C/D Paul McCartney Solo

It doesn't work out if ya don't work at it... doot doot do!

Okay, so I've just been reminded of how much I love 'Distractions', one of those McCartney songs that seems to come more from a personal place. Usually McCartney either shies away from the personal or obfuscates it.

with a Clare Fischer string arrangement!

'That Day Is Done' is another top tier McCartney track as well, IMO. I'd say if I had to pick one song from Flowers In The Dirt that I don't like as much as the others, I'd say 'How Many People' ...

It's a bit long -- my complaint about the album.

Yep, ten tracks would have been perfect!

Figure of Eight is great - actually had it stuck in my head for a couple days a week or two ago. Good walking-pace tune.

How Many People is dire though - and the other thing one might forget about Motor of Love is that it is about five hundred years long. This One and Back On My Feet would have made a much, much better back end to the record.

I don't really have a problem with 'dated' stuff... I mean, I'm on record as a fan of ''Ou Est Le Soleil,'' ''My Brave Face,'' etc. Just mean that the production on this album may be a barrier to people discoverng it, critics thinking to include it in ''the essential McCartney albums'' lists, etc., which is unfortunate since the material is so good.

To me the album stops after the last minute of "That Day is Done" and the thought of a McCartney album in which "motor" and "love" work in the same sentence and one in which he wrote a save-the-rainforests! anthem.

Yup, those are pretty much the two tracks I'd bump off the album and leave the rest of the sequencing as-is. 'We Got Married' would be the perfect side one closer, and 'That Day Is Done' actually feels like an album closer. I guess 'Don't Be Careless Love' works in the penultumate position too.

A few thoughts:

We Got Married would be a lot better without the bombastic David Foster production.

This One is really catchy.

My Brave Face is good, not great.

Figure of Eight is the only Trevor Horn production that works on FitD.

Put It There is really underrated.

Press To Play is a better album.

i just can't get behind that assertion. I love mccartney, even some of his dreck, but I've never understood the allure of that album. People who love it seem to really love it. It sounds so forced to me.

agree on Put It There. Mama's Little Girl is another pretty acoustic number in the vein of Put It There and I Will, it was recorded during the sessions for Red Rose Speedway in 1972 but wasn't released until 1990 when he put it on the b-side of the Put It There single:

https://youtu.be/2ACW8TUEqUw

I owe Naive Teen Idol for introducing me to PTP a decade ago.

We Got Married would be a lot better without the bombastic David Foster production.

Hmm. Not sure about this, the big production is one of the reasons I love that track so much!

This One is really catchy.

Yep! A great choice of single that should be seen as a solo McCartney classic and McCartney really should be playing it live. Horrid video, though, yet more "I used to be in The Beatles, y'know" shite.

My Brave Face is good, not great.

Disagree completely... it's great! I think it's very well written musically. The only thing I'd change in the lyric is the "I've been breaking up dirty dishes and throwing 'em away" line!

Figure of Eight is the only Trevor Horn production that works on FitD.

Hmm. I'd think I kinda agree with that.

Put It There is really underrated.

I definitely agree with this!

Press To Play is a better album.

Ooh, definitely don't agree with this, although the highlights of Press To Play are very good and on the whole the record doesn't deserve the amount of shit it gets (see also: Back To The Egg, which is excellent and doesn't deserve the shit it gets at all)

Press To Play should have been the "Press" EP - title track, "Good Times Coming," "Pretty Little Head" and "Only Love Remains." Nice little variety-pack from dear old Macca. The rest is profoundly forgettable.

Or just, like, spread it around between the "Press" and "Spies Like Us" singles. He didn't have an album's worth of great material in him and he'd have been better off just touring, noodling around, letting things percolate. There was great potential in a lot of the never-released cuts from this period - "Squid" is lovely, and "Lindiana" and "Love Come Tumbling Down" have strong hooks - they just need more work. All three are better than most of Press to Play.

Back to the Egg just has a stupid cover/title, and the "rockestra" stuff is goofy, otherwise I reckon it's rep'd be a lot better. There's so much good stuff on it. "Getting Closer" is about my fav PM single. Xpost

Urgh "its"

'Press' and 'Only Love Remains' are two of my favourite solo McCartney tracks, and 'Pretty Little Head', 'Talk More Talk' and 'Strangehold' still work their way into my mind from time to time. I'm not really much of a fan of 'Good Times Coming' or... shit, I'm going to have to look at the tracklisting to see what else is on it...

*'Stranglehold', rather.

I love the "Feel the Sun" section of "Good Times Coming." And "Stranglehold" has pep, good horn chart, and nice chord changes -- I credit Eric Stewart. Also: first time "preamble" ever appeared in a pop song.

