Paul McCartney : Ram (Album) Song by Song Thread

He does do a ton of different vocals and stylings on the album - sometimes in the same song (see Dear Boy). Plus he stayed away from the 20's schtick for once. It worked ok on "Honey Pie", but he went to the well once to often with "You Gave Me The Answer".

Anyway, great, great vocals - and it was all done without any help from auto-tune.

"Too Many People" is a great way to open a great album. His best songs were ones that married his awesome melodies, great instrumentation, and lyics with some amount of depth. This one has it all.

 

You're not the only one...

 

My main gripe with the album is the occasionally poor lyrics (Uncle Albert has several lazy lines, Smile Away is just terrible lyrically and Monkberry Moon Delight is an acquired taste to say the least. And, of course, there's 3 Legs...).

I also think some of the songs are over-long and suffer from Linda's vocals being too high in the mix (Admiral Halsey and Long Haired Lady).

That said, there are some absolute gems: Too Many People, Dear Boy and Heart Of The Country would all be candidates for an "Under-rated McCartney" compilation. Too Many People, in particular, is as good as anything he's ever issued.

 

Does that really take away from "Ram"? I would doubt it. It was also preceeded by a pretty irrelevant album.

(It seems like this is a "Ram" appreciation thread so far instead of a song-by-song.)

 

All these threads kind of start that way then move into a more song by song mode, there are obviously a lot of differing opinions on RAM, which make this an interesting read, IMHO. But moving along...

 

"3 Legs" Paul McCartney 2:44

Well when I walk, when I walk
On my horse upon the hill (when I walk the horse upon a hill)
Well when I walk, walk walk walk
On my horse upon the hill (when I walk the horse upon a hill)
And I lay me down
will my lover love me still
A Dog is here, (a dog is here), a dog is there (a dog is there)
My dog he got three leg
but he can't run

Well when I thought, well I thought
when I thought you was my friend (when I thought that I could call you my friend)
When I thought, when I thought
when I thought you was my friend (when I thought that I could call you my friend)
but you laid me down, put my heart around the bend

A fly flies in (a fly flies in), a fly flies out (a fly flies out)
most flies they got three leg, but mine got one.

Well when I fly when I fly when I fly,when I fly above the cloud
(when I fly above the man in the crowd)
Well when I fly when I fly when I fly,when I fly above the crowd
(when I fly above the man in the crowd)

You can knock me down with a feather, yes you could
but you know it's not allowed (but you know it's not allowed)

A Dog is here, (a dog is here), a dog is there (a dog is there)
My dog he got three leg
but he can't run

My dog he got three leg
Your dog he got none

My dog he got three leg
Your dog he got none

My dog he got three leg

 

I think this is a great album and it's always in my top 3 list when talking about Macca. I remember a friend asking me if I liked this album shortly after I got it around 1975 or so and I remembered some of the negativity I had read about it. I told him I didn't understand it as it was a very good album. I remember describing the album as very 'McCartney', meaning the person not the first solo album. He asked what I meant and though it was hard to explain I think it was much more what I expected from McCartney than other albums like McCartney, Wild Life, and Red Rose Speedway (although I like all of those too).

Too Many People - a great lead-off for the album but I actually knew it as the B-side of Uncle Albert long before I had the album. I played all the B-sides to ALL of my 45's regularly back in the mid-70s, when I was but a lad of 13 or 14. Having a rocker like Too Many People as the B-side seemed like the perfect balance of ying and yang, well, back then it just seemed to compliment the relative playfulness of the A-side.

I made a McCartney Rocks CD compilation for my brother-in-law a few years ago after he and I had discussed McCartneys music. Too Many People was the PERFECT lead-off song for the CD as I knew it would raise his eye-brows (he was already familiar with Juniors Farm and loved it, so I included that later on the CD).

3 Legs - For many years this was one of my least favorite songs on the album. I read somewhere that 3-Legs referred to the other 3 Beatles (duh! I truly had never thought of that!). While I'm not sure if that's true or not I do tend to listen to it differently than I used to and it's actually a pretty good ride. It's starts off slow and funky and ends up soaring. I never skip it now.

WTF IS this song about?

 

3 Legs- a charming ditty, at the start it sounds like a leftover from his first solo-album, but luckily it's more elaborate and with more rock 'n roll added.

 

It's about the experience you get from eating Monkberry Moon Delight.

I have no idea, except I know it can't be about the Beatles. "My dog he got three legs" is actually two legs more than Paul had of the Beatles circa 1971. It's basically as I read it Paul just scatting, making the words fit the music. It's a great ride of a song, and sets up the rest of the album quite well in its daft, tuneful way. The bridge and Linda's backing vocals are both killer.

