Paul McCartney/Wings-song by song thread

Lovers In A Dream 1/5
Universal Here, Everlasting Now 1/5
Don't Stop Running 1/5

Wow. All three tracks are kinda meh. Experimental does not mean good I guess. I have a huge vault of cool electronic music from the 90's and 00's ... Paul tries to to create something similar but fails. All tracks have the same pattern ... the main problem are the beats which are pretty pedestrian. Gimme the great McCartney II anytime but the end of Electric Arguments is going nowhere.

 

I second your awesome.

 

NEXT ONE
Don t stop running
The finale but imo not particulary grand. Some nice chords and great bass but the thing drags on a bit and feels a bit of a let down as a finale. Not at all bad but something is lacking-at least for me. The hidden track is just some nice.
With that said Electric Argument is a brilliant musical adventure

 

Universal Here, Everlasting Now - I like the opening and closing piano parts, the rest of the track less so, as to me it's a fairly mundane ambient dance track.

It might be experimental for Paul, which really just means it's outside of his usual, non-Fireman wheelhouse, but it's not really doing anything new or different to many other dance or ambient tracks - including Rushes, which I prefer to this. (It's not dance music, but Pink Floyd had a barking dog in Seamus on Meddle back in 1971!) Kudos to Paul (or indeed anyone else) however for trying different musical genres.

Like the previous track, if this wasn't on the album I wouldn't miss it. Leaving them both out would trim the album down to around 52 and a half minutes, which, for time-constrained and attention-limited middle-aged folk like me, would make its more manageable in a single sitting. However, given I can always skip them, I wouldn't want to deprive folk who like these tracks from enjoying them. Anyhow, you never know but one day I might actually like them: 1.5/5.

 

Don’t Stop Running: 3/5

This actually sounds like a good coda for the album. We get some descending acoustic guitar that is very faintly reminiscent of “Love In Song” which then rolls into a determined repeating chorus. A nice way to play out this fantastically creative and varied album.


Road Trip: 2.5/5

And here we have a brief hidden track. Unlike the brash hidden ending to Chaos, this one is very fitting for the album. This piece is a little bit of atmospheric laser light show. It sounds like it could have come right off of the Liverpool Sound Collage. Some noises sounding like an orchestra tuning give this piece an electric charge. Paul closes out with some backwards vocals for one final treat! He says “warmer than the sun, cooler than the air” by the way.




This very front-loaded album coupled with a back half of more ambient tracks doesn’t give a great score on paper. But no doubt about it, this is a great album. Slotting it squarely in the middle.

Cumulative Score 46.5/70 66%

CACITB 59/65 89%
BOTR 43/45 96%
TOW 45/55 81%
P2P 52.5/65 81%
OTG 45/60 75%
FITD 46/60 76%
FP 55/70 78%
Rushes
V&M 49.5/65 76%
RRS 36/45 80%
MAF 48/65 74%
BTTE 52/70 74%
EA 46.5/70 66%
RDR
LT 49.5/70 71%
RAM 41.5/60 68%
McII 42.5/55 77%
TTLF (Tripping)
PIL (Paul Is Live)
WOA
Driving Rain 55.5/80 69%
WATSOS 43/55 78%
Standing Stone
POP 36.5/55 66%
Choba b CCCP
McC 43/65 66%
WL 28.5/40 71%
SOSF
GMRTBS
Family Way

 

Looking forward to discussing New, for me 1 half good, 1 half weak album though I know may like the record round here....
My fave Paul live moment was seeing him perform tracks previewing the album in Covent Garden, London whilst I was on a lunch break so does provide good memories.

 

I really like these ambient songs. I find them touching, because I think Paul is looking for Linda in these songs. he is looking for her in nature, the sea, the forest and the animals.

 

I've got to admit that after Dance Til We're High I generally lost interest in the album. I would sometimes keep it going, but it never did much for me. I can't even recall how any of the songs go. I'll give them another listen, but my general impression of them was uneven experimental sounds. Not really McCartney's forte.

 

Doesn't stop the flow on the album for me personally and though the ambient tracks are not to the same standard as Rushes it's a good bookend to the album for me otherwise it would have been a standard McCartney solo album

 

NEXT ONE
I want to come home
After the adventures of EA this soundtrack song finds Paul back in familiar territory-a bitter-sweet piano/driven ballad. Somehow similar to the superior I don t know from Egypt Station this is a nice but somehow forgettable little song

Song facts
“I Want to Come Home” was written and recorded by Paul McCartney for the 2009 film “Everybody’s Fine“, and released as a single in online music stores on December 8, 2009, during the week before the film’s theatrical release.

