Netflix's Virgin River, the hugely popular romantic drama series that debuted in 2019, usually chooses upbeat pop songs for its rare needle-drops. But in the just-released Season 5, Part 1, Virgin River turned to Fleetwood Mac's soaring 1977 ballad "Songbird" for a very special purpose.
In Virgin River Season 5, Episode 2, Mel (played by Alexandra Breckenridge) puts on "Songbird," her late mother's favorite song. She and Jack (Martin Henderson) dance together while it plays, serving as a sweet connection between the newly-pregnant Mel and her mother. Given the song's storied origin, it's the perfect soundtrack for a scene about love that endures even after death.
"Songbird" was released on Fleetwood Mac's meteoric 1977 album Rumours. It was written and recorded by the late Christine McVie, who died in November 2022 at the age of 79. McVie said that the song came to her in the middle of the night like a "visitation":
"That was a strange little baby, that one," McVie told The Guardian in 2016. "I woke up in the middle of the night and the song just came into my head. I got out of bed, played it on the little piano I have in my room, and sang it with no tape recorder. I sang it from beginning to end — everything. I can't tell you quite how I felt. It was as if I'd been visited. It was a very spiritual thing. I was frightened to play it again in case I'd forgotten it. I called a producer first thing the next day and said, 'I've got to put this song down right now.' I played it nervously, but I remembered it. Everyone just sat there and stared at me."
"I've never had that happen to me since," she added. "Just the one visitation. It's weird."
Much of "Songbird"'s atmospheric sound is due to its concert recital-style recording. McVie performed the song on a piano at Berkeley's Zellerbach Auditorium. The massive, nearly 2,000-seat hall imbues the song with an airy, soaring quality.
With lyrics like "To you, I will give the world / To you, I'll never be cold," the song is about the universality of love, in whatever form.
"It doesn't really relate to anybody in particular; it relates to everybody," McVie said in a 2017 interview with the UK's Uncut. "A lot of people play it at their weddings or at bar mitzvahs or at their dog's funeral. It's universal. It's about you and nobody else. It's about you and everybody else."