 

Some folks thought this was a rework of the fragment The Walk (or When You Walk) from the Get Back bootlegs. The shifts in gait are amusing (from a trot to a canter, or v.v.?), but the "When I fly..." bridge gets pretty colorful.
Any mention of '3' is gonna bring a mention of Beatles, and I Yoko had the fly film and album that year, but how it all coded together was a bit lost on me. Macca was on a farm, so maybe this was merely the stuff that buzzed around in his head while slopping the critters.

 

Macca himself has said that he tends to mumble out phrases to his melodies as he writes them, just working out phrasing for lyrics.
When I first heard Ram when it was released in '71, I was a little kid who was obsessed with the Beatles. I really didn't look for or get any kind of 'message' in songs, I just heard the music as a whole. Something tells me Paul does as well. I just love the way that album sounds- I don't think about the lyrics at all. I guess growing up with and playing it most of my life has something to do with it too!

 

One of the first posters in this thread nailed it for me: Ram is fun. There's such a joyful, always-moving-forward feeling to it, from the first track to the last.

I was in junior high school at the time. Loved it the second I put it on the old family hi-fi, every single song. It's not "of consequence" like so much of John's stuff from this period (most of which I don't think has aged very well at all). In fact, it's not the songs so much as the playing, singing and production. It is a GREAT pure pop record.

My homemade CD version includes, on the second disc, all of the "Brung to Ewe By" radio spots he and Linda did for Ram - very much fitting the vibe of the LP - plus Get on the Right Thing (I ALWAYS felt this had a Rammy feeling to it!), LLD, A Love For You and the demo of 'Dear Friend.' And the single.

He wrote lovelier songs later and made more clever records. But Ram, for me, has NEVER been bettered.

 

3 Legs - Well, the "When I thought you was my friend..." and "You can knock me down with a feather..." parts must definitely about the other Beatles and/or his critics at the time.

 

3 Legs also has another of the supposed messages to Lennon “well when I thought, well I thought / when I thought you was my friend..”

This one seems to be mostly nonsensical, but it has such a great groove and I love the way each verse section is not alike with some great funk used.

I would say that like a lot of the tracks on this great album, it's best listened to on headphones. Pauls vocals are great and are subtly placed across different parts of the stereo image with some nice effects throughout.

 

Sorry to be so late for the Too Many People discussion. Regarding the "Piece of Cake" line, I always thought that's what it was and not the other line, because at the end of the song, you can hear him whisper "piece of cake" before it completely fades out.

 

The first lines of the song are "Too many people goin' underground /
Too many reaching for a piece of cake"

 

I'm interested to hear some peoples interpretations of '3 Legs' as I've certainly read some great ones down the years.

 

Looking at the lyrics on print for the first time and being a bit older and more versed in Beatle history the second verse now seems about the Beatles or Lennon specifically and the third is obviously a pot reference.

I use to skip the tune but now I find it fun, a little funky and enjoyable.
I wouldn't put it on a Macca mix or anything but it has its place on the record.

 

I agree with you about the third verse, though it never occurred to me before.

Between the Beatles and solo, Paul must have written, at least, a dozen songs that referenced his beloved herb...

 

I have always felt that 'Crippled Inside' Lennon's answer to 'Three Legs'? Both songs are quite similar, and share the same placement on their respective albums.

 

I've always found 3 Legs to be sorta funky blues track with that blues guitar lick at the end of the every verse. It nicely bounces around until the 'When I fly....' section where it goes up a notch. I find most of Ram and its arrangement in the same vein as Abbey Road but 3 Legs would've fit nicely on the White Album.

Not sure what to interpret from the lyrics but it was always gonna be connected to the other Fabs in some way. "My dog he got three leg but he can't run" - definitely seems a reference to the Beatles and the inability of the Apple organization to effectively function with just the three ex-Beatles and the court case.

 

Exactly!, That's why it seems like its Piece of Cake and not Piss off, cake.

He said piece of cake in the end of that first verse, and the whisper at the end of the song, so it sounds like that intro vocalizing, too.

 

I don't think that the lyrics are necessarily "lazy". How would you define that? Seems to me that a lot of artists get away with what is intepreted as being lazy lyrics. One person's lazy lyric is another person's perfect one.

I have no issue with ANY of the lyrics on the album.

"Let 'em In" now there the lyrics seem rather useless at least to me but it's a catchy enough tune.

 

You don't find "Smile Away" an incredibly "lazy" lyric? In other words, a lyric that any non-songwriter could come up with little to no effort? Actually, make that no effort.

"Let 'em In" at least compliments the "idea" of the song. With "Smile Away", there is no idea at all IMO...

 

I think you can say the same thing about "Smile Away." The very title is your clue to the songwriter's breezy, low-key, and yes, lyrically lazy agenda. And it works quite well. I don't know how someone can smell another person's teeth a mile away, but I'll give Macca the benefit of the doubt with those awesome chugging harmonies and key shifts.