From USA Today:

Watching an early screening of Everybody’s Fine, Paul McCartney felt a tug of familiarity when a widower portrayed by Robert De Niro hits the road to visit his scattered children after they cancel a weekend gathering. “The De Niro character inspired me,” McCartney says. […] “I can very much relate to a guy who’s got older children, who happens to have lost his wife, the mother of those children, and is trying to get them all together at Christmas. I understand that. When your kids grow up and have families of their own and inevitably turn to you and say, ‘Do you mind? We’d like to have our own little family Christmas,’ it’s a difficult thing. It’s a big turning point. Like in the movie, you work around it.“

During the private screening, McCartney was warming up to the idea of composing a song for the “fabulous, quite emotional, good family movie.” His anxiety stirred near the end, where writer/director Kirk Jones had inserted a place holder, Aretha Franklin’s version of Let It Be.

“I thought, ‘Holy cow, I can’t do this,’ “ McCartney says by phone during a drive to London. “Sure, write another Let It Be? I was thinking of ringing him the next day and saying, ‘I’m sorry, it’s too big a task.’ That evening, I had a spark of an idea. I started playing on the piano, and later I woke up in the night and thought, ‘I know how this goes.’ I spent a little time putting it down on the cassette. The next day, instead of saying, ‘I can’t do it,’ I decided, ‘I’m going to have a go at this.’ “

It’s the first original film song he has written since the title track for 2001’s Vanilla Sky. He also wrote Spies Like Us (1985) and Live and Let Die (1973).

“That’s it,” says McCartney, who was initially drawn to Everybody’s Fine by the strong cast. “I don’t do much. I find it a bit intimidating. It’s a different world, and the fear is that either your song will be rejected or the film won’t go out. Thanks a lot. It’s very much out of your hands. You have to cross fingers and toes.”

He made a rough demo at his home studio, and then the former Beatle […] agreed to tweak Come Home to suit Jones.

“He had a couple of notes for me,” McCartney says. “The song used to start quite abruptly. He wanted a little intro. OK, I agreed with that.”

He collaborated with composer Dario Marianelli on orchestrations, resulting in an intimate ballad with piano, guitar and spare strings. […]
From For Whom The Bell Tells, November 23, 2009:

Paul has recorded a brand new song for a new film starring Robert De Niro, Drew Barrymore and Kate Beckinsale, called ‘Everybody’s Fine’. Paul specially recorded ‘(I Want To) Come Home’ after attending an early screening of the film.

The press office went to an early preview screening last week to get a feel for the project and, in our opinion, this movie is a smash! It has HIT written all over it in massive capital letters. We won’t give too much away but the basic plot is about a widower (De Niro) embarking on a road trip to catch up with his grown up children and their lives in order to complete one simple mission – to get his family all together round the same table for Christmas. His kids are forever telling him “Everything’s Fine”, but he soon discovers it’s not quite the case. The film ends with ‘(I Want To) Come Home starting up before the final credits and providing the perfect backdrop to a film that explores many different areas of family life and relationships. The track opens with just Paul at the piano, intimately singing lyrics that fit De Niro’s character; ‘For so long I was out in the cold and I taught myself to believe every story I told’, before he’s joined by strings and the track starts to build. On first listen it reminded us of ‘Chaos and Creation In the Backyard’, which is, peradventure, one of our very favourite solo albums, so we were happy. Paul collaborated on the orchestrations with composer Dario Marianelli and we think the results are spectacular.

Talking about his involvement Paul told us, “I could definitely identify with Robert De Niro’s character because I have grown-up kids who have their own families.”

Stuart Bell

 

More about Electric Arguments...



13. Don't Stop Running (7:44 minutes)

From Album review: The Fireman's 'Electric Arguments'

"McCartney's bottomless well of melody ensures that none of it gets too far afield, even as the songs turn more amorphous as the album unfolds. The pair wraps things up (not counting the obligatory hidden track -- replete with a backward-masked whisper at the end!) with "Don't Stop Running," a haunting minimalist rocker in which McCartney repeats the title phrase as if a mantra to himself not to get caught up in the past.

Excellent argument."

About the album:

Electric Arguments Out Today - Paul Q&A

"Question 1: The title of the album is Electric Arguments. Does this suggest that the creative dynamic between you and Youth is one of a challenging nature? Or is there another story to the title?

PM: The truth behind the title is that it's a phrase I pulled out from an Allen Ginsberg poem. It's as simple as that. It seemed to fit the spirit of the album."

 

More about Electric Arguments...



13. Don't Stop Running

Wickerman Ambient Dub (12:41 minutes)

This version was released on the bonus disc of the deluxe edition.

 

Should be better known and a fine late period song, Tom Jones Cover is great...

 

More about Electric Arguments...



14. Road Trip (2:34 minutes)

From The Fireman: Electric Arguments

"Shades of the original Fireman style emerge on Arguments’ last couple of tracks, as predominantly instrumental cuts like “Universal Here, Everlasting Now” and the ten-plus-minute “Don’t Stop Running” bridge the gap between the soundscapes of Strawberries, Oceans, Ships, Forest and Rushes and the musicality of the new material with satisfying results."