Guys, "However Absurd"

he sings at one point "however ABSOIIID"

'However Absurd'... isn't very good!

https://media.giphy.com/media/3oz8xLd9DJq2l2VFtu/giphy.gif

It wouldn't make it into my Top 100 post-Beatles McCartney tracks, to be honest. As a tune I find it pretty forgettable and his vocal on it gets on my tits. Down there with the scraps from Pipes of Peace and Off The Ground for me.

Varispeed vocal on the bridge is amazing.

Was listening to "Run, Devil, Run." Rhetorical question, but why does this can't-go-wrong idea sound so shitty? Great players, great sound, great producer but ... just sounds like shit, with horrible drum sound, horrible guitar sounds. OK, maybe Im exaggerating, but all they had to do was yell and rock out in a room! It sounds like session guys stuffed in a pillowcase.

that's one of his best albums!

I agree! (low bar)

I'mma pull it out today but idk I remember it being pretty great, maybe the best ever ''retirement-age rocker pulls out some beloved old rock tunes to cover'' type album? Title track, Blue Jean Bop, No Other Baby, She Said Yeah, Honey Hush and Coquette are all great recordings in my memory.

His theme song to "The Zoo Gang" is pretty good. He should've done less albums and more TV theme songs.

Yeah, I'm not a fan of '50s rock and roll played with big overdriven guitars so much either. There's some good stuff on that album but I'm most partial to ones like "Bluejean Bop" and "Movie Magg" where they go with vintage sounds.

Like I said, I like the concept. And I love fifties rock. I was just not impressed by how they took this no-brainer retro concept and made it sound kind of meh. Performances are fine, it just literally sounds bad to me.

I hardly ever listen to Run Devil Run ... probably one of my least listened to McCartney solo LP's overall.

Fantastic interview with Trevor Horn, Steve Lipson, and Mitchell Froom on the rerelease of Flowers in the Dirt:

http://www.superdeluxeedition.com/interview/in-their-own-words-the-producers-discuss-mccartneys-flowers-in-the-dirt/

Just starting in and it's pure candy to me so far. Thanks for the link.

so like candy!

Amazing how involved they were in the songwriting, or re-writing I guess! Forcing him to come up with a better bridge for Rough Ride, changing all the chords on Figure of Eight (!). Also super interesting that Froom kinda hates on the sound of the period and wishes he could remix "My Brave Face," pretty sure I've said something similar about that track on ILX once or twice.

This is particularly good:

Chris Hughes: Because he’s so good and can do something relatively quickly, and it can be up on its legs and making sense – I think there’s an element that he can be lazy in terms of him being great. Well… the song’s good, now I’m going to do a fucking amazing arrangement and amazing performances. Some of his records, his headspace, you get the impression that he’s doing it and it’s all right, and it makes sense, and it’s Press to Play. There’s other times where somewhere, someone’s obviously said – or he’s thought – “actually, this might as well be great”.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJrD-QK6skE

^^^ Paul's version of a couple of these events. Gotta say the producers' account is a lot more convincing. Oh well.

I don't understand their fascination with "Rough Ride," a non-entity that stops the album dead.

I've always liked that one! I think they're responding to its degree of fleshed-outedness as a song, and maybe some kind of interest/possibility sparked by the title line? Versus something like "Motor of Love" which feels like a really flabby and shapeless composition where Paul is imagining it getting fixed through the recording process.

So odd that "Ou Est Le Soleil" would be his "Myth of Fingerprints" moment.

Firstly, I don't get Horn's fascination with 'Rough Ride' beyond the fact that he worked on it. I like the song, but I don't think it's anywhere near the best thing on there and doesn't work as the second track on the LP.

Secondly, thanks to Horn and Lipson for contributing to making 'Figure of Eight' a highlight of the record and not just another Macca old-style rocker.

Thirdly, Froom is fucking wrong about '80s production.

and he says it at least three times

I want to remind Froom's clinkety-clank "'90s production" on the stuff he worked on that decade sounds words

I always enjoy reading about things getting tense between McCartney and producers in the studio, whether it be Lipson or Padgham or Godrich or whoever.

i like froom's 90's production. and I agree with him that my brave face doesn't sound great (nor does most of this album) mainly due to the production, which is unfortunate since some of the songs are really good.

see I don't find a thing wrong with "My Brave Face."

Hahah I think we've had this discussion several times. I like it fine with its bright poppy 80s sound - I just imagine a version of that track and this album that's much closer to a "roots rock" sound, and I like that version better.

Ha, yeah. "Roots rock" is as much a collection of attitudes about recording music as it is a sound. Look at Froom's befuddlement about what constitutes '80s production -- he thinks it's "artificial" or something.

I think 'My Brave Face' is actually perfect - like Alfred, I can't find a thing to fault with it.