C/D Paul McCartney Solo

Turrican, I remember that post! Good stuff.

I love how much love Back to the Egg gets on ILX, it's not an album I'd ever recommend as one of one's first purchases and I think I only acquired it as a teen because I was at a Best Buy, I had decided I was going to buy a McCartney CD, and it was literally all they had. Some great tracks though, and as I've said before the unreleased stuff from that period ("Boil Crisis"!) is great.

Thanks to this thread I listened to "Venus And Mars". Wow.

So you...listened to what the thread said?

talk more talk!

xpost I sure did. For what seems at times to sound like a very stoned, throwaway deal it holds together very well.

I've probably mentioned this before, but back when I had dreams of doing a two-disc Paul McCartney covers album, all I ever completed were versions of "Dear Boy," "I'll Give You A Ring," and "Magneto & Titanium Man." And I think some reallllly scrappy demos of "1882" and "Biker Like An Icon."

It was going to be my masterpiece.

Are the V&M demos worth seeking out? Seems there were quite a few collections of these available on Ye Olde Blogs before the Great Megaupload Fire Of '12.

I guess I never had the Red Rose Speedway with bonus tracks. That live version of The Mess just grabbed me big time. Starts out like a sort of normal retro-rocker, then goes off to some interesting places starting about 1:30 in.

Yeah, I used to really dig that when I first got into that album. "Country Dreamer" is also quite pretty IMO, if lightweight.

Recently picked up a copy of Cold Cuts, the Club Sandwich bootleg of the shelved unreleased-tracks collection. Dunno why I did, given that I've long since assembled all this material in other formats, but it's feeling like pretty choice Macca listening - absolutely nothing essential, but everything sounding kinda good and profoundly McCartney-esque, and sounding just more like an album coming out of the turntable and good speakers than through my disposable early-00's MP3s. Anyhow, the motley assembly of throwaway tracks with no overriding vibe basically makes it sound like most Wings records. Slightly different "My Carnival" than I know from the Venus & Mars CD - more hooting and carrying on by Paul. Otherwise the standouts are naturally "Waterspout" and the lovely "A Love For You," which could have really held Wild Life together with a serious edit. I've always liked "Robber's Ball" for silliness but not as much as I want to like it. Wikipedia has the tracklist if you want to see about tracking these down yourself.

"Cage" – Removed from Back to the Egg at the last minute in favour of "Baby's Request",this song features the chords C-A-G-E as its riff to go along with the cage lyric.

can I lol

haha yeah. perhaps more notable for the, er, calliope solo. i've also always loved the totally incoherent filler lyrics that almost, but don't quite, hang together as an actual plot. "baby's request" slays it hardcore, good choice there and maybe works against the idea that without lennon/martin he had nobody to push back and veto bad ideas. i do kinda like "cage" but it has all the earmarks of a not-very-good idea that got worked on too long by stoned people who later forgot about it.

"Cage" – Removed from Back to the Egg at the last minute in favour of "Baby's Request",this song features the chords C-A-G-E as its riff to go along with the cage lyric.

Where?

http://www.macca-central.com/macca-songs/getchords.php?width=800&height=600&id=219&title=cage&Album=unreleased&composer=Paul_McCartney

Oh, I see it: C Am G Em7... which isn't quite C-A-G-E.

London Town sounding much better to me drunk, and turned up loud, than it ever has before. Love those "MY LOVE!" backing vocals on "Name and Address." Even the songs with "children" in the title are sounding good. Can't wait for my perennial favorite on this one, "Morse Moose."

COME ON DOWN AT THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA
TELL ME ARE YOU RECEIVING ME
MY NAME IS MORSE MOOSE, AND I'M CALLIN' YOUU

I've always loved London Town!!! Denny's children songs are killer, Paul's weirdo shit (backwards travelled, morse moose) is killer, the original version of girlfriend, dont let it bring you down, the synths on the extended cut of with a little luck. It all works so well together even though it's a lot more low key than Wings typically is so people pass it over or say it's "trite" or whatever

"Backwards Traveller" is one of the duds for me - just feels a little more effortful than some of the other numbers. "Cafe on the Left Bank" kinda falls in the same slot, though I like the tune. Would like to take a moment to appreciate "Cuff Link," though it's totally a throwaway in this context; it clearly heralds McCartney II and suggests a less "rock" approach they might have taken to those other songs...

loved Deliver Your Children when i was a kid. haven't heard it for a long time.

It's Denny Laine's best contribution to the canon imo

"I'm Carrying" is a pretty classic McCartney ballad.

