We all POLL together: Paul McCartney's 1980's singles!

Eight-year-old me insists I vote for "Press."

I'm tempted to vote for "Press" but there's lots of goodness:

"Take It Away" = those harmonies, horns, piano parts. His best top ten of the decade.

"My Brave Face" = smart, well-observed song about middle age.

"This One" = The song that made me a solo McCartney fan. Would be perfect shed of the endless "God is riding..." coda.

I may vote for "No More Lonely Nights," which boasts my favorite Gilmour solo in recorded history.

I only realised recently that the single version of Pretty Little Head is fairly different from the album version. it seems kind of weird that the video looks so expensive after the video for Press was just McCartney gooning about on the underground (also, cameo appearance by Trigger from Only Fools & Horses)

https://youtu.be/e2yX8woDEDQ

"Coming Up" for a number of reasons: fat bass sound & dry up-front drums, instant success at any party/club DJ scenario, Paul goofing off with a bunch of sounds while remaining perfectly in the pocket, and it inspired John to start writing again.

When McCartney released his All The Best! compilation in 1987, the UK version contained at least seven of these songs, and none of them were from the recent Press To Play album! Ouch. The '80s were mostly still quite clearly a commercially successful decade for McCartney, though, even though one could argue that 1983-1988 wasn't his best period: Pipes of Peace was the Tug of War leftovers, the flops of ...Broad Street and Press To Play etc.

The wonderful thing about 'Coming Up' is just how much the bass carries the thing! The drums and the guitar mostly stay static, grinding out the same thing over and over. It's a genius piece of writing, IMO.

The LP version of 'Pretty Little Head' > the single version!

I only found out recently that Eddie Rayner (yes, he of Split Enz) plays on 'Spies Like Us'(!)

Went for "This one" - underrated.

the bridge ("What opportunities did we allow to flow by...") is wonderful

I agree... it's something that wouldn't sound out of place on XTC's Nonsuch, I think!

A self-production, by the way. The best songs on FITD he produced himself.

There's a great moment in 'Figure of Eight' which gets me every time and it's on the second chorus where McCartney changes his vocal style for the first part ("is it betteeeeeer") and contrasts nicely with the more shoutier first chorus, and sounds lovely when sung over that chord progression.

*it

YES. That whole vocal sounds unrehearsed.

He also gets loopy on "It's nothin' more than a TAPE LOOP."

The re-recorded version released the following year elides every one of these quirks.

'Once Upon a Long Ago' is another underrated one... sadly buried away on the All The Best!, it's a lost gem. Love the middle section with the strange approach to the vocals. It always reminds me of Christmas for some reason, and it seems better suited for that (and a better song) than 'Wonderful Christmastime', which I always thought sucked.

so many great choices. decided to give my vote to Temporary Secretary which I'm surprised to learn was a single. The constituent parts are all so ridiculous that he somehow manages to pull it off

Temporary Secretary was only on a 12" single and only in the UK

"Take It Away" maybe? I like "We All Stand Together" a lot. Got to listen to the Flowers ones more.

"Coming Up" cos I read it as "Getting Closer".

I expect that 'Temporary Secretary' will get the hipster/indie/McCartney II fan vote, and while I enjoy the track and the album it's from plenty, I wouldn't consider it to be go-to McCartney stuff for me, in the way I would, say, Flowers In The Dirt or Back To The Egg.

I hate his vocal choice on "Temporary Secretary" and indie McCartney fans.

Alfred OTM in that Gilmour's work on 'No More Lonely Nights' is sublime... particularly during the outro!

Looking over this list, I can only see four songs which are an easy "no fucking way is that getting my vote"

Voted Temporary Secretary but certainly I'm bland enough to be torn over Coming Up and Take It Away

i love temporary secretary but it is a very annoying vocal

"I neeeedah! Anita!" is something I've sang far too often to not fall in love with

the hipster love for "Temporary Secretary" is very real and very irritating. i had a conversation with an acquaintance about this a couple months ago, she said with all seriousness "i kinda like...hate on the beatles... because it's like....kinda cool to hate on, like....the beatles.....but like....i'm really into this McCartney II record......."Temporary Secretary"....yeahhh."

i don't really care about the beatles that much and mccartney II is my favorite solo beatle record (´・ω・`)

Alfred OTM in that Gilmour's work on 'No More Lonely Nights' is sublime... particularly during the outro!

