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" The Chain" is a song by British-American Rock music band Fleetwood Mac, released on their 1977 album Rumours. It is the only song from the album with writing credits for all five band members (Stevie Nicks, Lindsey Buckingham, Christine McVie, John McVie, and Mick Fleetwood).
"The Chain" was created from combinations of several previously rejected materials, including compositions from Buckingham, Nicks, and McVie. The song was assembled, often manually by tape splice with a razor blade, at the Record Plant in Sausalito, California, with audio engineer Ken Caillat and Richard Dashut.
Following the critical and commercial success of Rumours, "The Chain" has become a staple of the band's live shows, typically the opening song. It was featured as the opening track on The Dance, a 1997 live concert CD/DVD release, as well as several of the band's greatest hits compilations. 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 and radio coverage of Formula One.
When Fleetwood Mac reworked "Keep Me There" into "The Chain", they removed the blues-style motif originally found on the verses and retained the chord progression. Lindsey Buckingham recycled the intro of an earlier song from a duet with Nicks, "Lola (My Love)", originally released on Buckingham Nicks. During the verses, Buckingham instructed Fleetwood to play a straight quarter note pattern on the kick drum. The Dobro, a type of resonator guitar, supplied the verse riff.
Stevie Nicks had written the lyrics separately, which were originally part of an entirely different song that included the words "if you don't love me now, you will never love me again". Buckingham asked Nicks to donate these lyrics for the verses, which she agreed to. Nicks and Christine McVie then reworked lyrics to create the first section of the tune. Nicks' lyrics referenced the breakup of her relationship with Buckingham, a theme of many of Nicks' and Buckingham's lyrics on Rumours.
Due to the spliced nature of the record (the drums and guitar were the only instruments recorded in each other's company) and its sporadic composition and assembly from different rejected songs, "The Chain" is one of only a few Fleetwood Mac songs whose authorship is credited to all members of the band at the time. Nicks maintained that "The Chain" was primarily her song and claimed ownership of the melody and a large portion of the lyrics. 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. The finished song has a basic rock structure with two distinct portions: the main verse and chorus, and the outro. Influences of hard rock, folk music, and country music are also present.
In 1997, Fleetwood Mac released a live album called The Dance, which featured the reunion of the Rumours-era Fleetwood Mac members. That album's rendition of "The Chain" reached number 30 on the Billboard Mainstream Rock Tracks chart. Additionally, the studio version began appearing on the British charts in 2009, where it debuted at number 94. Two years later, the song achieved a new peak position of number 81. Since then, "The Chain" has returned to the British charts on several occasions; in 2025, it surpassed its old peak position by reaching number 76. The song has been certified quadruple platinum by the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) for sales and streams of over 2,400,000 units.
In the 2017 Marvel Studios film, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, director James Gunn has said that "The Chain" was "most deeply embedded into the fibers of the film". "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.
Lead singer Hugo Ferreira later reflected on the difficult process, stating, "This record was a long and painful process to make. We were under a lot of pressure from our label to spit something out." As part of the label's demands, Tantric was required to include a cover song on the album, though no specific song was suggested. Instead of spending time deliberating, the band decided to make the selection completely random—by tuning in to a classic rock radio station and picking the first song that played. That song happened to be Fleetwood Mac's "The Chain."
Guitarist Todd Whitener recalled the gamble in an interview with the Houston Chronicle saying, "This could be a very bad thing by taking this approach." He explained that the band had trouble agreeing on a song where all four members had only positive things to say, so they let fate decide. Fortunately, they all felt that "The Chain" could be molded into their sound.
Tantric's cover of "The Chain" was produced by long-time Alice in Chains producer Toby Wright.
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