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Mining My Inheritance 5: Paul McCartney & Wings “Band on the Run”

20 Apr
(Recently while on a trip to South Texas, I discovered my father’s long lost record collection, in what one would call less the desirable shape. In an effort to better understand my father’s taste, and my musical upbringing,I have decided to listen to each album that’s salvageable while at the same time tracking down the history of the album, and writing my own thoughts on it. This should take a while, as there are at least 150 albums, and I plan on only doing 2 a week. Please join as I work my way through my musical inheritance.)

History: With his fifth album since leaving the Beatles (and third with his band Wings), Paul McCartney was riding a high from both his previous album, Red Rose Speedway, hitting number 1 and his hit theme for the James Bond film Live and Let Die. Using the success as leverage, McCartney and wife Linda requested their record company (Apple Records) allow them to travel to Lagos, Nigeria to record the album. Upon the album’s release in 1973, critical reaction was positive, with Rolling Stone hailing it as the best output by any of the ex-Beatles to that point. A financial success, the album went #1 in the US on three separate occasions and was the number 1 selling album in Britain that year. McCartney and co. won a Grammy, and the album was placed on Rolling Stone’s “Top 500 Albums of All Time” list.

Also, its iconic album cover, which featured Kelly Lynch, James Coburn, Christopher Lee, Clement Freud and an assortment of other celebrities, would go on to be parodied over and over in pop culture.

Paul McCartney & Wings- Nineteen Hundred and Eighty Five

Thoughts: To be brutally honest, I had always thought of Paul McCartney as the douchebag Beatle, even having numerous conversations about the subject with friends who mostly agreed that the man was/is a brilliant musical talent, without whom most of the great rock of the the 20th Century would never exist, but is still and always will be a douchebag. I have always felt the one exception to this notion was the supremely awesome five minutes that is the “Band on the Run” single, a song I have long harbored a love for. So when sitting down to listen to the full album, I approached it with a fairly open mind.

The album opens strong, with the title track being nothing but five minutes of pure awesomeness. The heady 70s rocker describes a group’s escape from imprisonment through a multi-part structure that’s filled with at least four tempo changes and more than a few great moments of guitar work, and leads to a chorus that’s so damn catchy that merely humming it in the company of others can lead to it sticking in their heads for days on end. Immediately following is the fuzz-filled ode to McCartney’s dog, “Jet“–a track that’s pretty damn great if you ignore the needless horns and the fact that it inspired a pretty terrible Australian band to name themselves after it.

The album takes a tonal shift as the very soft “Bluebird” follows the opening rockers. Honestly, it’s a bit boring and, to quote Buster Bluth, made it all tired in here. Seriously, I want to build a time machine so I can take away the saxophone they used. Luckily the following track, “Mrs. Vanderbilt“, is a pretty strong little rocker, with a great lead bass hook that further shows McCartney’s greatness … except that damn saxophone pops up yet again. The side A closer, “Let Me Roll It“, was supposedly a dig at John Lennon, as it apes his signature reverbed vocals, adds organ, a choir and an unnaturally aggressive guitar riff for a McCartney song. It works. Really, it’s pretty damn great, proving yet again that Paul is best playing second banana.

I’d like to think “Mamunia” reflects the band’s time in Lagos, with its chanting style and tribal-like drums, as it seems the lyric/title comes from the Arabic word for “safe haven”. ”No Words” doesn’t really inspire a response from me other than thinking they must have been working on the album and thought, “We need a love song”. The very 70s rockish “Helen Wheels” is more interesting for the fact that McCartney could write a throwaway song about his Land Rover and it could go top 10 than for the music itself, though it’s a pretty fun ride if you’re not being too pretentious.

“Picasso’s Last Words (Drink to Me)” took a bit to win me over, but the sample of “Jet” and the rather grand orchestral parts that lead to a bit of ballroom singalong, back to the orchestral, and finally a tribal chant of “ho, hey, ho” that features Ginger Baker on a pair of shakers. It’s damn near schizophrenic, and I love it. The album ends with the great “Nineteen Hundred and Eighty Five“, a pulsating rocker that’s all driving keys and bass that eventually leads to a grandiose ending that has the band being backed by a full orchestra, and ending the whole thing by calling back to the title track, closing with the chorus. Seriously, who knew McCartney was so into prog rock.

All in all it’s one of the great pop albums, despite all the random bits of saxophone.