― pen pineapple apple pen (Turrican),

Paul lets Gilmour rip in the last 30 seconds; the guitar gets uglier and uglier.

I might make myself a mixtape of tracks where McCartney adopts a funny/"funny" voice - Rocky Racoon, Venus and Mars/Rock Show, Admiral Halsey etc. tbh I usually like it when he does this (Rocky Racoon is the exception, first ten seconds of that are unbearable)

Coming Up as one of the better Talking Heads rips.

do the pitched up backing vox in "Coming Up" count? even the main vocal in that is heavily processed and sort of camp

xp

yeah, the vocals in Coming Up are maybe in some sort of grey area between homage and take-off

the intro/middle section of Goodnight Tonight is always the McCartney track that reminds me most of Talking Heads

Is there anyone out there that'll rep for 'Ebony and Ivory' or 'Spies Like Us'? Show yourselves! Hehehehe!

I like "Ebony and Ivory." Have you heard the demo?

new board description?

lol thanks (:

Somebody has to admit that "Say Say Say" is one helluva pop record, and I guess that somebody is me.

I'll say it! By far the best Jackson-McCartney collaboration

"Coming Up" for me. The --erm -- funkiest he's ever been.

Man, I do not like the remix of "Take It Away" that's on the currently available version of Tug of War. Old version still available on Wingspan.

"Coming Up" for me. The --erm -- funkiest he's ever been.

hum. I find "What's that you're doing" funkier.

Coming Up is so good, and yeah it's the best song Talking Heads never made.
'What's That You're Doing' should have been a single over 'Tug Of War' or 'Ebony & Ivory'

xp omg

Friends despise, but I like Spies

voted Coming Up, such a fun, infectious song. Prime Mac imo.

Yeah, 'Say Say Say' is one of my favourite tracks of that whole early '80s "George Martin and big name collaborators" period. They could have, and actually should have condensed Tug of War and Pipes of Peace into one album.

I'm still trying to narrow these down!

a minor hit in America

did it get MTV play?

A great string of singles, with only a couple of fairly obvious duds. I've said before that whatever one can say against his album output in this period, there's no dip in the top-drawer stuff, so long as the listener's as comfortable with "pop" as with "rock." Right after Back to the Egg Paul seems to almost totally abandon the latter, and when he comes back to it it feels uncomfortable and dad-like, though in large part this is due to the ill-fitting production on e.g. "Stranglehold." The video for that one, significantly, goes for a "live in a bar" setting with a lot of dubbed in crowd noise, perhaps trying to camouflage the cold, hardness of the recording. It's a good move, though it still doesn't get him to the Steve Winwood "Roll With It" sound, from two years later, which would surely have served him better. I rep for Choba B CCCP and Run Devil Run so I don't think he ever lost his rockin' entirely.

Anyway, point is, so long as you don't mind McCartney moving to Geir-town, there's tons to like here. Melodic, infectious, sometimes danceable, nearly always well-sung pop covering a fair range of styles and sounds, and sometimes even brushing against a real human emotion that might draw the song into someone's heart. I have to say I've never found myself much relating to any of these, but if you want something to sing along to, he's your man as always. This list also reminds me that Paul was ill-served by the decision to produce continually updated pseudo-comprehensive greatest-hits packages, rather than just doling out a "Vol. III." A few cuts here and there and this list would have made a very convincing 15-track singles package for Christmas 1990.

Surprised myself by voting for "My Brave Face," just over "Coming Up, "Say Say Say," and "No More Lonely Nights."

"Coming Up" is so good. love those synths.

"Temporary Secretary" is overrated. the production is way better than the song.

everything else puts me to sleep. i find solo Paul mostly dull.

