For the last 17 years, a worldwide army of online sleuths obsessively tried to figure out the title of what has been dubbed “the most mysterious song on the internet.” 

Now, they have the answer after a chance discovery by one intrepid researcher who triumphantly reported his breakthrough on online forum Reddit: it is called “Subways of Your Mind” and was recorded by a little-known 1980s German band called FEX.

The former band members are “absolutely overwhelmed” by the news, 68-year-old Michael Haedrich, who played keyboard and guitar and sang back-up vocals for FEX, told Der Spiegel magazine.

The band had been oblivious to the online phenomenon, he admitted.

How the mystery unfolded

The mystery began in 2007, when a German brother and sister uploaded a track online that they had digitized after originally recording it as teenagers on a cassette from the radio. As Rolling Stone reported in 2019, the tape mostly featured songs from popular bands like XTC and The Cure, as well as one particular song that remained a mystery — until now.

The German siblings asked for help to identify it and audiophiles soon took up the challenge.

The track did not show up in any music databases, but online sleuths tried to work out what instruments could be heard and analyzed the lead singer’s accent.

Initial attempts to identify the song, soon classified by many as being in the 1980s’ “New Wave” genre, yielded little.

It was only when the track was uploaded onto Reddit in 2019 that global interest exploded.

A Reddit subforum called “r/TheMysteriousSong” attracted tens of thousands of members, and the hunt was reported on in German media and beyond.

The big breakthrough finally came earlier this week when a user called “marijn1412” said he had identified the song as “Subways of Your Mind.”

He said he came across former FEX members while researching an event for up-and-coming bands that had been organized in the 1980s by a public broadcaster in northern Germany.

The Reddit user wrote that he had reached out to members of what was a four-piece outfit from the northern city of Kiel, who sent him a version of the mystery song, and revealed its long-sought-after name.

Marijn1412 wrote: “After I emailed him back that the song is actually quite a famous ‘lost song,’ he asked me not to go public with it until he spoke with his old band members. In the meantime, though, the song did get registered at [the German performance rights organization] GEMA and people found out about it. But I’m happy to say that the band members agreed for me to go public with it.”

Haedrich, who is still a musician, told Spiegel that it was the first time he had heard about the massive search effort.

“I thought it was amazing that someone was interested in music by a band that was only successful regionally, if at all, and that was over 40 years ago,” he said.

Haedrich, who lives in Munich, said the band members now want to reissue “Subways of Your Mind” and are trying to track down the original recording of the song.

Their success may have been decades in the making, but he said “for us, it has just come suddenly.”

Megan Thee Stallion is suing blogger Milagro Gramz and accusing her of purposely spreading false information on behalf of rapper Tory Lanez, who was found guilty of shooting Megan Thee Stallion in the foot in 2020.

The rapper, 29, filed the lawsuit on Wednesday in the Southern District of Florida under her legal name, Megan Pete, against the popular content creator who is legally known as Milagro Elizabeth Cooper.

In the lawsuit, Pete’s attorneys accuse Cooper of intentionally causing the hip hop star emotional distress by cyberstalking, promoting and sharing deep fake pornography of Pete, in addition to questioning if she was actually shot.

The lawsuit calls Cooper a “puppet” for Lanez during and after his high-profile trial, where Pete testified that Lanez shot her feet five times after an argument escalated. A jury convicted Lanez on multiple charges, including assault with a semiautomatic firearm and discharging a firearm with gross negligence. Lanez was sentenced in 2023 to 10 years in prison. 

“The jury got it right,” Megan Thee Stallion’s attorney, Alex Spiro, told CBS News in a statement following the trial. “I am thankful there is justice for Meg.”

In an exclusive interview with “CBS Mornings” in 2022, Pete explained why she wanted to tell her side of the shooting story.

“I feel like people create these narratives about you and when you don’t stand up for yourself, they just run and they go and people are able to stack lies on top of more lies, on top of more lies,” she told “CBS Mornings” co-host Gayle King two years ago. “I just really want to take control over my own narrative.”