About the album:

Sirius XM:

 

Forgot about that one. It s great for sure

 

Don’t Stop Running - I like this better than the previous two tracks. The vocals, indeed the track as a whole, has more urgency. There's some nice Mellotron flute and some very lovely deep bass playing. Plus, the drumming has more purpose and sounds much better than on the previous two tracks. Its sense of momentum makes this feel like the closing track it is: 3/5.

After almost an hour of listening, Paul very thoughtfully gives us sufficient time for a quick comfort break before the almost inevitable hidden track.

Road Trip - This is insubstantial but enjoyable enough. The noises (I can't think of a better word at the moment) near the start remind me a little of the seagull noises on Tomorrow Never Knows, albeit they're pitched much lower. It's okay for what it is and gives us an extra couple of minutes of Paul music: 2.5/5

Overall, Electric Arguments has proved to be better than I remembered. In particular, Travelling Light, Is This Love? and Don't Stop Running have risen in my estimation. The later tracks aren't particularly to my taste, which isn't Paul's fault or problem, but there's nothing much wrong with any of them. I much prefer DR, Chaos and MAF but this is still a worthy effort - thanks Paul.

 

Lucky you - that's a great memory!

I watched it live on the TV (from 200 miles away). It was very good performance ... and he played New twice.

 

Indeed, New Yorkers had it lucky around that time too, might have been that roof gig at Letterman though he did Sing The Changes for that so maybe after EA.

 

I Want To Come Home - I love this one. This is a classic McCartney ballad. Could not believe no one played this song on the radio. This song along with Walk With You (with Ringo Starr) were real gems in 2009 and 2010. 8.5/10

 

Did we cover Heal The Pain by George Michael and Paul McCartney?

 

Though it pains me to say it, I think not. I also don't think we have covered his duet with Tony Bennett 2006's "The Very Thought Of You," but what can you expect the thread starter kind of sucks.

 

I WANT TO COME HOME - I LIKE THIS ONE it has a haunting feel to it like he really misses his home.

 

Thank you

 

Perhaps he do
But the song-nice as it is-ain t a home-run

 

(I Want to) Come Home

A masterpiece, a highlight, a gem. This is a beautiful intimate ballad with a powerful, intense and deeply emotional touch. The performance is simple, full of feelings and direct to the heart with great vocals, a sublime melody and perfect lyrics. Paul's composition captures the essence of the family and its complications. A genius work. Bravo!!!

Lyrics:

For so long I was out in the cold,
and I taught myself to believe every story I told.
It was fun hanging over the moon, heading into the sun,
but it’s been too long.
Now I wanna come home.

Came so close to the edge of defeat.
But I made my way in the shade, keeping out of the heat.
It was fun shooting out of the stars, looking into the sun,
but it’s been too long.
Now I wanna come home.

Home.
Where’s there’s nothing but sweet surrender,
to the memories from afar.
Home.
To the place where the truth lies waiting,
we remember who we are.

For too long I was out on my own.
Every day I spent trying to prove I could make it alone.
It was fun hanging over the moon, heading into the sun,
but it’s been too long.
Now I wanna come home.

Home.

For so long I was out in the cold,
but I taught myself to believe every story I told.
It was fun hanging over the moon heading into the sun,
but it’s been too long.
Now I wanna come home.

Yeah, it’s been too long, now I want to come home.
Been too long, now I want to come home.


Credits:

Digital Single: (I Want to) Come Home
Produced by Paul McCartney
Written by Paul McCartney
Acoustic Guitar, Backing Vocals, Bass, Drums, Electric Guitar, Piano, Tambourine, Orchestral Arrangement, Vocals by Paul McCartney
Orchestral Arrangement by Dario Marianelli
Conducted by Dario Marianelli
Mastered by Tim Young
Mixed by Geoff Emerick
Mixed by [Assistant Engineer] Adam Noble
Recorded by – Eddie Klein, Jamie Kirkham, Keith Smith
Recorded by [Orchestra - Assisted by] Chris Barrett, Olga Fitzroy
Recorded by [Orchestra] Nick Wollage
Mixed at Hog Hill Mill
Mastered at Metropolis
Published by MPL Communications Ltd/Inc
© 2009 Miramax Film Corp.
© ℗ 2009 MPL Communications Ltd.
Label: EMI Records
Taken from the film 'Everybody's Fine'
Release Date: December 4, 2009
Recorded at Hog Hill Studio, Rye / AIR Studios (overdubs)
Length: 3:34 minutes

Promo Film:



From video's description:

Published on Dec 16, 2009

The official video of (I Want To) Come Home by Paul McCartney. (I Want To) Come Home is taken from the new Robert De Niro film Everybody's Fine.

Film footage courtesy of Miramax Film Corp.