Well, I don't find the production on "Strangehold" ill-fitting. It sounds like the title suggests.

It suggests the UK Subs.

I like the production on Stranglehold, the combination of rootsy guitar + big gated drums + smooth saxophone is odd but I think it works.

there's a different mix of Angry here that is a lot better than the one on the record imo: https://youtu.be/DX6rz64xNNY

I think this list is missing So Bad, wasn't that a single? It's an irritating song though

on the US version it's the A side and it's great and strange sounding and I love it.

Doctor Casino OTM.

Even if albums like Pipes of Peace and Press to Play weren't particularly well-recieved, McCartney was still managing to get plenty of action on the singles charts, and some of the singles here could definitely be considered to be among McCartney's best post-Beatles work. It was also apparent by this stage that he was the most successful of all the former Beatles: Lennon was dead, Ringo was doing Thomas The Tank Engine and, apart from Cloud Nine, only the seriously dedicated were still buying Harrison albums.

After Off The Ground, and beginning with Flaming Pie, McCartney's albums started to become better received than his '80s albums, but he stopped having big hits.

You have to include Harrison's Wilburys affiliations to get a sense of how omnipresent he seemed in that period compared to the shrinking McCartney, who must've been so galled that he started floating the "George and I should write abtune" schtick.

I think ten of the selections here made the UK Top 10, and three of those ('Ebony and Ivory', 'Pipes of Peace' and 'Ferry Cross The Mersey') were UK #1's. 'Coming Up', 'Ebony and Ivory' and 'Say Say Say' were US #1's.

As for albums:

McCartney II, Tug of War, Give My Regards To Broad Street and Flowers In The Dirt were all #1 in the UK album chart.

Tug of War was his only US #1 album in the '80s, I think.

Add "Take It Away," "No More Lonely Nights," and "Spies Like Us" to the U.S tally.

Top tens

I dunno how successful the Wilbury's were in the US, but here they didn't perform as well as you'd think for a band with all that talent in it. Biggest hit: 'Handle With Care', which peaked at #21 and the LP peaked at #16. Cloud Nine and 'I Got My Mind Set On You' performed far better, both going Top 10, but he hadn't given any indication he'd be capable of that level of commercial appeal for years by that point, and he certainly didn't match its success afterwards either!

Oh the Wilburys were massive here, not only mention Lynne and Harrison's work on their colleagues' albums.

In the U.S., Harrison is the second most successful successful

Beatle

i don't remember this Ferry Across the Mersey version at all

oh it was an english charity thing (in that, I don't beleve it even got released in the US)

Yeah, it was a charity record for Hillsborough, so I don't think it would have been released in the US. Stock Aitken Waterman produced it.

I vote for Press, which I absolutely love to death. (also I managed to mix perfectly out of it and into the extended mix of the Peech Boys' "Don't Make Me Wait" (the claps overlapped perfectly with the guitar noodling at the end) one time, but I haven't been able to do it perfectly again since.)

Voted for "Take It Away." I just love the whole mood of that song, and it's one of Martin's most impeccable production jobs for solo McCartney. (When you have Paul doing all the heavy lifting plus ringers like Eric Stewart and Steve Gadd assisting, it's hard to fail.)

I just looked for probably the first time in 25 years and noticed he plays the Hofner, Rickenbacker and the Wal in the video.

I think Take It Away might been my second choice, but wow Tug of War pretty boring record. Immaculately produced to not much effect. It's almost like he wanted to make some kind of pan-European pop record a la ABBA, but forgot to write good songs. Even the Lennon tribute comes off glossy and superficial.