I've always loved 'Cuff Link' - yeah, it's a bit of a throwaway, but really the only problem that I have with it is that it's too short. I've never really liked 'Don't Let It Bring You Down', 'Deliver Your Children' or 'Name and Address' ... but 'I'm Carrying', 'Cafe On The Left Bank', 'Backwards Traveller', 'With A Little Luck', 'Children Children', 'Girlfriend'... always had time for all of those.

In fact, it tickles me a little that the synth solo on 'With A Little Luck' sounds like the theme tune for Thomas The Tank Engine but a few years ahead, especially given that Ringo was the original narrator for it.

I was actually just thinking this morning that "With a Little Luck" in general sounds very much like it could have made, with a muddier and quainter arrangement, for a great 70s or 80s TV theme tune - especially the "... Just me and you!" part. Thinking of the sound on the Webster theme, maybe.

I like "Name and Address" - nice little pastiche, cool sound IMHO. I do think its enjoyability is inversely proportional to how much you think McCartney is winking to himself about the double entendre of "leave your name and a dress." Oh, what a rascal...

Ha, I'd never picked up on that! I guess it's far preferable to other nudge-nudge-wink-wink McCartney double entendres like, say, Kisses On The Bottom, or that line in 'If You Wanna' from Flaming Pie where he sings in his Elvis quiver "make arrangements for the trip"... like oh my god Paul, you're so edgy, making acid puns in your mid 50's.

is it McCartney playing the synth in "With a Little Luck"?

Well, somebody is.

Ha, I'd never heard "make arrangements for the trip" in that way before, but now I'm sure I'll never be able to shake it. At least it kinda fits that whole album's theme/vibe of trying to, ah, "get back" to a mild, communalist form of 60s counterculturalism. "Flaming Pie" the song is maybe the biggest fail in this regard (though I really liked it at age 16 - it's catchy) with its hopeless attempt to ape Lennon-style absurdity. Paul writes better absurd stuff when he's not trying to be wacky and is really just trying to fill out the rhythm. It's not as dire as "Return to Pepperland," but it's a bit cringey. Whereas I think "The Song We Were Singing" works - it's not trying to be cool, just kinda honestly describing (I think) a dad-ish nostalgia for them good old days.

I've noticed "(getting) back" has been a very common theme throughout McCartney's work, even when he was in The Beatles... whether through pastiches such as 'When I'm Sixty-Four', trying to return The Beatles back to their roots on Get Back/Let It Be, or looking back on The Beatles themselves in his solo work. It's undoubtedly prominent on his last few solo albums.

No discussion so far on the title track of London Town. Thoughts? I think it's a very nice mood setter and I love how it ends unresolved, leaving the rest of the record to follow up on it. I think it's better as a prelude than a stand alone track though

Also if we're talking Flaming Pie I think the song "Somedays" has one of the best orchestral arrangements of any Macca/Beatles tune. The oboe lines playing counterpoint to the vocals on the chorus is just gorgeousness. Great vocal on that track too. Also Calico Skies is a top 10 or 15 all time Macca tune for me

I like "London Town" - very enjoyable melody to sing. Took me a long time to come around to it just from the goofiness of "Upon his foot - toot toot!" and so on. Agreed that it's a really weird choice for a single - such a classic "title opening track" imho. Maybe they were thinking along the lines of "Band on the Run."

I'm not massive on 'London Town' (the track), but 'Somedays' and 'Calico Skies' are two of Paul's best "late period" songs for me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3e8E6X4kios

the skype emojis thing is so dumb but jesus fucking christ what a joy it is to see him go from the moog to the xylophone to some super metal sounding guitar to the harpsichord just being a genius and having fun.

cool! sounds like Cornelius in a way.

Man, Back to the Egg is such a frustrating album. If you cherry-pick the tracklist it's got the makings of one of his best records, and certainly the last time (save arguably Run Devil Run) that "rocking" seemed remotely like a natural thing for him. "So Glad To See You Here," "Spin It On," "Getting Closer," those are all awesome, and even "Rockestra" for all that it's stupid, at least sounds good. "To You" I find kind of a chore but the "keep it outta my nose" part sounds good. And the chilled-out numbers, "Baby's Request," "Love Awake" and "Arrow Through Me" all have great melodies, great recordings.

But my GOD is the filler on this just garbage! "The Broadcast" is easily the most pointless "interlude" or "link" track he ever recorded, and "After The Ball" is just so clearly marking time and hoping that if he gets throaty enough, repeating the words "after the ball" over and over will turn it into a song. If it weren't for "Love Awake," there'd be nearly an eleven-minute stretch of side B made of bits and pieces waiting to get turned into real songs, and unfortunately he's not at Abbey Road level inspiration here.

