C/D Paul McCartney Solo

"Jet"

"Junior's Farm"

"Listen to What the Man Said"

otherwise, it's shit.

I like 'jet' and the start of 'C moon' and I like 'maybe I'm amazed' and 'no more lonely nights' and 'silly love songs'!!!

It's an odd collection because it is missing some good bits ("Maybe I'm Amazed" "Helen Wheels" "Take it Away"). I'll probably just end up getting his lps eventually, like I usually do with artist I admire (sigh).

-- Alex in NYC

There's no difference!! Paul was the, what do you say, "auteur"...

Paul McCartney is one of those artists that I bet there's a potential CD-R or two's worth of stuff I would absolutely adore - really he needs to be a lot more obscure than he is, so some loving curator could trawl through his albums and B-Sides and make some selections. As it is his commercial/historical clout means the available compilations take the path of least resistance a bit too much.

Beatles beat the rest hands-down - that much we know. Beyond that, RJG is probably right. But the best post-Beatles Macca I know is VENUS & MARS - a bit of a 70s masterpiece. TUG OF WAR also has great stuff; his work with Costello has its moments; and so does the FLAMING PIE LP (1997).

I did the CDR thing with McCartneys back catalogue a year or two ago and managed to get 4 really good chronological comps. I would guess that a lot of people would like much of this stuff if they sat down and listened to it. McCartney solo though is almost dismissed and I don't think that the Wingspan comp kicked off the resurection of the post Beatles stuff that I or probably he expected.

What I really can't get over is the fact that Paul himself doesn't realise how rubbish he is nowadays. Wake up!

He really seems to think his solo work is comparable to the Beatles. It's not. Maybe it was always going to be a dissapointment by the Beatles standards, but by _any_ standards it's awful. And still he doesn't get it.

Maybe if we all stood outside his house with placards saying "Paul, your music is now shit!" he'd get it. But I doubt it. He'd probably think "Hey those guys have spelled 'hit' wrong".

Dud.

Favourite videos: Goodnight Tonight, Pipes of Peace.

Also C: "Jet," "Too Many People," "Let Me Roll It," "Spin It On" (Wings go thrash!)

good old dad.

I don't think I've even seen a copy of WINGSPAN in a record store.

I reminded my dad about the 'all the best'-for-christmas thing on friday night when we were in a car. he didn't really remember. he said "and why did she [my mum] buy you that instead?" and I told him again and he understood. then he asked "and why did you want 'faith'??" and the answer was...I was six...I had seen it advertised on television.

Yes, COMING UP is great.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0316860328/qid=1045408789/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_3_1/026-5101041-0610836

It's an intimate scrapbook.

Capitals are the new italics.

If that's not a special offer I'll EAT MY HAT. Note controversial opinion expressed herein: the best solo Paul McCartney work did not appear until FLOWERS IN THE DIRT. Before anyone rushes to order it, please note that it appears to be two-dimensional.

I used to listen to my mum's copy of "All The Best" all the time. On vinyl, too.

amazing.

Love Coming Up and C Moon too.

And then I wake up.

I had "All the best" on CD for many years, never listened to it, but I'll agree that "Venus and Mars" is a neglected classic, as is the first McCartney LP, very primitive but rather homely.

I had dreams about WINGSPAN last night. or it featured in my last night's dreams. I think it was really big and cost one hundred and twenty-five pounds or twenty-five pounds and was sealed in plastic and didn't tell me the tracklisting.

record shopping w/ allyC, yesterday, we saw many mccartney/wings albums. WINGS AT THE SPEED OF SOUND looked OK but was on cassette and three pounds fifty.

Sometimes I think Paul's just world's greatest jingle writer. It may be crap but it sticks in the memory like a bad infection that won't go away.

*just the

I know temp sec has had a huge revival and I'm a big fan of the song myself but that doesn't mean the 7" should sell for big money, it's not like the song isn't on McCartney II.

yah mc2 is still like a $5-10 record

i just saw him live and he puts on a good show for being in his 80s but he really has odd taste in his own material. like, he played for over 2.5 hours and has enough hits that he could have played solely iconic crowd-pleasers, and definitely didn't do just that, but it wasn't like he was pulling out great deep cuts for the real heads either? and the only lennon song he played was "being for the benefit of mr. kite" of all things, though i guess maybe that's because he's been taking credit for co-writing it in interviews in the last decade

probably the weirdest thing was when he played only half of "you never give me your money" straight out of "fuh you" (which is just an awful song lol)?

despite being as maligned as it is, "ob-la-di ob-la-da" got one of the very biggest reactions from the crowd. granny music is eternal i guess

i did get a rather good view despite having bought one of the cheapest seats, no idea why it was like that but i'm certainly not complaining. certainly many people who paid hundreds more would have had worse views

wow, he played "Junior's Farm" and "Letting Go"!

despite being as maligned as it is, "ob-la-di ob-la-da" got one of the very biggest reactions from the crowd.

the older i get, the more i like this song

wow, he played "Junior's Farm" and "Letting Go"!

