<P> Following over two months in Sausalito, Fleetwood arranged a ten - day tour to give the band a break and fan feedback . After the concerts, recording resumed at venues in Los Angeles, including Wally Heider Studios . Christine McVie and Nicks did not attend most of the sessions and took time off until they were needed to record any remaining vocals . The rest of Fleetwood Mac, with Caillat and Dashut, struggled to finalise the overdubbing and mixing of Rumours after the Sausalito tapes were damaged by repeated use during recording; the kick and snare drum audio tracks sounded "lifeless". A sell - out autumn tour of the US was cancelled to allow the completion of the album, whose scheduled release date of September 1976 was pushed back . A specialist was hired to rectify the Sausalito tapes using a vari - speed oscillator . Through a pair of headphones which played the damaged tapes in his left ear and the safety master recordings in his right, he converged their respective speeds aided by the timings provided by the snare and hi - hat audio tracks . Fleetwood Mac and their co-producers wanted a "no - filler" final product, in which every track seemed a potential single . After the final mastering stage and hearing the songs back - to - back, the band members sensed they had recorded something "pretty powerful". </P> <P> In autumn 1976, while still recording, Fleetwood Mac showcased tracks from Rumours at the Universal Amphitheatre in Los Angeles . John McVie suggested the album title to the band because he felt the members were writing "journals and diaries" about each other through music . Warner Bros. confirmed the release details to the press in December and chose "Go Your Own Way" as a December 1976 promotional single . The label's aggressive marketing of 1975's Fleetwood Mac, in which links with dozens of FM and AM radio stations were formed across America, aided the promotion of Rumours . At the time, the album's advance order of 800,000 copies was the largest in Warner Bros .' history . </P> <P> Rumours was released on 4 February 1977 in the US and a week later in the UK . The front cover features a stylised shot of Fleetwood and Nicks dressed in her "Rhiannon" stage persona, while the back has a montage of band portraits; all the photographs were taken by Herbert Worthington . On 28 February 1977, after rehearsing at SIR Studios in Los Angeles, Fleetwood Mac started a seven - month - long promotional tour of America . Nicks has noted that, after performing mostly Rumours songs during gigs, the band initially encountered poor receptions from fans who were not accustomed to the new material . A one - off March performance at a benefit concert for United States Senator Birch Bayh in Indiana was followed by a short European tour of the UK, the Netherlands, France, and Germany in April . Nigel Williams of Uncut called Fleetwood Mac's performances "rock's greatest soap opera". "Dreams", released in March 1977, became the band's only number one on the US Billboard Hot 100 in June . </P> <P> Fleetwood Mac's main writers--Buckingham, Christine McVie and Nicks--worked individually on specific songs, but sometimes shared lyrics with each other . "The Chain" is the only track that all members, including Fleetwood and John McVie, collaborated on . All songs on Rumours concern personal, often troubled, relationships . According to Christine McVie, the fact that the lyricists were extensively focusing on the various separations became apparent to the band only with hindsight . "You Make Loving Fun" is about her boyfriend, Fleetwood Mac's lighting director, after she split from John . Nicks' "Dreams" details a breakup and has a hopeful message, while Buckingham's similar effort in "Go Your Own Way" is more pessimistic . After a short fling with a New England woman, he was inspired to write "Never Going Back Again", a song about the illusion of thinking that sadness will never occur again once feeling content with life . The lines "Been down one time / Been down two times" are in reference to the lyricist's efforts when persuading the woman to give him a chance . </P>

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