Paul McCartney on Wings: "we were terrible"

This is untrue. Bonham did not play on "C Moon." There is supposedly an alternate version in Paul's vaults with him on drums, but the original single does not have him on it. Also, The "extra" on V&M with Bonham is actually on the deluxe edition of Wings at the Speed of Sound. It's Bonham drumming on an early take of "Beware My Love."

The part about Bonham attending a few Wings shows because of his enjoyment of Joe English is correct, though.

 

"I could have just formed a supergroup, and rung up Eric Clapton and Jimmy Page and John Bonham"

So so glad he didn't do this. Wings was really special because it had a humble, organic, domestic vibe that may not have been 'cool' but actually feels timeless. They were great. 'Mary Had A Little Lamb,' 'C Moon' etc was Paul being true to his muse and his life at the time. He was having fun. Stoner family rock. But there's still a certain artistry and genius to his music that makes it so special and early 70s Wings has that glow.

I think he's either looking for a provocative quote here or as others have said referring to early Wings as a live band. Because the live stuff was not that good and I think at one point he was hoping for a bigger, jammy blues kind of vibe that they just couldn't pull off. His writing and studio touch were at a peak around that time but live not so much. Now he's more of a live performer and he's phenomenal despite the vocal troubles so he has a different perspective. Or he's just being silly.

 

Paul must have said how bad they were after just listening to Wild Life again. There was nowhere to go but up from that dire bag o' crap.

 

I loved the single, the album version is a bit much for me.

 

Can't blame him for saying that.
The early Wings recordings are 90% of the time a mess and very boring.
I will forever have a bad relationship with "Wild Life" and "Red Rose Speedway".
I mean, it's Paul McCartney, man!!! How did he, one of music's most talented composers, ever come up with something so ragged and halfbaked as those two records???
Simply put, he had lost his muse during that period. It became way better later on...

 

Ok for some reason I alwayd thought Bonham played on C Moon. It was mentioned in the press at the time but guess that s the version unreleased.Of course I meant Speed of Sound and Beware my love

 

He smoked way too many jazz ciggies during the early conception period. Wings did put out the amazing Venus & Mars. Best remembered for their chart topping 45's. The Beatles had a better producer, co-writer/ musicians for starters.

 

I agree. He was talking about the very beginning. They certainly were not terrible all the way through.

 

He said he didn't hold grudges. Hated Murray then, not now.

 

"They were a great little band." -- said by Someone

I still agree with that.

Yeah, if they went to Hamburg and played for 1,000 hours they'd have been better out of the gate -- but who cares? Life is short and I enjoy what music I can, while I'm here.

 

Who else but Paul could come with a double a-side 45 of Mull of Kintyre/Girl school or follow up Give Ireland Back to the irish with Mary had a little lamb. Or out tracks like Cook if the house and Beware my Love in the same album. Paul is my man

 

In that case, listen to what the MAN says...

 

Who's to argue with that? Anyway, it's nice to see him hand the baton to Kanye...

 

Another sound bite taken out of context, Paul might well have said "Wings were bigger than the Beatles!"

 

Paul was just explaining why he didn't want to form a supergroup, and he simply threw out a few big names as examples. He never stated that those exact people would actually have considered it, but in reality Hendrix did invite him to join a supergroup, Mitch Mitchell auditioned for Wings, and Paul was close with Bonham, who did drum on a couple of Wings tracks (the recently released early version of 'Beware My Love' being one of them), so it would hardly be prepostorous to think that he could have put together some form of a 'supergroup' if he wanted to.

In the early 70's he was still very recently a Beatle, and in the same way that Harrison and Lennon could put star line-ups together for their projects, Paul could have as well had he wanted to. Even by the late 70's, he assembled a huge supergroup for the 'Rockestra Theme' and Concert For Kampuchea.

Could he have got the exact people he mentioned in a throwaway comment? Who knows, but from what actually did happen, it would hardly have been that unlikely.

 

The band the Beatles could have been.

 

I don't think there are many bad moments on his first six post Beatles albums but there are some odd ones.
I do admit that i heard this stuff as it was released (and expecting a follow up to Abbey Road), i may have been greatly pissed (not in the British sense).
I just went back and looked: Man We Was Lonely, One More Kiss and Treat Her Gently are the only three album tracks from the first five years that I absolutely cannot tolerate.
The first few singles released in 1972 are fairly disappointing other then Hi, Hi, Hi.
I don't know why I hate C Moon so much, I just do.

 

The only takeaway from this interview should have been, "Paul sings ten seconds worth of Lesley Gore."

 

With A Little Luck is one of Paul's best - and only the full length album version please.

 

Got to disagree. During the 70's CSM was one of the great writers of the NME. Back then they were allowed to criticise the big stars. Sometimes he may have gone over the top but he was a great writer and knew his stuff. I find it hard to believe that he said that Hendrix played Live Aid - where was that published/written?

 

In the re-issue edition of his admittedly very good Crosstown Traffic book as an extra chapter. He didn't say Hendrix played Live Aid, of course not! He invented a posthumous interview with Hendrix talking about how he reunited the original Experience at Live Aid, commented on his box sets, worked with Stevie Wonder on Music of My Mind at Electric Ladyland, sat in with The Clash, played on sessions with Sly & Robbie and Ice T and played the Nelson Mandela concerts. It's hilariously self indulgent. He thinks he's a spokesman for what Hendrix would be if he lived! To be fair though, it would be great to see more writers with such divisive personalities and character now.

 

this sounds like something a couple hundred forum members would do, with several hundred more jumping in to harangue them!

Sounds like just a bit of fun to me.

 

No. I didn't realise I had to write plenty of books to have an opinion on authors. Using your logic, I guess you'll have produced plenty of great albums before joining a music forum, otherwise your opinions are equally invalid, positive or negative. I don't doubt CSM's knowledge. If you read the thread you'll see somebody mentioned that Paul McCartney said "Charles Shaar Murray shall ever be hated", probably as a joke, but that brings it's relevance to this thread.

 

It has to be tongue in cheek and I admit, it did draw me in. But I've been buying the Uncut History of Rock magazines which have a lot of his articles in and I do find they come across to me in a smug way. I don't enjoy his writing. But at least he wasn't bland and was passionate. I'll also admit I was over the top in my criticism earlier in this thread. He is an original, with a divisive style, which just doesn't appeal to me.

 

Well, in my book, Jimi Hendrix JOINED Wings!!