Paul McCartney/Wings-song by song thread

My Brave Face

This was IT for me! FINALLY, a great pop-rock tune from Paul I knew he was capable of; with a clever arrangement, clever lyrics, and - oh man!- engaged vocals! "I can't stop breaking down again" on the second chorus gave me chills!
I felt this was his way back to the top! Who could ignore this almost perfect example of hit music making?
The general public, that's who!
It was at this point in my life that the failure of this song to be a huge hit (and the failure of the next year's Jellyfish debut album, "Bellybutton" to reach mass adulation), I gave up on the Public At Large to recognize quality on a large scale.
I started making music I wanted to hear.
It took a few years for me to become interested in popular music again.

I'd heard "Veronica" a year or so earlier when I bought Elvis' "Spike". Which was also a fantastic piece of well crafted pop rock.
It truly is too bad the McManus/McCartney album was never made.
I've yet to hear the Flowers In The Dirt box set @BZnyc ........

 

I tend to agree that "Flowers" is overrated in some quarters. And I don't remotely believe the hypothetical album of McCartney/Costello collaborations would be Paul's greatest album, though it would rate in the top 25%. Still, the best moments on "Flowers" tower over anything on POP, Broad Street or P2P. And the weaker tracks, of which there are several, are mostly okay, not terrible. And I always thought it unfortunate that Once Upon a Long Ago never made it onto an album. It deserved better than the relative obscurity it was relegated to.

 

My Brave Face and Veronica are remarkable...everything else...

 

Flowers was at the time named a come-back and return to form. It certainly was Paul’s best collection of songs since Tug of War. As someone mentioned -the Dekuxe-edition is a gold-mine and I think the partnership with Costello was great. The Deluxe-edition actually made me return to the original album and actually I enjoy it more today than when it first arrived. There are some eighties -production stuff but in this case in a good way. Plus the best songs on the album are clearly too-tier classic McCartney.

 

Understatement, but I'm glad we kind of have it now from the FITD Archive. Those songs are just completely amazing I just can't believe they just left so many of them behind.

My Brave Face 9.5/10

A unique song for Paul and still really holds up well! one of Paul's best album opening tracks ever!

 

Once Upon A Long Ago (10/10, for me, the #1 song of his solo career)

A lot of times I write formally but this time I’m writing straight from a fan perspective because this is the place to spill my guts and confess that I melt when I hear this tune every time.

McCartney’s last top 10 UK hit and my favorite Paul McCartney solo song all-time. It took me some time to get to it but when I did, it felt like magical epiphany from some fantasy world. I am head over heels gaga for this track. So much so I’m baffled why it wasn’t given a chance in the U.S. market. It doesn’t even feel like a single but the sheer strength of it made it a hit.

Early half
It starts out almost like a lullaby with fairy tale piano and a melody that is unbelievable to my ear. Paul sings softly like we’re his children at bedtime, but once in a while, he snaps out of his story to wonder at us “tell me darling, what does it all mean?” As he sings the chorus, it feels like he’s just going to do another “We All Stand Together”, but the melody is so so much better emulating a grace amidst the space of the entire production.

Lyrics
“Nature’s plan went hand in hand with pleasure” – it mixes lyrics about songwriting and nature, about good and bad and how the world tosses everyone different hands so as a kid, don’t expect dream and have it come true cause you don’t know how life will turn out.

It could also be about the hippie dream if you add up some of the vague, incomplete thoughts. It’s a song that infers rather than refers so the meaning’s open to interpretation – that’s Paul’s answer – there are multiple answers. “Once upon a long ago, people searched for treasure/nature’s plan went hand in hand with pleasure”. The pleasure and nature were the treasure – not the treasure chest with gold, not money. But joy and kindness.

Latter half/Production
Yeah I’m throwing in all the accolades for this baby by category LOL. The whole production is pretty heavy, but it’s not an 80’s production- it’s heavily orchestrated with sweet little moments that grow out of the verses and instrumental sections that sprout out in between, and it’s all incredible to me. The sax interlude after the 2nd verse, the delayed sax note that runs through the 3rd verse, along with the bit of snowy acapella that drifts in reminding me of “Wonderful Christmastime”. That section has 3 different harmonies going at once like he did on “Silly Love Songs”-people talk of the guitar solos overlapping in the Red Rose medley-well this is just as good to me. Just when you thought it might be getting too fluffy, the blazing guitar comes in like a machete and chops through the sweet melody and ups the ante with an excellent slew of notes, especially the extended ones. The guitar/bass/drums support the song as well as the sax and lead guitar over top. Brilliant.

Every version is great – the George Martin one, the Phil Ramone one, the extended one which has more of that phenomenal break that goes from Paul eye opening guitar solo bleeding into another joyous sax solo leading into a violin solo and then it’s all accented by horns to bring the song back around. And standing on a mountain top playing the guitar solo in the music video – Paul looks so friggin cool up there. Especially on the far shots – how the heck did he get up there?