Pete said in a statement regarding the lawsuit, “… These individuals need to understand there will be repercussions for recklessly posting lies and defamatory falsehoods.”

CBS News legal contributor Jessica Levinson said she thinks Pete has a strong case.

“What she’s alleged here are a variety of different torts and a state cause of action, essentially about deep fakes,” Levinson said. “She’s saying that there’s intentional infliction of emotional distress, cyberbullying, false statements, based on her complaint. It might make people think twice before they engage in cyberbullying or defamation.”

CBS News reached out to Cooper’s representatives, who have yet to comment on the lawsuit.

JC Chasez, a member of the beloved band NSYNC, is out with his first major music project in 20 years. His new album is called “Play with Fire.”

“I want to make a musical and look everybody knows me from making music so the idea is to release the music first to get people interested in the project,” Chasez said on “CBS Mornings Plus.”

He co-produced the album with Golden Globe-winning songwriter and composer Jimmy Harry. The music was inspired by Mary Shelley’s 1818 novel, “Frankenstein.”

“We’re living in a day and age where technology and humanity are interfacing like never before and Mary Shelley wrote this piece in 1818 and we’re talking about these themes today.”

It’s a subject Chasez said he’s passionate about, adding he appreciated the themes in “Frankenstein” later in life.

“We’re talking about AI. We’re talking about how we’re going to navigate a world like this and so to stumble across that, you know when you’re young you read it almost as a school project but when I read it later in life I just couldn’t believe how much it affected me,” he said.

Chasez was involved in writing the script for the musical and said they’re currently talking to directors and producers about the project.

He credits his writing partner, Harry, with helping the project come to fruition, explaining Harry’s mother was a playwright, and wrote a play called “Playing with Fire,” which Harry presented to Chasez.

“After reading it, what I loved about her story was the way she framed it in terms of making the emotional connections with the creature and the creator, you know, Frankenstein, and so we focused on the conversation that the two of them had and expanded from there and kind of came up with our own things.”

Although it’s a departure from his pop music background, Chasez said it still has elements of his past.

“There’s other songs that have that tempo, and have that pop flair and things like that, because I want people to still move and have fun,” he said. “The goal is to just really be engaging, and give people something to talk about when they’re listening to it or when they’re seeing it hopefully in the future.”

When asked if we’ll also see an NSYNC reunion in the future, Chasez said the former bandmates have talked about the possibility more than they have previously.

“Right now, Justin’s got a tour to do, and I’m releasing this record, “Playing with Fire,” so our focus is on our current projects, but there is always a conversation being had behind the scenes about the potential of something.”

Dua Lipa and Cher opened the Rock & Roll Hall Fame induction ceremony on Saturday night singing “Believe” before giving way to a medley of rump shakers by funk masters Kool & the Gang, rock classics by Foreigner and Peter Frampton, and a powerhouse performance by Dionne Warwick, bringing the house down at 83.

The inductees this year also include: Mary J. Blige, A Tribe Called Quest, Ozzy Osbourne, Dave Matthews Band, the late Jimmy Buffett, MC5, the late Alexis Korner, the late John Mayall, the late Norman Whitfield and the late Big Mama Thornton.

Zendaya inducted Cher. “Where do I even begin? Cher is not one person,” the actor said. “Her name is just as legendary as her legacy.” Zendaya noted that Cher, 78, is the only woman to have a No. 1 hit on a Billboard chart in each of the past seven decades. “Cher has got the goods,” Zendaya said before Cher performed a rocking version of “If I Could Turn Back Time.”

In her speech, Cher said she was inspired by Cinderella and thanked her mother for instilling in her to always get back up after defeat. “The one thing I got from my mom is to never give up,” she said. “I never give up. I’m talking to the women — down and out, we keep going.”

