"The Chain" is a song by British-American rockband Fleetwood Mac, released on their 1977 album Rumours, which won Album of the Year at the 1978 Grammy Awards and received Diamond certifications in several countries, including the UK, Canada, Australia, and the US, in where it is certified 21× Platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). As of February 2023, Rumours has sold over 40 million copies worldwide, making it the 5th best-selling album of the 1970s and the 9th best-selling album of all time. It was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2003, and was selected for preservation in the National Recording Registry in 2017, being deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by the Library of Congress.
"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. Stevie Nicks wrote the lyrics about Lindsey Buckingham as their relationship was falling apart. Buckingham and Nicks share lead vocals on the song.
In 1997, Fleetwood Mac released a live concert CD/DVD package called The Dance, which featured the reunion of the Rumours-era Fleetwood Mac members. The rendition of "The Chain" reached number 30 on the Billboard Mainstream Rock Tracks chart. Additionally, the studio version began appearing on the charts in 2009, where it peaked at number 81 in the UK. 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.