I cannot get enough of this and I think this is the pinnacle of his solo career. For me, it just doesn’t get any better than this. It’s got it all – the amazing melody, the fantastic vocal, the epic build, the sax soloing, the warm horns, the fiery guitar solo. It’s like a cozy fireplace scene with a couch and a cup of cocoa and a snowy night where you can just hear the wind blowing outside with the window low. I’m in awe.

Back On My Feet (8/10)
Easily one of the best B-sides of his career, it’s better than almost anything on ‘Press to Play’ and shows that Paul is stepping out of the technology dominated part of his career a bit and towards his more natural sound. With the help of Costello, the lyric is much more coherent and the melody is great. It’s got a radio ready chorus and spoken vocal interludes at the end are unique for a Paul song. This was a joy to find as well when I finally got it.

I really was looking forward to people's comments on this song, sneak a listen to this if you get a chance.

 

So it was made in a couple marathon recording sessions, was RDR recorded at the same breakneck pace. I would guess not and that is why RDR sounds so much more polished in a very good way. I do have a new respect for CHOBA knowing how is was recorded to quickly.

 

Run Devil Run was recorded in a week with just a few additional sessions. So it was made about the same way as the Russian album. The difference as I see it is that Run Devil Run captured Paul in a period of loss and grief. It s a far more personal statement than the fun but more lightweight Russian album.

 

Agreed.

 

Wow I really need to Catchup...
Simple As That - Nice song.
Once Upon a Long Ago - Really goods song! Great production and great lyrics! Well done, Paul!
Back On My Feet - It's a B-side, and it knows it is.
My Brave Face - Great lead-off single.

 

My Brave Face 5/5

Fantastic! If you ever wanted that solo-Paul sounds like Beatles-Paul here is your song. Reminds me a bit of the AHDN era, especially that great "And takes me to that place" line. You also hear that great musicians worked on MBF - Stuart Hamish anyone? It deserved to be a #1-song but that year Jason Donovan was the hottest thing.

"Flowers In the Dirt" is such a fab album and I may add it's fab the way it is. I don't think a complete McCartney/Costello album would have worked out - Paul did the right thing and chose the bust stuff of that collabo for "Flowers". The songs he did with Trevor Horn and Steve Lipson are equally good.

 

That's a good point, and I feel better about the song now. Phew.

 

I disagree with most of the above. The clue is in the name "conjunction". However, thank you for your research.

 

Right on, man!

 

MBF was a remarkable single.

What’s even more remarkable is that the album harbours two more remarkable singles that also should have done better than they did.

 

NEXT ONE
Rough ride to Heaven
This track I didn t enjoy when the album arrived. But now-wow-I love the darn thing.
It s a good song and the arrangement is eighties at it very best. This song has a modern edge but also has a timeless quality. It s slick and experimental. It has vintage vocals from Paul and I never get tired of listening to This track
Paul McCartney in “Club Sandwich 52, Summer 1989“:

I was going to work with Trevor Horn and Steve Lipson, and I’d heard that Trevor takes a long time… so it seemed to me that it might be a good idea if we could try and limit him to a short period and see what we could get done… I said well I’ve got this crazy little thing that you won’t like, it’s called ‘Rough Ride’. He said I love the title already…it grew from a nothing little 12-bar and by the end of the second day we’d mixed it, which is pretty unheard of these days… they came back with a tarted-up version, and I said well I think it’s a Paul Goes To Holly wood… type of thing, so we kept the original.

Paul McCartney, in People Music, March 24, 2017:

“I had wanted to work with [’80s super-producers] Trevor Horn and Steve Lipson, and this was the first occasion. They came down to my studio [Hog Hill Mill] and we just cooked this little song up. I liked the feel of it. I thought it had a contemporary feel at the time, and a little bit of urban slick that I liked.

It was a great experience working with them—they’re very thorough. I was showing Trevor the view of the English Channel and the coast outside the window of my studio and saying, ‘Wow, look at that!’ He said, ‘No, there’s the view!’ and he points to the speaker. [laughs] I saw his point. We ended up closing the windows and getting into the music. Steve was great to work with, too. He’s a great engineer and musician. So the two of them together, it was a pleasure.”

From “In Their Own Words: The Producers discuss McCartney’s Flowers in the Dirt“, by Super Deluxe Editionblog:

[…] Trevor Horn: Steve Lipson and I lifted the beat [for Rough Ride] from Experience Unlimited which is a go-go band that we really liked.

