This Is The Thread Where We Praise And Canonize Paul McCartney's "Ram"

baffled by all the hate directed at "admiral halsey" itt. every part of that song is great.

rain solo

I see no "Ram" McCartney on Spotify.

I do see "The Ram Project" by Dave Depper, looks like a cover project (not played it)

telephone solo

http://drownedinsound.com/in_depth/4145012-paul-mccartney-discusses-songwriting-and-ram-with-mansuns-paul-draper

Do you think you were influenced by the early prog-rock movement, I guess you wouldn’t say RAM was a prog-rock album? Do you think you were influenced by seeing Pink Floyd at the Roundhouse...

What I take the influence back to was A Teenage Opera. That was a very early record in the late 60s, by Keith West... it was his only, like, big hit. That was episodic, there was a bit and it went 'buh-buh-bum', then it went there, and there, and there [Sir Paul makes some stacking gestures with his hands]. I think that was the first record I heard, and we heard, and we thought ‘that’s interesting’. You can have a song here, then you can cut like a film to another song, and you can even cut the tempo and go slow and so on. That was really the one that was the biggest influence, and then lots of people started doing it. We'd do it a bit, prog-rock did it, Townshend started doing it a bit, The Who opera and all that.

-

who knew Excerpt From A Teenage Opera was SO influential??

I see no "Ram" McCartney on Spotify.

Assuredly his best record, and the one where the overstuffed detail-ridden arrangements and production really reward endless listening; there's nothing undercooked on this record at all. Amazing that it so convincingly carries a "homemade" vibe given that it's actually a pretty precise studio creation of the sort he seemingly couldn't be bothered with on his notionally slick studio albums (London Town, Press To Play, etc.). It has this amazing mix of "gorgeous" and "earthy," helped to no small degree by the choice of offbeat lyrical themes (simple life in the country vs. psychedelic gibberish about gypsies and Monkberry Moon Delight) and the prominence of Linda's backing vocals, which take off the sheen and give everything this great straw-like texture. Love this album.

Hadn't noticed the remaster coming out.... am now checking out the bonus stuff on Spotify. This version of "A Love For You" is....weird. Feels very "Flaming Pie" or Brian Wilson "Smile" - are these 2012 recordings being mixed in? Glad to see some of this stuff making its way out of the vaults in any case.

http://drownedinsound.com/in_depth/4145012-paul-mccartney-discusses-songwriting-and-ram-with-mansuns-paul-draper

― piscesx, Monday, May 28, 2012 2:08 PM (7 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Meh. I found that interview quite bland, actually. Not that it's the fault of DrownedInSound or Paul Draper, but rather McCartney himself. I've often found it really frustrating whenever I read interviews that are usually to do with his solo work, but he usually ends up steering the conversation so he ends up talking about John Lennon or the fucking Beatles. It's frustrating as a fan, because The Beatles thing has been talked about so much that there's nothing really left to say... it just doesn't interest me at all. Yet, he's had a solo career since 1970 and has barely talked about any of that stuff, with a couple of notable exceptions. Q Magazine managed to get a decent interview with him on solo work a couple of years back (and they even pretty much said in the opening paragraph, if I remember, that they had to seriously try to stop him from talking about The Beatles)... and Mojo did an excellent piece on McCartney through to Band On The Run but went no further.

Pretty much everyone knows what John Lennon or George Harrison were going through and what inspired even some of their lesser albums or songs. With Paul, it can sometimes be unclear as to where it all came from. He really needs to open up more on his solo work, in my opinion. And it's not like all of his songs aren't about anything... stuff like 'Wanderlust' is based on a real life incident, for example.

Wow. This is great. I'd never heard it before today and have played it 4 times through already. The reissue sounds wonderful. It sounds to me today like a missing 3rd disc from The White Album. The bonus disc is great also.

I only know this and McCartney II. Is the Wings stuff worth looking into as well? I've always been put off because of Mull of Kintyre, which I hate as much as Yesterday and Ob-La-Di Ob-La-Da. Or The Long and Winding Road. Jees. McCartney Beatles tunes could be some shit schmatlz.

