Recording Mull of Kintyre - 40 Years On

Just found out this morning via TV Tonight. Excellent news!

“Classic Countdown” to screen at 6pm Sundays on ABC

 

A terrific song, like an anthem. I did not realize that this song was such a huge hit back then.

 

Very different story for us in the USA. I never once heard the song on the radio. The B side "Girls School" got a lot of airplay on our l0cal station.
When I finally heard "Mull Of Kintyre" (on a 45 my brother had bought) I liked it a lot, especially the bagpipes (I have some Scottish blood in my ancestry). I often list this song in my top 10 McCartney solo songs.
And I am still waiting for my first time at hearing "Mull Of Kintyre" on the radio (other than on a Beatles/McCartney radio show).

 

And yet rarely played in America, ever. The biggest selling McCartney song that most Americans have never heard.

 

Too bad it wasn't Paul

 

Same. I was in the Los Angeles area at the time. "Girls School" got some airplay (not as massive as Wings' major hits, though), but I never heard "Mull" on the radio. But I read something about it being a hit in England, so I went out and bought the single and loved it the instant I heard it. It's still one of my favorit Wings tunes.

 

You literally couldn't escape it for 3 months here in 1977/8. I'm willing to bet that most people who bought were sick to the back teeth of it by January 1978.

That happened to me with Elton & Kiki's Don't Go Breaking My Heart too. I bought it when it was first released, but after 6 weeks at #1 and the constant radio exposure, I didn't want to hear it again for years.

 

It was omnipresent in 1977/78 and for some years afterwards....but it's scarcely remembered or played nowadays. Almost like a forgotten number one - unprecedented, really, for something that hogged the top spot for so long.

Personally, I think it's a good song but ultra-conventional and not among his best work.

 

Great song!

Great post!

What tears me up, though, is the accolades heaped upon MoK, while equally good (if not better) songs that fall into a niche like "Yellow Submarine" and "When I'm 64" get lambasted all of the time.

"Yellow Submarine" being the greatest sing-a-long children's song - still known the world over - since probably "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star"...and "When I'm 64" being imprinted in my brain due to The World According to Garp.

 

I don't think McCartney has ever played "Mull Of Kintyre" at an American concert, whereas for us Canuckleheads (and the Brits/Scots, of course) at a Maccagig "Mull Of Kintyre" is as much of a given as "Hey Jude".

 

I love you.

 

I am amazed that it was never an A-side in America, someone slipped up big time, surely it would have been massive. Just come over to the land of your ancestors for a wee while laddie and we will soon cure you of your love for the bagpipes... No street corner in any city is free of them... Occasionally you hear someone playing them with a little originality (the guy in Dundee who turns them into a sort of John Coltrane/raga) but not often.

Apologies to the OP BTW for trashing a song he obviously loves. I find Macca's solo career very disappointing and frustrating as I am usually first in the queue to get into a fight about how he was better than Lennon, that combined with a deep loathing of picture postcard Scotland and seeing the Morrissey biopic brought out my more acerbic side...

 

Thank the gods for that, I thought I was all alone... I get away with Runrig comments normally but the Proclaimers seem to be sacrosanct, perhaps they are our Jarvis Cocker...

 

In 1977/1978 it was promoted to USA pop radio, but it didn't gain traction because to USA ears, it's just not a commercial song, as the lyrics have no special meaning to us (as they did for UK listeners). It's "Hey Jude" with weird lyrics (to our ears).

 

Nice story but a god awful song, easily one of his worst ever singles in my opinion. I view it as a novelty song, and there were plenty of them about in the UK charts in the 70's...

 

I think if MOK could have been a hit in the USA, DJs would have just flipped it over. It did have some word of mouth back then. The live version of Coming Up was a b-side, but that got almost all the airplay here.

 

I know the difference between bagpipes and a trampoline is that you take your shoes off before you jump on a trampoline but the pipes fit perfectly into this song. Great stuff!

 

Record Mirror 1977 poll results. Mull Of Kintyre was 3rd best single. Sandwiched in between the Sex Pistols and the Boomtown Rats. Paul would have been so pleased.

 

Muppet Show, #4 best show! Yes!!

 

1977 was the Muppets year in the U.K. Their show debuted and Kermit got a top 10 hit with Halfway Down The Stairs.

 

Not really to my taste, though I appreciate it more now than I did at the time. Personally, I still prefer 'Girls School', but I recognise that 'Mull of Kintyre' is a far better song, and much more enduring. PMcC has a gift for writings songs I know are brilliant, but which I don't much care for myself (prefering, in this case, his less brilliant work!)

 

Kermit and Johnny Rotten duet? Maybe "It's Not Easy Being Green (With Envy)"??

 

My car got broken into last week. Someone smashed the back window and threw a set of bagpipes in there.

 

The Proclaimers AND Jimmy Shand!
Auchtermuchty has a lot to answer for!

 

My parents got cable in 1977 and the Muppet Show (which was airing on one of the American channels) soon became a favorite in our household.