Chuck D inducted Kool & the Gang, saying “This is a long-due celebration.” The band had 12 Top 10 hits on the Billboard Hot 100 including the 1980 chart-topper “Celebration” as well as “Cherish,” “Get Down On It,” “Jungle Boogie,” “Ladies Night” and “Joanna.” They’ve been eligible for the hall since 1994.

The Roots helped the band do a medley of hits that got the crowd grooving — led by Robert “Kool” Bell — bass guitarist, co-founder and last original member — and longtime singer James “JT” Taylor. Confetti shot into the arena and Taylor asked the crowd to use their cellphone lights as he read off the names of 10 members who were critical to the band’s success.

Warwick arrived at the ceremony only a few days after attending a memorial to her longtime friend and collaborator, Cissy Houston, in Newark, New Jersey. Teyana Taylor called her “truly one of a kind” as well as telling off the teleprompter operator for not putting “Ms.” before her name. Jennifer Hudson sang “I’ll Never Love This Way Again” and was joined by Warwick, who also sang “Walk On By.”

She said this was the third time she was nominated. “I am so pleased to be here,” she said. “I’m just going to say this and get off the stage: Thank you, thank you, thank you.”

Sammy Hagar introduced Foreigner, and thanked their fans for their tenacity to demand inclusion. The English-American rockers — with hits like “Cold as Ice,” and “Waiting for a Girl Like You” — topped the charts in the 1970s and ’80s but never made it into the Hall — much less a ballot — until last year, despite being eligible for more than 20 years.

Hagar noted that Foreigner currently tours without any original members. “That’s how good the songs are,” he said. “Who deserves this more than Foreigner?” Demi Lovato and Slash joined the touring Foreigner for “Feels Like the First Time” and Hagar then took lead for “Hot Blooded.” Kelly Clarkson thrilled with a powerful “I Want to Know What Love Is” but the arena erupted when original singer Lou Gramm joined her. Gramm thanked guitarist Mick Jones, sidelined in New York by Parkinson’s disease.

Saturday’s induction ceremony is being held at the Rocket Mortgage Fieldhouse in Cleveland, where the Hall has promised to return to every few years. It streams live on Disney+ and a special with performance highlights will air on ABC on Jan. 1.

Roger Daltrey of The Who inducted Frampton. “It’s about bloody time!” he said. “Peter has had the most amazing career of all time. It’s probably easier to name the people he hasn’t worked with than the people he has,” Daltrey said.

Frampton earned his way into the Hall in large part on the strength of his 1976 live double album “Frampton Comes Alive!” — buoyed by the hit songs “Show Me the Way” and ″Baby, I Love Your Way” — that Rolling Stone magazine listed among the 50 greatest live albums of all time. Daltrey noted he usually plays with a smile.

A smiling Frampton — who played at last year’s ceremony to honor Sheryl Crow — brought on Keith Urban to trade licks on “Do You Feel Like I Do” and showed why he is considered one of rock’s great guitarists. He hooked up his famous talk box effect and the crowd roared. “I really am a lucky guy to have this amazing career,” he said, thanking David Bowie for resurrecting his career after it had spun out.

Artists must have released their first commercial recording at least 25 years before they’re eligible for induction. Nominees were voted on by more than 1,000 artists, historians and music industry professionals.

John Sykes, president of entertainment enterprises at iHeartMedia and the chairman of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Foundation, said before the ceremony that he and the Hall are trying to bring the inductions back to rock’s roots, not expand the category.

“What I’m trying to do is bring over the aperture back up to where it was in the late ’50s, where you had Brenda Lee and Hank Williams right next to Fats Domino, Elvis Presley, the Beatles. It was, at that time, this gumbo of artists. It kind of narrowed down over the years. All I can do is bring it back to its original roots.”

Julia Roberts will help induct the Dave Matthews Band — she’s a self-avowed superfan and she appeared in the band’s video for the 2005 single, “Dreamgirl.” Busta Rhymes will be performing with A Tribe Called Quest.

