vocal, shaded by organ and sweet, answering harmony."[13]Record World said the song has a "clean, confident folk-rock sound" and that "Christine McVie takes the lead here over a network of jangly acoustic guitars, singing in a rich, deep voice."[14] In a 1975 review, Billboard described McVie's vocal performance as "a completely distinctive voice, with a sexy huskiness that is unique in pop today."[15]
Matthew Greenwald of AllMusic described "Over My Head" as "another great example of Christine McVie's restrained craftsmanship." He praised the song's "simple but eloquent" lyrics, jazzy melody, and chord changes that evoked the work of Burt Bacharach.[16]The Guardian and Paste ranked the song number 17 and number 11 respectively on their lists of the 30 greatest Fleetwood Mac songs.[17][18]
1 2 Roubin, Olivier; Ollivier, Romuald (1 April 2025). Fleetwood Mac: All The Songs. New York: Black Dog Leventhal Publishers. p.338. ISBN978-0-7624-8630-4.
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