Originally published: February 1977
Rating: 9/10 — Spitecore at its finest. Beautiful. Petty. Iconic.
If “The Chain” were a person, it would be your ex showing up to your wedding, looking incredible, making meaningful eye contact, and then vanishing in a cloud of cigarette smoke.
This song isn’t written — it’s forged. It sounds like what happens when five people in a band try to kill each other with musical instruments.
“And if you don’t love me now / You will never love me again.”
That’s not a chorus. That’s a threat.
Let’s be honest: the verses are fine. They simmer. There’s Stevie Nicks, sounding like a heartbroken witch in an expensive coat, muttering about the wind and loyalty and some kind of metaphorical wildfire. Lindsey Buckingham snarls back like a man who brought a thesaurus to a divorce. Everyone’s pretending to be calm — and then that bassline hits.
Oh, the bassline. It’s the real main character here. It doesn’t enter the song. It descends, like judgment. Like someone just said, “Actually, I’m not over it,” and throws a drink in your face.
“It’s less a song and more a hostage negotiation set to perfect vocal layering.”
And just when you think it’s over, they unleash that outro — a galloping, country-doom jam that sounds like you’re being chased through the desert by your unresolved feelings.
It’s so good, you forget the band was crumbling into emotional ash during the recording. Or maybe that’s why it’s so good. You can’t fake this kind of chaos. You bleed it onto tape.
Sure, it’s dramatic. Sure, it’s a little indulgent. But “The Chain” doesn’t care what you think — it already threw your opinion into a bonfire behind the studio.
“This is what happens when breakups go platinum.”
And if you don’t love it now?
You will never love it again.