Liam Payne’s family said they’re heartbroken after the musician fell to his death from a hotel balcony in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Payne, who belonged to the wildly successful band One Direction before its members split up to pursue solo careers in 2016, was 31.

“We are heartbroken. Liam will forever live in our hearts and we’ll remember him for his kind, funny and brave soul,” the family said in a statement to PA Media, the U.K. and Ireland’s national news agency. “We are supporting each other the best we can as a family and ask for privacy and space at this awful time.”

Other tributes poured in from the music and entertainment world. Musician Charlie Puth shared a photo of himself and Payne on Instagram, writing that he was “in shock” after hearing about Payne’s death. Puth contributed to Payne’s 2017 song “Bedroom Floor.”

“Liam was always so kind to me,” Puth wrote. “He was one of the first major artists I got to work with. I can not believe he is gone.” 

Former One Direction guitarist Dan Richards said on Instagram that Payne’s death “feels so surreal” and that he is “still trying to wrap my head around it all.” 

Payne had been spotted in Argentina attending a concert of former One Direction bandmate Niall Horan on Oct. 2. Horan and other One Direction members Harry Styles, Louis Tomlinson and Zayn Malik have not yet released a statement about Payne’s death. 

A spokesperson for the Buenos Aires police told CBS News that officers responded to the Casasur Palermo Hotel after reports of an “aggressive man” who may have been under the influence of drugs or alcohol on Wednesday night. Argentina’s National Criminal and Correctional Prosecutor’s Office said that it seized “a series of substances” from Payne’s room.

Argentine Director of Emergency Medical Services Alberto Crescenti told CBS News that an ambulance arrived about seven minutes after Payne fell from a third-floor balcony. His body was found in a hotel courtyard, local police said. 

An autopsy was conducted late Wednesday night. It found that Payne died of “multiple trauma” and “internal and external hemorrhage,” according to the prosecutor’s office.

Crescenti declined to answer questions about the incident, including whether Payne jumped from the balcony or fell by accident, The Associated Press reported. The Buenos Aires police spokesperson said that Payne “had thrown himself from the balcony of his room.”

Payne is survived by his 7-year-old son.

Kris Kristofferson, a Rhodes scholar with a deft writing style and rough charisma who became a country music superstar and A-list Hollywood actor, has died.

Kristofferson died at his home on Maui, Hawaii, surrounded by family on Saturday, a spokesperson said in an statement. He was 88. 

Starting in the late 1960s, the Brownsville, Texas, native wrote such classics standards as “Sunday Mornin’ Comin’ Down” and “Help Me Make it Through the Night.” Kristofferson was a singer himself, but many of his songs were best known as performed by others, whether Ray Price crooning “For the Good Times” or Janis Joplin belting out “Me and Bobby McGee.”

He also starred opposite Ellen Burstyn in director Martin Scorsese’s 1974 film “Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore,” starred opposite Barbra Streisand in the 1976 “A Star Is Born,” and acted alongside Wesley Snipes in Marvel’s “Blade” in 1998.

Kristofferson, who could recite William Blake from memory, wove intricate folk music lyrics about loneliness and tender romance into popular country music. With his long hair, bell-bottomed slacks and counterculture songs influenced by Bob Dylan, he represented a new breed of country songwriters, along with such peers as Willie Nelson, John Prine and Tom T. Hall.

“Kris brought it kind of from the dark ages up to the present-day time, made it acceptable and brought great lyrics —I mean, the best possible lyrics,” Nelson told “60 Minutes” in a 1999 segment about Kristofferson. “Simple but profound.”

He was a Golden Gloves boxer and football player in college, received a master’s degree in English from Merton College at the University of Oxford in England, and turned down an appointment to teach at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York, to pursue songwriting in Nashville. Hoping to break into the industry, he worked as a part-time janitor at Columbia Records’ Music Row studio in 1966 when Dylan recorded tracks for the seminal “Blonde on Blonde” double album.