Ooh, I'm gonna have to mostly disagree with you there, but you're definitely OTM about the album operating in the same stylistic zone as an early '80s ABBA record a la Super Trouper or The Visitors. Professionally produced pop, if much less personal than those ABBA records, save 'Here Today'

I don't think Tug of War is a boring record, though. If anything, it's the type of blockbuster record (reuniting with Martin, getting guest stars like Wonder in) that he really needed to make at the time, and I think they did a really good job of it.

xp
honestly, it's George Martin that ruins Here Today for me, string quartet arrangement seems unnecessary, and actually threatens to spoil the sentiment. I think if Mac were to write this today, he'd probably just do it on acoustic guitar, no double-tracked backing vocals or other accompaniment. The whole record strikes me as B- and C-level songs with A-production, like he went back to his Wings idea pad for a lot of it, and let his guests carry the other stuff.

Will give him props for "ballroom dancing made a man of out me", tho it would have been 10x funnier had ABBA actually done it.

Keepers on TOW:

Take It Away
Get It
Ballroom Dancing
What's That You're Doing
Here Today
Wanderlust

I haven't figured out if "Dress Me Up Like a Robber" is a good song or a busy arrangement hiding a banal song.

I've never been much of a fan of 'Ballroom Dancing', I love all the rest of Alfred's selections, as well as 'The Pound Is Sinking' and 'Somebody Who Cares' ...

...thinking about it, the melody to 'Tug of War' (the song) sounds very ABBA-like. ABBA may have actually been the direct influence on that one.

(I prefer 'Pipes of Peace', for what it's worth)

you know what's a fun song and kind of a musical cousin to Take It Away is "Keep Under Cover". I feel like he could write songs like that in his sleep, but had a preoccupation with being "current"

He probably could, but it's one of my least favourites on Pipes of Peace... I'd actually kinda forgotten about it until I re-listened to the '80s LP's a few days back. It would have made a nice mini album without all the padding... I can sense the bottom dropping out of the album a few minutes into side two.

"Dress Me up as a Robber" is a great track but don't care for the LOUD panning hi-hat in the new mix at all.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

like a flowaa

I'd rather listen to 'Dress Me Up As A Robber' than stuff like 'Hey Hey' or 'Tug of Peace' ...

keepers on tug of war to me:

tug of war
take it away
pound is sinking
wanderlust
here today
somebody who cares

rest is meh

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

tite

Six votes for 'We All Stand Together'(!)

surprised "say say say" didn't do better/win this...
to me it's by far the greatest thing he's done in the 80s (and one of the coolest of his whole career) !

I voted for Coming Up, and glad it won, but think it's a shame that Pipes of Peace didn't get a single vote - despite the corny lyrics I've always had a soft spot for that one.

Will assume votes for We All Stand Together are trolling unless anyone wants to say otherwise.

Nah, there'll be some ilxors that were little when it came out.

Yeah, I love 'Pipes of Peace' and find it to be very underrated. 'We All Stand Together' rules.

I would probably rate Pipes of Peace a little higher if not for the ''songs of JOY instead of BURN BABY BURN'' bit, which is just a shade too dopey for me. Very pretty tune though.

imo the cringiness reaches its apex with "Or Will Someone Save This Planet We're Playing On? / Is It The Only One?" (just edging out "Will The Human Race Be Run In A Day?"). I do like the song though, especially the "I light a candle to our love" intro/outro which is gorgeous (and I do find that part oddly poignant, the main body of the song is too kitsch to have that kind of effect). I feel like solo McCartney tended to fall flat on his face when he was self-consciously trying to tackle "big" themes head on (Give Ireland Back To The Irish, Ebony And Ivory etc), his best solo tracks tend to be quite low key affairs (and like I say, my favourite part of Pipes Of Peace is the "One And One Is All We Long To Hear" part.

and sometimes even brushing against a real human emotion that might draw the song into someone's heart. I have to say I've never found myself much *relating* to any of these, but if you want something to sing along to, he's your man as always.

I do find even some of his slushiest "I'd like to teach the world to sing" type songs touching in that there seems to be this obsessive anxiety and fear of being abandoned lurking just below the surface in a lot of them, I think Waterfalls might be my favourite thing here as it kind of makes that aspect explicit

Take It Away (1982) 11

surprising! always a fave that one.

Yeah, if there was a McCartney post-Beatles poll, 'Take It Away' would be an easy inclusion on my ballot, no doubt about it!