The Chain

"The Chain" was created from combinations of several previously rejected materials, including solo work by Lindsey Buckingham, Stevie Nicks, and Christine McVie.

The song was assembled, often manually by splicing tapes with a razor blade, at the Record Plant in Sausalito, California, with engineers Ken Caillat and Richard Dashut.

[4] Following the critical and commercial success of Rumours, "The Chain" has become a staple of the band's live shows, typically the opening song.

The song has attained particular fame in the United Kingdom, where the instrumental section has been used as the theme tune for the BBC and Channel 4's television coverage of Formula One.

[5][6] According to interviews on the writing of Rumours, the final section of "The Chain" (beginning with a bass progression) was created by John McVie and Mick Fleetwood.

[8] In an interview with Paul Zollo, Buckingham questioned whether Fleetwood contributed significantly to the song, but acknowledged that all five members nonetheless received writing credits.

[16] In October 2023, the song was certified quadruple platinum by the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) for sales and streams of over 2,400,000 units.

The BBC's Formula One coverage used the ending bass line as a theme tune from 1978 until 1996 and again from 2009 to 2015, thus making the song highly recognisable in the United Kingdom.

[36] "The Chain" was also used as the closing song to the first-season episode "We Gull Way Back" of the HBO Max series Our Flag Means Death, and featured prominently in the 2017 film I, Tonya.

[44] British multi-genre artist CHINCHILLA released[52] a cover version of the song for the soundtrack of Amazon Prime's original series My Lady Jane.