At times, the legend of Kristofferson was larger than real life. Johnny Cash liked to tell a mostly exaggerated story of how Kristofferson, a former U.S. Army pilot, landed a helicopter on Cash’s lawn to give him a tape of “Sunday Mornin’ Comin’ Down” with a beer in one hand. Over the years in interviews, Kristofferson said that, with all respect to Cash, while he did land a helicopter at Cash’s house, the Man in Black wasn’t even home at the time, the demo tape was a song that no one ever actually cut and he certainly couldn’t fly a helicopter holding a beer.

In a 2006 interview with The Associated Press, he said he might not have had a career without Cash.

“Shaking his hand when I was still in the Army backstage at the Grand Ole Opry was the moment I’d decided I’d come back,” Kristofferson said. “It was electric. He kind of took me under his wing before he cut any of my songs. He cut my first record that was record of the year. He put me on stage the first time.”

One of his most recorded songs, “Me and Bobby McGee,” was written based on a recommendation from Monument Records founder Fred Foster. Foster had a song title in his head called “Me and Bobby McKee,” named after a female secretary in his building. Kristofferson said in an interview in the magazine, “Performing Songwriter,” that he was inspired to write the lyrics about a man and woman on the road together after watching the Frederico Fellini film “La Strada.”

Joplin, who had a close relationship with Kristofferson, changed the lyrics to make Bobby McGee a man and cut her version just days before she died in 1970 from a drug overdose. The recording became a posthumous No. 1 hit for Joplin.

Hits that Kristofferson recorded include “Why Me,” “Loving Her Was Easier (Than Anything I’ll Ever Do),” “Watch Closely Now,” “Desperados Waiting for a Train,” “A Song I’d Like to Sing” and “Jesus Was a Capricorn.”

In 1973, he married fellow songwriter Rita Coolidge and together they had a successful duet career that earned them two Grammy awards. They divorced in 1980.

He retired from performing and recording in 2021, making only occasional guest appearances on stage.

CNN
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Adam Sandler will always Chris Farley.

More than twenty years after Farley’s death, Sandler still gets sad when he sings the “Chris Farley Song,” a song he wrote for his late friend and comedian, who died in December 1997 of a drug overdose at age 33.

Sandler told the “Happy Sad Confused” podcast that his musical tribute still makes him emotional. He performed the song as part of his Netflix special “Adam Sandler: 100% Fresh” and sang it on “SNL” when he hosted in May 2019.

“The first few times, we played that song, I would tear up and I couldn’t really sing it well because I’d get so emotional, and then I felt it and was able to get it out there,” Sandler said on the podcast. “It’s weird, but when that song starts, I go, ‘Oh f–k, alright, don’t cry and don’t do that’ still. I’ve sang it maybe a hundred times already, but it rocks me.”

Sandler added, “I think it’s because we show a video of Chris and I see his face.” He also said “hearing the crowd go nuts for Farley” makes him happy.

“Every show I do, by far the biggest applause of the night is talking about Farley and any time I mention his name, the audience goes nuts. It feels great,” he said.

Editor’s Note: Featuring the good, the bad and the ugly, ‘Look of the Week’ is a regular series dedicated to unpacking the most talked about outfit of the last seven days.

CNN
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Bringing the second day of this year’s Coachella to a close, K-Pop girl group Blackpink made history Saturday night when they became the first Asian act to ever headline the festival. To a crowd of, reportedly, over 125,000 people, Jennie, Jisoo, Lisa and Rosé used the ground-breaking moment to pay homage to Korean heritage by arriving onstage in hanboks: a traditional type of dress.

While the garments were shrugged off a few seconds into their opening track, “Pink Venom,” revealing each member’s custom black and pink Dolce and Gabbana outfit, fans across the world had already received the message. Screenshots of the moment quickly spread among Blackpink superfans, otherwise known as Blinks. “The way they stepped onto the biggest western stage in hanboks … literally proved their place at the top of the industry,” tweeted one Blink. “Blackpink really are in a league of their own.”