Aren't you basically saying you don't like a couple of tracks here – "The Broadcast" and "After the Ball/Million Miles"? Unless you're also dinging "We're Open Tonight" (which to me feels like a sequel to "Venus & Mars") you've basically said you like pretty much everything else.

I mean, no, Back to the Egg isn't on par with Abbey Road. But it isn't exactly the band tracks from At the Speed of Sound either. It's basically another of Macca's half-assed concept records but has six or seven really good cuts by my count (confession: I also think "After the Ball" is one of his better Ray Charles tracks and it's short).

As for it "rocking," I think it had a lot to do with him having a new band on this that jelled well. IIRC, his pot arrest in Japan caused him to shutter the Wings moniker for good.

He has that himself quite explicitly.

"I think the Japanese episode as we can call it, was the end of Wings...the upshot was, we got there, I got busted, and I really thought, this band isn't gonna work. I'm not happy with it...There was something going wrong, something was trying to tell me something. So that was the end of Wings."

As for "Back To The Egg", After the Ball/Million Miles can fuck off then the rest sounds like a Blur album from the late 90s.

Back to the Egg is one of his best albums; certainly one of the most consistent, IMO. I don't think there are any bad songs on it. Even Denny Lane's song is good.

D'you think so? It's not bad but certainly not good. It sounds a bit unfinished and the "little woman" stuff makes it sound like something John Lennon would do to pastiche McCartney.

I agree that it's a pretty good album though.

MY SALAMANDER

certainly the last time (save arguably Run Devil Run) that "rocking" seemed remotely like a natural thing for him

Dr. C, I am so glad you didn't say rocking and ROLLING because "Get Me Out of Here" on the last album.

(Deluxe Edition version)

I was introduced to his solo work via Flaming Pie. "young boy" sounds like a beatles lost record and it was the highlight in there, I don't really remember much else. I only know his 70s work am I missing out?

Aren't you basically saying you don't like a couple of tracks here – "The Broadcast" and "After the Ball/Million Miles"?

Well, I'd say "Winter Rose" sucks too. And the thing about Rockestra is it sounds good while it's playing but it doesn't add anything to the album after it's over, y'know? It's a flourish, this thing McCartney wants to be awesome but is actually kinda ordinary. And then "We're Open Tonight" is an okay little guitar figure or whatever but it's not a "song" so much as a down payment on this being some kind of, indeed, halfassed concept album (hence its getting reprised near the end, Macca going back to the Pepper's/Band on the Run well but it's empty). And "Reception" isn't really anything. "Again and Again and Again" isn't horrible, but I would never think of it if I was listing Wings songs or anything.

I think he was low on material and wanted to get something recorded with this new band so they could tour on it. It feels like filler cause it is - there was nothing else on tape they could have used I don't think, and you can't put out an album with just six or seven songs on it so there you go. The only non-album b-side in this period is "Daytime Nighttime Suffering" which would improve this record a lot IMO - "Cage" or "Robber's Ball" apparently not even being good enough for b-sides I guess. They would have been better off doing some covers to be honest. Or even, if it's "back to the egg," work back over some early stuff that never got released or which evolved on the road or something. "Soily" and "The Mess" are dopey songs (though not any dopier than "Getting Closer," which I DO love)... but they'd sound good with this lineup and suddenly you start to have this "He's back, he's ROCKIN!" record.

The band sounds great, though it's hard to shake the sense of them as "shit, let's hire some young guys, we gotta stay current!" We were talking about that "Last Flight in Glasgow" live bootleg that's on Youtube a while back, right? They sound okay! It's not a radically different sound or anything but it sounds good and one or two things that are maybe forced on the record are already sounding a bit better. I'm disappointed they didn't try to rework "Mull of Kintyre" as another "response to new wave" or whatever but "Band on the Run" is just slightly more roaring and hard-hitting and it's cool. Were it not for the bust maybe they would have really gelled (and we wouldn't have gotten McCartney II, or who knows).

Moka, there's scattered good stuff in the 80s/90s, I don't think he ever just entirely lost it but the hit/miss ratio does change kind of suddenly at a certain point. McCartney II is a totally different kinda trip, that's great. Tug of War is probably his strongest and best-recorded set of material between that and Flaming Pie, though YMMV - it can be a bit too precious and polished and there are some duds. Flowers in the Dirt has very good songwriting, the sound and performances may or may not be your bag though depending where you stand on adult contemporary pop-rock in 1989. The others you have to really cherry pick though I know ILX has some Press to Play stans.

Oh - and if you like "Young Boy" you might like "Hope of Deliverance" and some other stuff on Off the Ground...

see also: MACCA SOLO ALBUMS!