There's not much that hits as consistent a sweet spot as Ram, IMO - but you might give Band on the Run a few spins and see if it clicks for you. That and Red Rose Speedway are the closest to Ram in spirit IMO, but RRS is a little more schmaltzy and a little more aimless. It's definitely not all "Mull of Kintyre" with this guy - the great thing about the Wings period is how totally all over the map it is. That also means there's a fair bit of crap, but as I always say, that's part of the charm of exploring this guy's catalogue IMO.

i had a similar initial reaction to Ram and then went down the band on the run/red rose speedway/mccartneyII route and came out severely disappointed, but Ram will always be awesome.

aw mull of kintyre is great

anyway me and by brother and sister bought our mom the deluxe box set for mother's day and she is absolutely in love with it. it's very pretty.

McCARTNEY (1970)
Search: 'Every Night', 'Junk' and 'Maybe I'm Amazed'.
Destroy: 'Man We Was Lonely'.

RAM (1971)
Search: 'Too Many People', 'Ram On', 'Dear Boy', 'Heart Of The Country', 'Eat At Home', 'Long Haired Lady' and 'Back Seat Of My Car'.
Destroy: 'Monkberry Moon Delight'.

WILD LIFE (1971)
Search: It's very hard to recommend much from this album. Side two is the better side: 'Some People Never Know', 'I Am Your Singer', 'Tomorrow' and 'Dear Friend'. With a little bit more care put into the writing/recording these compositions could have been great. 'Some People Never Know' in particular is too long.
Destroy: 'Mumbo and 'Bip Bop'. Seriously Paul, what the fuck?

RED ROSE SPEEDWAY (1973)
Search: 'Big Barn Bed', 'My Love', 'One More Kiss', 'Little Lamb Dragonfly', 'Single Pigeon', 'Loup (1st Indian On The Moon)'
Destroy: 'When The Night' (lazy garbage), and the whole Medley at the end of side two.

BAND ON THE RUN (1973)
Search: 'Band On The Run', 'Jet', 'Bluebird', 'No Words', 'Nineteen Hundred And Eighty Five'
Destroy: 'Mrs. Vandebilt' and 'Picasso's Last Words (Drink To Me)'.

VENUS AND MARS (1975)
Search: Everything!
Destroy: Nothing!

WINGS AT THE SPEED OF SOUND (1976)
Search: 'Let Em In' (yes, really), 'The Note You Never Wrote', 'Silly Love Songs' and 'Warm And Beautiful'
Destroy: Everything else on the album is, in my humble opinion, shite.

LONDON TOWN (1978)
Search: 'Cafe On The Left Bank', 'I'm Carrying', 'Backwards Traveller', 'Cuff Link', 'Children Children' and 'With A Little Luck'.
Destroy: 'I've Had Enough', 'Famous Groupies' (what the fuck, man, seriously?) and 'Name And Address'.

BACK TO THE EGG (1979)
Search for everything except for 'Spin It On', which is crap.

McCARTNEY II (1980)
Search: 'Coming Up', 'Temporary Secretary' and 'Waterfalls'.

TUG OF WAR (1982)
Search: 'Tug Of War', 'Take It Away', 'Somebody Who Cares', 'Here Today', 'The Pound Is Sinking', 'Wanderlust'.
Destroy: 'Ballroom Dancing' (urgh!) and 'Dress Me Up As A Robber'.

at this point we hit a slump in McCartney's catalogue...

PIPES OF PEACE (1983)
Search: 'Pipes Of Peace', 'Say Say Say', 'So Bad' and maybe 'The Man'.
Destroy: everything else. Just don't even bother. Especially 'Average Person' which in particular is goddamn awful.

GIVE MY REGARDS TO BROADSTREET (1984)
Search for 'No More Lonely Nights' and destroy the hell out of everything else.

PRESS TO PLAY (1986)
Search: 'Stranglehold', 'Only Love Remains', 'Footprints' and 'Press'.
Destroy: 'Good Times Coming'. Christ. 'However Absurd' could have been great, but McCartney's vocal on that track is just... ehhh...

And this is the point where, in my opinion, McCartney begins to 'get it back'...

FLOWERS IN THE DIRT (1989)
Definitely search: 'My Brave Face', 'You Want Her Too', 'Distractions', 'We Got Married', 'Put It There', 'Figure Of Eight', 'This One' and 'That Day Is Done'.
Destroy: 'Rough Ride', 'How Many People' and 'Motor Of Love'.