Another called the group “Korea’s cultural delegation” on Instagram, in reference to not only the hanboks but other visual cues incorporated into their show, such as one of the stage backdrops featuring an angular tiled roof reminiscent of traditional Korean architecture.

In recent years, Blackpink have enjoyed a meteoric rise to global fame. According to Guinness World Records, they are currently the most streamed female group on Spotify, and have the most-viewed music YouTube channel. Last year, they were the first female K-Pop group to reach number 1 in the UK and US album charts, and in 2020 their track “How You Like That” became the most viewed video on YouTube in 24 hours. (The group also wore modernized hanboks, designed by Kim Danha, in one of the music video’s scenes.) Their landmark set over the weekend was in fact a follow-up to another milestone: In 2019, they became the first female K-Pop group to ever play at Coachella or any other US festival.

From the iconic Jean Paul Gaultier cone bra worn by Madonna for her 1990 Blond Ambition tour to Geri “Ginger Spice” Halliwell’s Union Jack mini dress, the right stage costume can live on forever in public memory. Particularly when worn at a career-defining moment. During another watershed Coachella performance — Beyonce’s 2018 headline set — the singer’s custom Balmain collegiate-style yellow hoodie was a joyful nod to Black culture, specifically historically Black colleagues and universities.

The group’s four black hanboks were custom created by South Korean pattern design brand OUWR and traditional Korean dressmakers Kumdanje. Inspired by the Cheol-lik silhouette, each garment was hand-embroidered with metallic traditional Korean motifs, including dan-cheong patterns and peonies (a symbol of royalty in Korea). “It was our pleasure and such an honor to be able to show the beautiful values of Korea and Hanbok together,” the designers wrote in a combined Instagram post. “Blackpink showed the beauty of Korea and dazzled the world.”

In Korea, hanboks are still worn for special occasions and often seen on TV dramas. Many designers in the country have also created contemporary takes that are incorporated into everyday wear. At Seoul Fashion Week, JULYCOLUMN’s Fall-Winter 2023 collection drew on the hanbok’s voluminous silhouette to create shirts and structured jackets. Last September, Korean label BlueTamburin brought the garment to a Western audience by exclusively using traditional hanbok fabric to create its Spring-Summer 2023 collection at Milan Fashion Week.

Whether you’re a devoted Blink or not, the looks marked a moment of Asian visibility, recognition of traditional craftsmanship and a powerful example of feeling seen through fashion — representing Korean culture and symbolically embracing both its past and future.

At the end of their performance, and having addressed the audience between numbers in English throughout their two-hour-long performance, Blackpink finished their set in Korean: “Until now, it has been Jennie, Jisoo, Lisa, and Rosé Blackpink. Thank you.”

Top image: Blackpink performing at the first weekend of Coachella 2023, shortly after removing their hanboks.

CNN
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There’s a reason why Christine McVie was considered the heart of Fleetwood Mac.

The band’s keyboardist, who died Wednesday after a brief illness at the age of 79, was also the writer of some of the group’s most beloved songs.

Here are just five of those tunes:

This one is tied to some drama.

Fleetwood Mac is known for, in part, their tumultuous relationships, especially when it came to romantic ones.

Band members Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham had a thing that ended badly and McVie was famously married to, and then divorced from, their other bandmate, John McVie.

He reportedly thought the song, with its lyrics “Sweet wonderful you/You make me happy with the things you do/Oh, can it be so/This feeling follows me wherever I go,” was about their dog as the McVies were married at the time.

But it turns out Christine McVie had penned the love song in honor of the band’s lighting director with whom she had an affair.

Another tune from their famed “Rumours” album.

“Don’t Stop” proved to be a hopeful anthem for the future, which was so meaningful to former President Bill Clinton that he used it as his 1992 campaign anthem.

