I will defend this song until my dying breath. It's not amazing or anything, and maybe it's a bit too long, but it has its merits (Paul's falsetto bit with the "Monkey Man" slapback, Jeff's "Eight Miles High" guitar squiggles, Ringo), and it serves as a palate cleanser before the grand finale. Album sequencing isn't just about picking the best 10-14 songs and lining them up. Pacing matters, and "Really Loves You" fills its modest role well. If it was the album finale, it would be terrible. As the neutral filler before the finale, it works.
I like Really Love You (except the screechy vocal part). If it was the first song, I'd like it. If it was the last song, I'd like it. Great groove and a welcome change from the feel of the rest of the album. I am still after all this time completely baffled by the fact that so many people don't like it. What's not to like? I mean, you stick this on Wild Life and it's the tightest, most focused rock song on there. We have a repetitive mostly wordless 17 minute (approximately) "Variations on a Mickey and Sylvia Theme" in the catalog and THIS is the jam people complain about? I don't have the Flaming Pie reverence that some have - it's a little too rustic for me to fully embrace - but I have come to enjoy it more as time has gone on. I remember listening to this album with headphones sitting on the floor of my first apartment and thinking "his voice is shot." If only I'd have known how very much further things could progress!
His voice was much clearer on the little later driving rain 02 tour IMO….don’t know if it was the FP recording techniques used on different songs or what and his voice was good on several FP songs. You are more aware of his vocal decline than I am I think, as I put some of it in later years down to recording techniques and progressive aging throughout the years. Good point about if it were on Wild Life. I do find on this forum oddly that there’s repeated songs that most people don’t like. I liked FP but liked Off the ground, regular release and Deluxe songs and DR almost as well. I had to get online to learn that others didn’t share my tastes.
Listening now, his voice is stellar on Flaming Pie. A lot of it is my timeline. I had Wings Greatest from the library with all those great vocals, and then the very next thing I got was Broad Street. I put that on, and I was like "Whoa - that's not the same." Compared to now 1978 - 1984 doesn't seem like a big decline, but going from Live and Let Die every day of my life to sticking the BS version of Yesterday on was culture shock.
Yes, he was by BS era in his mid forties, sang lower registers, etc. As I’m a seventies boomer who bought his stuff from the beginning and saw him live through the decades, I was aware of that progressively but it didn’t bother me so much I don’t guess. One big vocal jump IMO was WL, very high pitched “dear friend” clarity to later seventies raspy egg era. The WOE recordings display his great vocal clarity early seventies though DR tour he displayed good vocal clarity. True, when you jump around in his catalogue you hear it much more but I played stuff more sequentially then as I bought the records, probably a reason it bothers me less.
Your post is old but I hear you. That’s my problem as retired and on a reduced pension and not yet on soc sec.
26 here and chiming in. Been a Beatles lover my entire life (thanks to my mom getting "1" when I was 4 ) I would gladly buy up anything I could if I could just afford some of it!!!
Yeah, I’d love those archives and deluxe box sets but as my country neighbor says…they’re too rich for my blood.
Side note because you made me remember this.... My biggest purchase miss ever still hurts to think about. I was driving tractor trailer at the time and was down in Texas when the pre-orders for the Early Wings mega box set went up. Thanks to a kind member on this forum AND a website promotion, I got almost %40 off the original retail price for my order. It still hurt ( ) to pull the trigger but I knew it would be worth it when it arrived!! I don't buy much and this was going to be my big splurge for the year! Welp, my bank called me up and say the order is cancelled and the card I ordered it with was shut down for security reasons - the site was based in Canada and their auto-protection filtered it as a threat since it was an "unusual" activity. God. Freaking. Dangit. ARE YOU KIDDING ME. So there I am down in Texas, almost a thousand miles from home. Wings set is cancelled and the coupons are obviously wasted. Also, now my debit card is killed off (they immediately send a new one in the mail, but 2 weeks and I'm FAR from home!).... I had to go to Western Union and get a family member to wire me money. Then to add insult to injury, I get home about a week later and the set is sold out.... Holy hell, don't do that to me ever again, Paul!!!
My near miss story on that early wings mega boxset is I didn’t know it at the time but hubby almost ordered it at the original price but wrongly thought he could get it cheaper later. He’s a big music collector but I’m the Beatles and macca collector but even he realized it was a thing to have. He immediately checked it and still does along and even used it’s way past sky high. Still, your story is far worse and am so sorry.
The same thing happened to me. My 20% off order was canceled in the middle of the night by my credit card company. By the time I woke up and checked my emails the box was sold out. But I called the distribution company in Canada and began a polite back and forth conversation with them. They promised me a box if there were any returns. There were! Every box shipped to Russia was bounced back due to customs regulations. I got one of those.
Hey thats fantastic! Congrats mate! Unfortunately I was in no position do anything like that Went from Texas up to Wisconsin and then up to Connecticut before being able to wind back towards home, lol
I ended up getting a cheap knockoff copy from somewhere on the internet. I would have preferred to give my money to MPL for an official version, but after missing out on the big box, they never gave me that as an option...
I love the box. I think the only thing I would've changed is that "Flaming Pie" is written in a sort of chalky material over the blue box and it wears off pretty fast. Other than that, beautiful.
I still find the demo disc electrifying and it continues to renew my spirit. There had got to be so much more lying in wait in Paul's archive like this just waiting to entice us. That demo from the office with the the phone ringing is so surreal. It DEFINES atmospheric music in my mind. Mostly because it wasn't planned. There is some synergy at play here with the art of design and the chaos intertwined.
