Paul McCartney : Ram (Album) Song by Song Thread

Too Many People

Really a genius pop song. So many twists and turns. Just wonderful.

 

Are the bonus tracks for the remastered version (Another Day and Oh Woman, Oh Why) part of the original RAM sessions?

I always loved Another Day but it definitely doesn't sound as if it belong to the 'spirit' of that album. 'OWOW' has a crude sound, on the other hand. Sounds great to me.

 

I know this is often said a lot in these types of threads, but 'Too Many People' is genuinely one of my top McCartney songs. It has a real energy and bite to it, it rocks like nothing else he ever did.

I'd be genuinely curious to know exactly how much input Spinozza and Hugh McCracken had in this song and in the album in general, as some of the riffs and lead guitar work is very inventive IMO.

As well as all this, Pauls voice is in it's utter prime.

One more thought on Ram that occurred to me fairly recently. It's interesting how now George is viewed as the 'Uke guy', yet it was Paul who (at least in a recorded sense) was shown as a Uke player first ('Ram on'). It's not a big deal but an interesting observation.

 

I believe they both were. I guess it's a matter of taste, to me 'Another Day' fits in well (maybe the track order should be revised though) as I believe it has the same line-up as the rest of the Ram tracks.

 

"Too Many People" has a wonderfully shambolic quality to it, from the ragged, chunky sound of the opening guitar to Paul's gut-bucket shrieks on lead and backing vox to the offbeat lyrical concerns about people paying parking fines. Then you get the subtext, which is basically Paul telling off John and his counterculture acolytes in a rather clever way, and it's no wonder the war was on with Rolling Stone and other alternative press of the time. This was a very different Paul than what you expected from "Let It Be" or "Hey Jude." He wasn't playing so nice here.

I'm not sure if I agree that Paul was throwing a dig there at Yoko about finding "my love awake and waiting for me." It's really just one of many Linda references that run through Ram and give it that sense of lived-in bliss.

"Too Many People" is a song about hostility, but unlike John's songs of the time is not hostile itself. Here, the hostility of the outside world is referenced and mocked as a way of celebrating the cozy love nest where the singer now dwells.

 

Love this album.

 

Yes as were two tracks that eventually appeared on "Red Rose Speedway".

I love the cover version of "Too Many People" done by Neil and Tim Finn. It compliments the original quite well.

 

I've been wondering for years what song the "Now what can be done for you" line in "Too Many People" reminded me of and it just came to me, it's the same melody as the line "Don't let me be alone" in Neil Diamond's "Red Red Wine".

 

Three quarters of the album is leme as can be.

 

i have always loved, LOVED this album....

a true desert island disc for me....

 

I will now free my DCC Gold from it's confines amongst the other McCartney CDs, and give it the attention it deserves. Thank you.

 

The main problem with RAM is that it's followed by the worst Macca album ever.

 

Oh come now! Wildlife is a fun album, and what did he record it in like two weeks. Think if he recorded all his albums at this pace, that's 24 albums a year times 40 years, we'd have almost 1000 Paul McCartney solo albums to choose from!!!

 

Wings At The Speed Of Sound was the followup to Ram?

 

+1

 

That really affects your view on an album? The one that follows it??

 

"RAM" is a terrific album, one of my top 3 McCartney releases, it depends on what mood I am in. Definitely Paul at his vocal peak, it's amazing how many "voices" he uses on this album. If I had to use one word to describe the record it is "engaging", you (or at least I) just can't help but sing a long and feel part of it.

Too Many People - terrific albumer opener, nice set of lyrics and most importanly great guitar work. I love outro, there's something a bit "Indian" about it, can't explain it.

 

During the summer of '71, everytime I heard this on the radio I kept thinking it was some Beatle track I was not too familiar with. At the time I was thirteen and not as musically astute as I later became.

 

Not all the reviews of the time were negative. Ram received a fairly glowing review in Circus. The reviewer stated the album was the only Beatles related album he had played over and over compulsively since Abbey Road...and that Paul had not abandonned his Beatle ways, but taken them farther along.

 

+1.

I think that "Wild Life" although far from a great album has a handful of really good songs with another handful of really awful songs whereas "Wings at The Speed of Sound" has two fingers of good songs..

 

Yeah, "Bip Bop" makes WL essential.

 

"Ram" was the first album I ever bought on my own. I was 13 (in 1975), and I still have this original LP in my collection, as well as 2 different CDs.

"Ram" and the White Album alternate as my all-time favorite albums.

 

My 2nd placed Macca album. (Don't ask!)

Too Many People - Great opener; From the day I bought it back in '71 I've always thought the the first words uttered by Paul are "You soft get...", certainly a well known insult amongst school kids up here in northern England. Not sure who it may be aimed at, if that is the case though....

 

I love, love, LOVE Ram (maybe the avatar gives it away! ), but listening to it again a few times recently, it does strike me how thin the bass and drums sound - compared to a record like Abbey Road (which has a real thump in the bottom end and thick, fat drums) or other contemporary records like Who's Next, it sounds weedy and a bit dated.

This isn't a pressing or CD mastering issue - I think the problem is in the original mix (although, in very other respect, I love the original blend of instruments and voices, so a remix could be a very mixed blessing).

 

3/4th's of what album ('Abbey Road' or 'Ram') is as much like Motorhead(?) as can be?