On Wednesday he tweeted a tribute to McVie.

“I’m saddened by the passing of Christine McVie. “Don’t Stop” was my ’92 campaign theme song – it perfectly captured the mood of a nation eager for better days,” he tweeted. “I’m grateful to Christine & Fleetwood Mac for entrusting us with such a meaningful song. I will miss her.”

This one was actually a solo song for McVie.

The first single off of her self-titled solo album, it sounds like it could be a Fleetwood Mac song with it’s buoyant rhythm and the infectious chorus, “Ooh, I got a love/I got somebody/This love got a hold on me.”

Plus Buckingham plays guitar on this one, giving it even more of a Fleetwood Mac vibe.

“Say You Love Me” is a jaunty tune that has become a mainstay on rock and easy listening radio stations.

She reflected on the sweet harmonies, she, Nicks and Buckingham achieve on the tune in a 1990 interview.

“The first time I started playing ‘Say You Love Me’ and I reached the chorus, they started singing with me and fell right into it,” Performing Songwriter magazine reported her saying. “I heard this incredible sound, our three voices … and my skin turned to gooseflesh.”

It feels right that so many on social media used this song to pay tribute to McVie after her passing.

The ballad she wrote has been pointed to as the perfect remembrance of someone lost.

Playing it now after her death seems haunting as she pours her heart into the opening lyrics, “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.”

CNN
 — 

Throughout the various personal turmoils for which the members of Fleetwood Mac are known, one relationship buoyed the band for decades: the friendship between its two frontwomen, Christine McVie and Stevie Nicks.

McVie joined the band in 1970 during one of its early lineup changes and for years was its only woman. When Nicks was added to the lineup in 1975, the two became fast friends.

Theirs was not a competitive relationship, but a sisterly one – both women were gifted songwriters responsible for crafting many of the band’s best-known tunes. Though the two grew apart in the 1980s amid Nicks’ worsening drug addiction and the band’s growing internal tension, they came back together when McVie returned to Fleetwood Mac in 2014.

At a concert in London, shortly before McVie officially rejoined the band, Nicks dedicated the song “Landslide” to her “mentor. Big sister. Best friend.” And at the show’s end, McVie was there, accompanying her bandmates for “Don’t Stop.”

“I never want her to ever go out of my life again, and that has nothing to do with music and everything to do with her and I as friends,” Nicks told the Minneapolis Star-Tribune in 2015.

On Wednesday, McVie, the band’s “songbird,” died after a brief illness at age 79. Below, revisit McVie’s and Nicks’ years-long relationship as bandmates, best friends and “sisters.”

McVie and Nicks hit it off from the start

The story of Nicks joining Fleetwood Mac is legend now: Band founder and drummer Mick Fleetwood wanted to recruit guitarist Lindsey Buckingham, who stipulated that he would only join if his girlfriend and musician Nicks could join, too. McVie cast the deciding vote, and the rest is history.

“It was critical that I got on with her because I’d never played with another girl,” McVie told the Guardian in 2013. “But I liked her instantly. She was funny and nice but also there was no competition. We were completely different on the stage to each other and we wrote differently too.”

Throughout the band’s many personal complications – McVie married and divorced Fleetwood Mac bassist John McVie and had an affair with the band’s lighting director, while Nicks had rollercoaster romances with Buckingham and Fleetwood – they were each other’s center.

“To be in a band with another girl who was this amazing musician – (McVie) kind of instantly became my best friend,” Nicks told the New Yorker earlier this year. “Christine was a whole other ballgame. She liked hanging out with the guys. She was just more comfortable with men than I had ever been.”

The two protected each other, Nicks said, in a male-dominated industry: “We made a pact, in the very beginning, that we would never be treated with disrespect by all the male musicians in the community.

“I would say to her, ‘Together, we are a serious force of nature, and it will give us the strength to maneuver the waters that are ahead of us,’” Nicks told the New Yorker.

