If you haven’t, check out Complete Works for all the B-Sides and then compile your own album. I also added “The Lovers That Never Were" (Geoff Emerick Mix) from the Flowers deluxe set and enjoy the whole thing a lot more now. London Town was the first Wings LP I purchased (1978). Still enjoy it and look forward to the deluxe set.
I like With a Little Luck and Name and Address. The 6 Denny Laine cowrites don't hold up to repeated listening. Also 2 songs with Denny Laine lead vocals. The other McCartney songs are dull.
Always liked London Town bought the mull of kintyre/girls school when I was a boy couldnt afford the album at the time liked Back to the egg also it's funny how music from these early teens still has meaning just like Paul is still a fan of Elvis 56s when he was around age 14
For the last flight tour, McCartney only performed I've Had Enough and Mull of Kintyre and skipped With a Little Luck.
For me this is the only dud out of the otherwise great Wings album covers. Those awkwardly placed, heavy contrast cutouts of the band members just don't work. Paul is just a head on a blob, towering over a four-foot tall Denny. And poor Linda is about to fall in the water. I do love the colored text though. I feel like a shot of just the bridge with the text above it would work pretty well actually.
LONDON TOWN Not in my top tier of McCartney albums (RAM, BAND ON THE RUN, TUG OF WAR) FLAMING PIE), but among the albums in my next tier (MCCARTNEY, VENUS AND MARS, LONDON TOWN, FLOWERS IN THE DIRT, CHAOS AND CREATION, MEMORY ALMOST FULL). I like the variety and the fact that there are a lot of songs on this album. I like it even better with Girls School and Mull Of Kintyre. The only songs I don't consider at least average are Children Children and Famous Groupies, but even those aren't so horrible that they aren't at least a little bit enjoyable.
I'm a big fan of this album (and the album cover). "Backwards Traveler"/"Cuff Link" is perfection to me. Catchy and weird.
I've really liked London Town since it was first released Girlfriend is really the only song that I'm not too crazy about.
Really like the album. Strangely, it's the one McCartney album I encounter the most in thrift shops...
Ugh. Very easy album for me to dislike. This album has no heart, soul, blood, sweat, or tears. It's all cappuccino froth... without the buzz. The song “London Town” itself is indistinguishable from The Carpenters (and has the gag-inducing Paul default filler lyric – "Well, I don't know" – that he endlessly used in the 70s to fill in some syllables). Lyrics aren’t exactly up to snuff, either: I was accosted by a barker playing a simple tune Upon his flute – toot toot toot toot At least there's some semblance of rock-guitar in “Cafe on the Left Bank”, but it still sounds awful. "Touching all the girls with your eyes" – really, Paul? “Backwards Traveller” has no melody or lyrical purpose, and it's one minute long. "I'm Carrying" is a nice song. (George Harrison loved it.) “Cuff Link” is dreadfully bad filler. “Children Children” is Denny Laine, and it sounds like he's trying to be Cat Stevens seven years after it was fashionable. “Girlfriend” is just embarrassing in the extreme. This is the guy who sang “Kansas City” and made his name in the 'Pool doing Little Richard? “I've Had Enough” isn't too bad, and at least seems to have some discernible traces to rhythm & blues... but wow, the guitar-solo is bad. “Famous Groupies” is in the Oxford English Dictionary under both "forgettable" and "embarrassing" – nice attempt at foreign accents there, Paul (not)! The lyric hits new lows, which is saying something. This might, in fact, be the single worst song Paul had put his name to up to this point. “Deliver Your Children” is not-bad Denny Laine. “Name And Address” (the Elvis attempt) is formulaic rockabilly, which Paul probably started writing in 1958 or something, and sounds completely out of synch with the rest of the album (to its credit). “Morse Moose” or whatever it's called is a boat song with a decent melody, but is undone by cheeseball vocals and crap lyrics about... sailing, or something (long before the vastly superior “Wanderlust”). Shall we examine the lyrics?: As we were sailing 'round the rocks The mate took out his compass box And said the wind is like a fox... “With A Little Luck” (despite the disco production) is a good single. I like it, I have to admit. It is actually a really great track. After vocally lazing his way through much of it, Paul pushes his voice into high-gear for the ending and outro, and it’s a thrilling thing to listen to on an LP that otherwise barely has a pulse. This album isn't nearly as bad as Wings at the Speed of Sound. It has a few quite-good songs, and it's sort of interesting in its aural diversity (even if, as usual, it sounds more like Paul just throwing together random song-fragments from his memory and dressing them up with dummy lyrics). But there's just way too much filler and cheese-on-the-stick, wimpy-ness, and awful lyrics.
London Town has some good stuff on it, but saying you'd take it over Band On The Run seems disingenuous to me lol, just sayin. Band On The Run, overrated? Whatever. That doesn't drop it beneath Freakin' London Town. Maybe you've allowed your "Overrated" aspect of Band On The Run to cloud your view of it as an album in real time.
For an album that's 44 years old I must admit I haven't played it much in the last...um...40 years. From memory I like London Town, I'm Carrying, With A Little Luck, Famous Groupies, Deliver Your Children and Morse Moose And The Grey Goose but that's about all. Actually that must be about half the album so perhaps I should dig it out again?
The front photograph looks like it was actually taken on location. It's the rear sleeve that used incongruous cutouts.
I don't like the cover. Why are Denny's eyes half shut? There sure must have been nicer shots from that photo session. And the back is even worse with Paul's pic flown in from a totally different session - no quality control whatsoever! However, the music's decent IMO.
The original promo video for "London Town" as directed by none other than Michael Lindsay-Hogg. Note Victor Spinetti as the out-of-work actor, starting at the 1:37 mark:
Michael Lindsay-Hogg also directed the straight-forward lip-sync promo video for "With A Little Luck". Note that Steve Holley is on drums in a few shots (such as the 1:20 mark) -- interesting that Holley was hired during the London Town period (even if he does not appear on the album), way prior to Back To The Egg.
I have never heard this album, London Town is playing now, great track. To me these solo albums the Beatles member did are bit like listening to Tom Fogerty solo album instead of CCR.
