Handwritten Fleetwood Mac lyrics promote for £25k at Woking public sale

Handwritten lyrics and chord charts for considered one of Fleetwood Mac’s earliest hits have offered for £24,700 at public sale.

The composition sheet for Man of the World was estimated to fetch between £12,000 and £15,000 as a part of a movie, TV and music memorabilia public sale at Ewbank’s public sale home in Woking, Surrey.

It was bought by a collector from the Middle East, the auctioneers mentioned.

The track sheet was described as “unique” by Ewbank’s.

Man of the World was a UK chart quantity two in 1969, and was written by the group’s co-founder, vocalist and lead guitarist Peter Green, who fashioned the band with drummer Mick Fleetwood and bassist John McVie in 1967, however left the group in 1970.

Andrew Ewbank, associate and auctioneer at Ewbank’s, mentioned: “The Peter Green song sheet is unique. Consigned by his estate, it shows the moment of creation of one of his most famous songs – written at the point of crisis that led to his eventual departure.

“Don’t overlook, he was the founding father of Fleetwood Mac, outsold The Beatles and The Rolling Stones mixed on the finish of the Nineteen Sixties, and is taken into account the guitarist’s guitarist by lots of the music legends.”

The song sheet, handwritten in blue ballpoint pen and corrected in black ink, shows that Green changed three lines of the lyrics – adding a complete line to the last verse – while confirming his choice for others by annotating the end of each finalised line with a tick.

It is considered one of Green’s most important compositions and it entered the UK charts in June 1969 at number two.

Green died in 2020 aged 73.