In 1977, Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours album was riding high on the charts, delivering hits like “Go Your Own Way,” “Dreams,” and “Don’t Stop.” But the fourth and final single, “You Make Loving Fun,” had a story of its own—and songwriter Christine McVie didn’t initially want to share that story with her then-husband.
Written solely by McVie during the Rumours sessions in 1976, “You Make Loving Fun” is an upbeat, keyboard-heavy love song about the joy of a new relationship. The song was a major hit, reaching No. 9 on the Billboard Hot 100 in December 1977. Decades later, the song’s backstory shows that there was a lot more going on behind the scenes than fans knew at the time.
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McVie wrote the song while she was at the tail end of her marriage to her husband, Fleetwood Mac bass player John McVie—but in a secret relationship with the band’s lighting director Curry Grant.
Rolling Stone described “You Make Loving Fun” as “a lovely and tender ode to their short-lived romance,” adding, “To keep the peace with her still-husband at the time, however, she told John it was about their dog.”
In the book “Making Rumours: The Inside Story Of The Classic Fleetwood Mac Album, it’s also explained that McVie told the band she wrote the song about her dog, Duster, to “avoid flare-ups” with her ex.
Band leader Mick Fleetwood once joked to Q magazine, “Knowing John, he probably thought it was about one of her dogs.”
McVie, who died in 2022, confirmed in interviews that she wrote “You Make Loving Fun” about Grant—not about Duster.
“I was seeing another chappie at that time, his name was Curry Grant,” McVie once said. “He had a great sense of humor, he was always making me laugh. I sure needed that at that time, and I recall that I wrote ‘You Make Loving Fun’ specifically about him and his wonderful sense of humor.”
In the documentary Classic Albums: Rumours, McVie revealed that her ex wasn’t thrilled when he found out the true inspiration to “You Make Loving Fun.”
“That [song] was about my then-boyfriend, at the time,” McVie confirmed, per Us Weekly. “For obvious reasons, since he was our lighting director, he was not welcome in the studio.”
Once she officially split from her husband, McVie and Grant began living together in her house near the Sunset Strip in Hollywood.
“I have no intention of getting married,” McVie told Rolling Stone in early 1977. “I don’t think I’m in love. …I don’t really know what the hell love is.”
“John can’t handle Curry too well, even though he’s much more at ease with other women around me than I am with men in front of him,” she added. “He’s making an effort.”
Because “You Make Loving Fun” became such a big hit, John McVie was forced to perform his ex-wife’s love song to another man for years onstage.
Nearly 50 years later, “You Make Loving Fun” remains one of the most enduring tracks from the Rumours album—a catchy love song with a secret backstory that makes it even more intriguing.
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