I saw him do the former at Yankee Stadium - it's one of my favorite recordings from him and he didn't do it when I saw him earlier at Citi Field, so I was very pleased. I saw him do the latter at MSG in 2017, and I had completely forgotten about it - excellent deep cut.

i think we got "letting go" at each of the last two shows I went to, and one even had a horn section

he had a horn section this time, it was nice. though it was funny when there were the occasional synth horns used that he didn't bring out the real horns for

Sometimes I think Paul's just world's greatest jingle writer. It may be crap but it sticks in the memory like a bad infection that won't go away.

I have a similar suspicion: his best musical moments might have come about when he was simply exploring for himself what sounds really pleasing to the ear when you’re heavily stoned… A few snatches of notes that are insanely catchy that he then later extends into a song.

ob-la-di the only beatles song my mum likes, and I have to agree that it's a cracker

Yeah I get why so many people hate it but I’ve always liked it. It’s fun, catchy and the production is pretty good (I think he doubled the bass so the sound is pretty fat).

i feel pretty indifferent to it, it's far from the worst of paul's "granny music" but also pretty far from his best work

It was an unexpected highlight when I saw him at Glastonbury in 2022. Fat sound indeed.

I love me some Wings but less a fan of the rockers so the early Junior's Farm wasn't a highlight back then, though I sort of enjoyed the bemusement in the crowd ("Do we know this? Are we into it?")

It puzzles me that he never plays Silly Love Songs any more. I wonder if some songs just remind him of Linda too much.

Though setlist.fm says he hasn't played it since 1976!

he has barely ever played anything from ram in concert so truly who knows what goes into his choices

"silly love songs" is a classic and one of the very best wings songs, i would have loved to have heard it. sometimes people throw about 'ram invented indie pop' which doesn't make much sense to me but "silly love songs" sure anticipated a fair amount of it

On Ram, when responding to its latter-day status among fans, he's said that he finds it hard to listen to himself as it was recorded at such an unhappy time for him.

i wonder if he'd like it more if it had been correctly acclaimed at the time

Ram's public embrace and rejection by critics was for years a point of pride for him.

I think SLS is OK apart from the bassline, which is right up there with “Michelle” for my favourite Macca. I can’t believe some of the stuff he played on the Fabs records.

xp well he should bring that pride back and play a bunch of it live

I agree with matt, the bassline on SLS is by far the best thing about that single, and it's a GREAT bassline. I could listen to that on loop for hours on end.

(just the bass part that is)

Even if the only song in his solo oeuvre was "Maybe I'm Amazed," that would be enough to make him a classic.

Fortunately, he also hasd "Press."

i really think it's a crime paul never did a whole album in the vein of tracks like "silly love songs" and "goodnight tonight"

I think you could put together an album length compilation of stuff he did with a similar vibe - those two, My Love, Arrow Through Me, Take It Away, Dress Me Up as a Robber ... maybe the version of No More Lonely Nights with the squelchy synth bass. I like Write Away, but but I think the mid-80s production make it sound too harsh to fit in with the above, not smooth or lush enough. Secret Friend has a different sound as well, but maybe the ten minute version would work as an outro

"blue sway" is another yeah

I’m kind of stunned to see Super 70s Sports on the case:

Name a song you love that doesn’t get played or talked about a ton. I’ll start: pic.twitter.com/EdEhEr60pS

— Super 70s Sports (@Super70sSports) March 23, 2024

i'm kind of having a Wings phase and will check this out. i just listented to Wild Life for the first time, which rules and has my wondering why i waited so long.

"Arrow Through Me" is by far the best tune on Back to the Egg.

haha, good to know. it's not too shabby

listening to Red Rose Speedway now. you know, i love Linda's voice. beautiful angel voice. when i think about how people went through the trouble to isolate her vocal tracks so they could shit on her and imply that she somehow didn't deserve to be making music with Paul McCartney -- god it makes me so fucking mad

Back to the Egg is an excellent album and yes, this song is great

Linda harmonies are usually A+

Red Rose Speedway might be underrated? I need to listen some more but it all sounds good to me.

Love Big Barn Bed and Single Pigeon.

Red Rose Speedway is an all-time favorite of mine. Side B is just about perfect. And personally I'll take Paul/Linda/Denny harmonies over those by Paul/John/George anytime.

https://www.stereogum.com/2257275/vinyl-artwork-rejected-by-paul-mccartney-for-being-too-unflattering-is-being-auctioned-for-charity/news/

hahaha that is horrific

Yikes

lmao

Watching Wingspan (on YT) which I haven’t seen since it aired in 2001 – it’s absolutely a love letter to Linda. He’s interviewed warmly by Stella, and it’s full of warm (at times treacly) remembrances of their relationship.

The opening 45 minutes that covers Paul and Linda’s unorthodox musical romance, the formation of Wings and rather brave tour of English universities is fascinating. Notwithstanding his own massive celebrity, Paul’s partnership with Linda (replete with open air tour buses with baby cribs on the roof and seafaring recording studios in the Virgin Islands) even now scans as a somewhat unlikely path to superstardom.

Have to imagine that it wasn’t a coincidence that he married Heather Mills a year later either.

Mary, not Stella, I think.

To his immense credit the world's biggest star tried to be as 'umble as possible.

Yep, Mary