OFF THE GROUND (1993)
Search: 'Hope Of Deliverance', 'Golden Earth Girl', 'The Lovers That Never Were' and 'C'mon People'.
Destroy: 'Peace In The Neighborhood', 'Get Out Of My Way' and 'Winedark Open Sea'.

FLAMING PIE (1997)
Search: 'The Song We Were Singing', 'The World Tonight', 'Somedays', 'Young Boy', 'Calico Skies', 'Flaming Pie', 'Little Willow' and 'Beautiful Night'.
Destroy: 'Heaven On A Sunday' (cack!), 'Used To Be Bad' (cack!) and 'Really Love You' (cack!)

DRIVING RAIN (2001)
Search: 'Lonely Road', 'From A Lover To A Friend', 'She's Given Up Talking', 'I Do', 'Your Way', 'About You', 'Heather' (LOL!), 'Your Loving Flame' and 'Rinse The Raindrops'.
Destroy: 'Driving Rain', 'Tiny Bubble', 'Magic', 'Spinning On An Axis' (*groans*), 'Back In The Sunshine Again' (*retches*), 'Riding Into Jaipur' and, most importantly, 'Freedom' (*vomits beautifully*).

CHAOS AND CREATION IN THE BACKYARD (2005)
Search: Everything!
Destroy: Nothing!

MEMORY ALMOST FULL (2007)
Search: 'Dance Tonight' (yes, really), 'Ever Present Past' (yes, really), 'See Your Sunshine', 'Only Mama Knows', 'You Tell Me', 'Mr. Bellamy', 'House Of Wax' and 'The End Of The End'.
Destroy: 'Gratitude' (fucking hell, Paul), and 'Nod Your Head' (*shakes his head*).

Yeah, side two of Wild Life is probably closest to Ram. Nice stuff.

"San Ferry Anne" is a nice tune on Speed of Sound, by the way. Glad to see "Single Pigeon" pointed out.

10/10 posting Turrican. Cheers. I think I'm gonna have to experience most of that vomiting for myself though. Not really feeling the Monkberry Moon repulsion at this stage, but let's see...

I'm loving Linda on this: "is this the only thing you want me for"

Though this might me be the schmaaltz I was posting about earlier. It's fantastic though.

a VERY good introduction to solo Macca/ Wings for the uninitiated is this double CD

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-X6X5Ba9WGMM/T2HD_k0-PrI/AAAAAAAAAfw/Qlkz7wAUkh8/s640/paul+mccartney+wingpag+and+history+album+cover+2001.jpg

oh and also for anyone who's never seen it, the accompanying WingSpan documentary is ball-jigglingly exciting and is available in full 90 minute glory on You Tube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MIpzZO31m-E

That's a very good compilation indeed. There's one or two selections on there which personally I would have left off, and there's one or two I may have included, but on the whole it's a good summary of the years from 1970 to about 1984. My introduction to solo McCartney was the 1987 compilation 'All The Best!' which has 'Once Upon A Long Ago' on it (which is also a "search", btw!). There really needs to be a complation which covers McCartney's post-1984 years, or which takes in all eras of his solo career.

10/10 posting Turrican. Cheers. I think I'm gonna have to experience most of that vomiting for myself though. Not really feeling the Monkberry Moon repulsion at this stage, but let's see...

― kraudive, Sunday, June 3, 2012 7:26 PM (51 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Brace yourself, a journey through McCartney's solo discography can be a hell of a ride, but it's well worth checking everything out. There's a lot of material there, over 300 songs easily! Some greatness, some goodness, some crap.

New album later this year maybe!

I hope so! I'm still undecided at the moment whether or not to treat the Electric Arguments album he did as The Fireman as part of his 'proper' solo discography. I dunno, I just sometimes think it has more in common with McCartney's usual work than anything he did previously as The Fireman.

it's weird to me that this album was ever considered less than a masterpiece. it looks like even 8 years ago there were haters. I mean I love some odd McCartney albums (McCartney 2 and Back to the Egg, namely) and can see why some people don't like them, but this seems so obviously his best collection, maybe only equalled by Band on the Run.

the songs on wild life recommended above were, I think, recorded at the same time as Ram, so it's not a surprise that they were good.

got the shit kicked out of it at the time by just about everyone supposedly. does seem baffling has to be said. Eat At Home pisses on most of Abbey Road.

most under-rated Macca album at this juncture is Tug Of War i'd say. i mean.. Take It Away, Here Today, etc. could never see the fuss about Flowers In The Dirt.

tug of war has a kind of bad 80's production sheen to it that is hard for me to get past, plus some lousy songs, but the ones I like I like a lot (the pound is sinking and wanderlust, for example)

I'm watching that amazing "Ram Off" bootleg DVD. "Three Legs" is still my favorite song, cos it most sounds like something that could have been on the "White Album". Lots of that album sound like it. It's sort of a shame he went off and formed Wings, cos if he had just stayed home, raising his kids, recording DIY records all through the 70's it may have resulted in some incredible stuff!