Stephen Lipson: When we got there it was just him, so we were the band, the three of us. I had this bass sound I had been working on, it was a huge bass sound, two synths. I don’t think anyone had gone this far with all the gear. I had a little mini-keyboard and so McCartney comes in and I was fiddling around and he went oh you play the bass. So I was the rhythm section; bass and drums. Trevor had a keyboard and Macca was playing the guitar. And we started going through this tune and I remember at numerous points thinking this is weird, I’m playing the bass and that is Paul McCartney – ****ing hell.

Trevor Horn: We started to put the song over that beat and he liked it, I could tell he was liking it and I always remember I changed the chords in the middle eight, I just re-jigged them and he said, “Oh no, those aren’t the chords for the middle eight” and I said, “They are now” and he laughed. Because as I said it was just the three of us so we’re going to kind of change things around.

Stephen Lipson: There was no ‘Paul Goes To Hollywood’ version of Rough Ride. I don’t remember anything like that. I think it developed and it was finished.

Trevor Horn: No, there wasn’t. There was a moment where he was playing [something else], people are playing, I think Linda’s playing the Mellotron and he’s playing electric guitar and one of the crew came running in because we were trying to finish off Rough Ride and shouted, “Quick, quick he’s playing, go into record” and Steve had a stick that we used to call the ‘lipstick’, Steve’s lipstick, and he poked this guy and he said, “And we’re mixing, out, out” and poked him and the guy went out, we didn’t go into record.

Stephen Lipson: The stick was something I had at Sarm [studios] because the consoles, the SSRs are very deep. And I get so fed up, so I got this stick and I hit the buttons with the stick because I was accurate with the stick.

Trevor Horn: The other thing I remember about Rough Ride was that he only sang it three times and it was mostly the third take. He sang it three times and he came into the control room and I said, “The third take was the take” and Lippo said, “Yes, first two weren’t up to much, but the third one was good”. That was the difference between me and Steve, I would never say something like that, I always look for the positive! […]

Trevor Horn: […] The other thing that I remember about Rough Ride was that we brought Linda in and Linda played some really great synths. She came up with this idea for a mini-moog part. We really liked Linda. So I was pretty keen to get her on the record. She also seemed to have a really good influence on him. He really liked her, if you know what I mean. [I know] that’s a dumb thing to say, but he did. Sometimes you meet people who don’t like their wives, you know.

Stephen Lipson: She was wonderful; absolutely brilliant. I haven’t got a bad thought in my head about her. She was the best; so warm. She invited us into their lives in a really lovely way. And that was Rough Ride. And then we mixed it. […]

Trevor Horn: No, we had such a good experience on Rough Ride that he wanted to do it again. There was a lot going on and it caused a little bit of friction at one point because Simple Minds suddenly wanted to be finished and I had to cancel a couple of sessions and put them back a couple of months. I was surprised at the time that Rough Ride wasn’t a single. I didn’t think My Brave Facewas as good as Rough Ride. […]

 

Here is the brilliant Rough Ride live

 

More about Who Cares

How many hours a day does he spend digging up these videos and visuals for our enjoyment? It must take up the majority of his day!

 

I heard "Press to Play" again yesterday and a couple of thoughts came to me:

"Write Away" is a nice song -- very 80s sounding but in a good way. It's not outstanding but it's nice.

"PrettyLittle Head" -- I dislike this one as it is very derivative of what other musicians (Peter Gabriel, for instance) had done in the 80s. But this time, I noticed McCartney was using his "tongue in cheek" voice he often uses for some tracks. And suddenly I wondered if this might have been a sort of "secret joke" between him and Hugh Padgham.

 

To me Once Upon A Long Ago kind of depicts a songwriting process: the author is searching for some images, putting down random words and word combinations. And that’s why there is a section near the ending of the song where he just goes with illegible phrases.

Beautiful song, masterful performance and great production!

 

"My Brave Face" -- one of Paul's best 80s singles. The first thing reminiscent of his early Beatles songs that he did in his solo career. It took him 20 years. I think he deserves some credit for avoiding the Beatles' sound as a solo artist for so long.

"Rough Ride" -- This song represents very well what I feel about the whole "Flowers in the Dirt" album. I loved it when it came out and I immediately fell for the sound, which was pretty different from his previous records. However, as time went by, lots of these arrangements lost their charm.

In that sense, I feel the arrangements are elaborate but a little dated and often detract from the songs. I think there is a good record buried in there somewhere beneath layers of synths and other gimmicks.

 

Lot s of love for Once upon long ago here
I agree it s a remarkable song but I never thought of it as one of Pauls best. Guess I have to go back to my listning room and give it a spin

 

Oh forgot to tell you that I did give some more time to the podcast and I have to admit I'm enjoy it. I listened to 'Pipes of Peace' as a test and as long as they don't praise 'Hey Hey' I'll be okay and they trashed it. Then I listened to some of 'Flowers in the Dirt'. I must say, they are both likeable and easy to listen to and I like their breakdowns. I'll go back and here some other podcasts from them. Thanks again for posting them.