Stevie Nicks Posts Letter Grieving for Former Fleetwood Mac Bandmate Christine McVie: ‘See You on the Other Side, My Love’

Photo via Stevie Nicks on Twitter.

Stevie Nicks shared her heartbreak over the death of Christine McVie, calling her former Fleetwood Mac bandmate her “best friend in the whole world since the first day of 1975” in a handwritten letter she posted on her social media accounts.

McVie passed away Wednesday morning after a brief illness, her family and the band announced in separate statements. Before posting her letter, Nicks initially retweeted the statement from the official Fleetwood Mac account, which said there were “no words to describe our sadness at the passing of Christine McVie,” whom they called “truly one-of-a-kind, special and talented beyond measure” and “the best musician anyone could have in their band and the best friend anyone could have in their life.”

McVie joined Fleetwood Mac in 1970 after contributing as a session musician on the band’s prior albums and marrying bassist John McVie in 1968. The McVies moved with band founder Mick Fleetwood to the United States in 1974, where they met Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham, forming the team that would catapult the band to superstardom.

Nicks and McVie’s contrasting-but-complementary singing styles were a key part of Fleetwood Mac’s unique sound, and the two women’s names are prominently featured in the songwriting credits for many of the band’s biggest hits.

“A few hours ago I was told that my best friend in the whole world since the first day of 1975, had passed away,” wrote Nicks in the letter she posted on her Twitter and Instagram accounts, adding that she had not even known McVie was ill until late Saturday night.

Since then, Nicks continued, “one song has been swirling around in my head, over and over and over.”

“I thought I might possibly get to sing it to her, and so, I’m singing it to her now,” she wrote. “It’s all I can do now.”

Nicks then posted some of the lyrics from “Hallelujah,” a song by the three sisters in the band Haim:

I had a best friend
But she has come to pass
One I wish I could see now
You always remind me
That memories will last
These arms reach out
You were there to protect me like a shield
Long hair running with me through the field
Everywhere,  you’ve been with me all along

Why me? How’d I get this hallelujah?
Why me? How’d I get this hallelujah?
Why me? How’d I get this hallelujah?

“See you on the other side, My Love,” Nicks closed the letter. “Don’t forget me — Always, Stevie.”

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