I think there's a lot that's owed to Paul in the lo-fi community, particularly with the first album. Stuff like "Beat Happening" probably wouldn't have happened without some of his early post-Beatles music.

Personally, I think he did a huge swan dive in quality after "Ram" - tho MCcartney II rules, obviously.

It's cool to see footage of, like, Paul setting up drums in his living room!

probably worth posting this again for anyone who's not seen it

http://thequietus.com/articles/01922-paul-mccartney-the-beatles-wings-the-best-of

The arrangements on this album are brilliant btw. It's sort of mystifying that people didn't think this was any good, including him!

The best songs on FITD have unexpected chord changes, discreet guest appearances (e.g. David Gilmour on "We Got Married") and quite better than average lyrics.

TOW will most likely get the remastering treatment as it was for a while an album so overrated that now it's underrated.

The best thing to do is to find a Macca-obsessed friend and ask him to burn a free-ranging CD-R: b-sides, album tracks, single mixes. That's what I got in 2001.

btw "No More Lonely Nights" is a real corker, his best of the eighties ("Press" is second, duh).

i wonder which others could possibly now come out in like six CD box sets with replica t shirts for 200 quid. Band On The Run is really the only other one guess.

xp at one point tug of war was his only 5 star album on allmusic. i always thought it was his most highly-rated one.

i disagree with a lot of yr s/ds turrican (the RRS medley is A+) but thank you for searching warm and beautiful. rarely is such a terrible set of lyrics redeemed by beautiful music. also, back to the egg. there's the last pre-90s paul album that would ever receive a reissue/critical reevaluation.

"Arrow Through Me" is a splendid take on EL Lay-Toto rock.

the songs on wild life recommended above were, I think, recorded at the same time as Ram, so it's not a surprise that they were good.

― akm, Monday, June 4, 2012 1:37 AM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Well, I know 'Dear Friend' was recorded during the Ram sessions, but I'm not sure about the others!

also, back to the egg. there's the last pre-90s paul album that would ever receive a reissue/critical reevaluation.

― of family bonds and individual triumph. Narrated by Tim Allen, (zachlyon), Monday, June 4, 2012 2:07 AM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Back To The Egg and Venus And Mars are definitely the two Wings albums I find myself returning to the most. I enjoy listening to both from start to finish for different reasons. Love 'Getting Closer', 'Again And Again And Again', 'Old Siam Sir', the aforementioned 'Arrow Through Me'...

btw "No More Lonely Nights" is a real corker, his best of the eighties ("Press" is second, duh).

― go down on you in a thyatrr (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, June 4, 2012 1:54 AM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Definitely agree with you, Re: 'No More Lonely Nights'!

TOW will most likely get the remastering treatment as it was for a while an album so overrated that now it's underrated.

― go down on you in a thyatrr (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, June 4, 2012 1:53 AM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

In my mind, the three that are most likely to get the remastering treatment are Venus And Mars, Tug Of War and Flowers In The Dirt. I think it's still a bit too soon for everything from Flaming Pie onwards!

i have no recollection of band on the run being reissued in 2010 but apparently that happened

would love to think red rose speedway is a dark horse, but maybe that's just me

Yeah, Band on the Run kicked off this whole series, iirc. But I don't believe it any bonus material like the more recent three did.

fyi, there is an advertisement in the Ram one that says Venus and Mars, Over America, and Speed of Sound are the next three to be released in the series.

anybody own Wings Over America? It gets good reviews here and there.

whoa, one of the b-sides to Temporary Secretary is pretty fucking rad:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w40MUrFq3xM

^^^chillwave

we discussed "Secret Friend" in the Macca II thread and yes it's good.

xp wings over america is good. smh @ speed of sound, wtf