The band succeeds but McVie and Nicks grow distant

“Rumours” was the band’s greatest success to date when it was released in 1977. But the band’s relationships with each other were deteriorating, save for the one between McVie and Nicks. While the pair were enduring breakups with their significant others, Nicks and McVie spent their time offstage together.

The Guardian asked McVie if she was trying to offset the band’s tumult with her songs on “Rumours,” including the lighthearted “You Make Lovin’ Fun” and optimistic “Don’t Stop.” She said she likely had been.

As multiple members’ drug use intensified, the band’s dynamic grew tense. McVie distanced herself from the group in 1984 amid her bandmates’ addictions, telling the Guardian she was “just sick of it.” Nicks, meanwhile, was becoming dependent on cocaine.

McVie told Rolling Stone that year that she’d grown apart from Nicks: “She seems to have developed her own fantasy world, somehow, which I’m not part of. We don’t socialize much.”

In 1986, Nicks checked into the Betty Ford Center to treat her addiction, though she later became addicted to Klonopin, which she said claimed years of her life. She quit the prescription drug in the 1990s.

After recording some solo works, McVie returned to Fleetwood Mac for their 1987 album “Tango in the Night,” and two of her songs on that record – “Little Lies” and “Everywhere” – became major hits. But Nicks departed the band soon after, and the band’s best-known lineup wouldn’t officially reunite until 1997 for “The Dance” tour and subsequent live album.

The reunion was short-lived: After the band was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1998, McVie officially quit Fleetwood Mac, citing a fear of flying and exhaustion of life on the road.

McVie returns to Fleetwood Mac – and to Nicks’ side

In the 2010s, after more than a decade of retirement, McVie toyed with returning to performing. She officially rejoined Fleetwood Mac after calling Fleetwood himself and gauging what her return would mean for the group.

“Fortunately Stevie was dying for me to come back, as were the rest of the band,” she told the Arts Desk.

In 2015, a year after she’d rejoined Fleetwood Mac, McVie hit the road with her bandmates. Touring with the group was tiring but fun, the first time they’d performed together in years.

“I’m only here for Stevie,” she told the New Yorker that year.

Nicks concurred: “When we went on the road, I realized what an amazing friend she’d been of mine that I had lost and didn’t realize the whole consequences of it till now,” she told the Minneapolis Star-Tribune in 2015.

During that tour, McVie wore a silver chain that Nicks had given her – a “metaphor,” McVie told the New Yorker, “that the chain of the band will never be broken. Not by me, anyways. Not again by me.”

McVie told the Arts Desk in 2016 that she and Nicks were “better friends now than (they) were 16 years ago.”

Touring with Buckingham and Fleetwood could quickly get tumultuous for Nicks, McVie said, due to their shared history. “But with me in there, it gave Stevie the chance to get her breath back and not have this constant thing going on with Lindsey: her sister was back,” she said.

Their mutual praise continued: In 2019, McVie said Nicks was “just unbelievable” onstage: “The more I see her perform on stage the better I think she is. She holds the fort.”

When their 2018-2019 tour ended, though – without Buckingham, who was fired – the band “kind of broke up,” McVie told Rolling Stone earlier this year. She added that she didn’t speak with Nicks as often as she did when they toured together.

As for a reunion, McVie told Rolling Stone that while it wasn’t off the table, she wasn’t feeling “physically up for it.”

“I’m getting a bit long in the teeth here,” she said. “I’m quite happy being at home. I don’t know if I ever want to tour again. It’s bloody hard work.”

News of McVie’s death rattled Nicks, who wrote that she had only found out McVie was sick days earlier. She called McVie her “best friend in the whole world since the first day of 1975.”

On her social media accounts, Nicks shared a handwritten note containing lyrics from the Haim song “Hallelujah,” some of which discusses grief and the loss of a best friend.

“See you on the other side, my love,” Nicks wrote. “Don’t forget me – Always, Stevie.”