"I Don't Want to Know" was written by Stevie Nicks in 1974 before she joined Fleetwood Mac, and it was intended for a second album with her band Buckingham Nicks. The singer was initially unhappy about the decision to place the song on Rumours. The reason? It displaced another of Nicks' tunes, "Silver Springs," which she favored. The Fleetwood Mac frontwoman recalled in a 1991 BBC interview that when she asked Mick Fleetwood why "Silver Springs" was being removed, he replied: "There's a lot of reasons, but because basically it's just too long. And we think that there's another of your songs that's better, so that's what we want to do."
Nicks continued: "Before I started to get upset about 'Silver Springs,' I said, 'What other song?' And he said, 'A song called I Don't Want To Know.' And I said, 'But I don't want that song on this record.' And he said, 'Well, then don't sing it.'And then I started to scream bloody murder and probably said every horribly mean thing that you could possibly say to another human being, and walked back in the studio completely flipped out. I said, 'Well, I'm not gonna sing 'I Don't Want To Know.' I am one-fifth of this band.' And they said, ''You can either (a) take a hike or (b) you better go out there and sing 'I Don't Want To Know' or you're only gonna have two songs on the record.' And so, basically, with a gun to my head, I went out and sang 'I Don't Want To Know.' And they put Silver Springs on the back of 'Go Your Own Way.'"
Nicks has grown fonder of the song, and she said in a later interview: "I happen to really like that song, and I love singing that song with Lindsey because that was one of our Everly Brothers singing things that was really close and tight and really fun to sing. So if 'Silver Springs' was going to be replaced with anything, 'I Don't Want To Know' was a good replacement."
This pop-friendly, upbeat tune finds Nicks hoping that she and her beau can find what they are looking for in a relationship whether they are together or not, and it was most likely inspired by her tumultuous relationship with Buckingham. Its optimism contrasts with much of the other negative material on Rumours, which was penned in the midst of the band members turbulent private lives. It could be that the other band members felt it prudent to have at least one positive and optimistic track on the album, which is why they pushed so hard for the inclusion of this song.
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