Paul McCartney/Wings-song by song thread

Agree-Junk has a melody that s absolute genius. Don t think anyone but Paul could have come up with something like that

 

Man We Was Lonely is a perfectly likeable album track. It's funny hearing how Linda's harmony vocals have improved over the albums. She was still pretty raw in 1970. I am one of those who really like what Linda brought to Paul's recordings. Certainly the 70's Wings sound would have been very different without her tone.

This is a throwaway (as someone mentioned earlier) but it is a complete song, fully worked out. Even on these throwaways, it seems like Paul couldn't help but write a catchy melody in 1970.

Just a note about the production. The acoustic guitar line has a slap echo on it that is as high up in the mix as the original signal, and it is panned to the opposite channel. It makes for a really cool effect.

For a partially home made effort, this is really a very good sounding album.

 

I wouldn t exactley call Man we was lonely a throw-away song. Ok it s fairly easy ecspecially the chorus but also insanely catchy. The melody I consider vintage McCartney-just so effortless and memorable. There are some interesting chord-changes and as you mentioned a very good and somehow inventive recording

 

Man We Was Lonely— fine laid back pop song with Paul hammering the theme of the album pretty hard again. Like the sound of it, especially the verses. The almost vaudeville blues feel to the chorus is cutesy but Linda’s voice actually sells that cutesiness to me.
Very likeable little tune. 3/5

 

@Bemagnus are you compiling scores and ranking the songs?

Of course it will be difficult to rank when they all have a score of 5/5.



I was always fascinated by the fact that about third of the McCartney album was rehearsed during the Get Back sessions. Paul essentially gave us an album built around songs he tried out with The Beatles. I do like the rawness and immediacy of it though.

Every Night is the brilliant piece on side 1.

If you do keep score, just put me down for 5/5 on every song like @MPLRecords . Except for Women Kind which I will give 0/5. Just to create some conversation.

1. "The Lovely Linda" – 0:43 5/5
2. "That Would Be Something" – 2:38 5/5
3. "Valentine Day" – 1:39 5/5
4. "Every Night" – 2:31 5/5
5. "Hot as Sun/Glasses" – 2:05 5/5
6. "Junk" – 1:54 5/5
7. "Man We Was Lonely" – 2:56 5/5

 

That's too kind... I was gonna go for a negative score.

 

Man We Was Lonely - an early forerunner of Paul & Linda vocal duo that would become very much part of his music going forward - 3.5/5 for me.

 

Agree. It's got a great groove. Love this one. I think that, in this case, "unfinished" and unpolished works very well.

 

Sorry Im not compiling scores. Don t have time for that . It s fun to discuss these songs anyway

 

Not sure about Lennon, but Harrison did praise the song in an interview.

 

"Every Night" is another favorite. However, this one sounds slightly under-produced here.

I like the song better in full arrangement -- either the version with Wings, played in the final tour, or the acoustic version in Unplugges (1991=.

 

I'll compile the scores. Gimme a few days to get started though. Lot on my plate, beginning of the school year and all.

 

Catching up with this fast moving thread.

"Hot as Sun" is one of McCartney's best instrumentals IMO. Always had a soft spot for this one.

 

I like all of these versions even though the original is somehow closer to my heart

 

+1

 

"Man We Was Lonely" -- the kind of amazingly melodic song that McCartney could come up with, out of the blue in his peak years.

An enjoyable song. Not necessarily a favorite but it contributes to the "fun" factor that prevails throughout the McC I album.

 

It's to taste but I like the under-produced nature of this album. There's an intimacy to it that rarely gets captured effectively by any artist on tape. Particularly if they are working with more than one track in the recording. Every Night is such a song that is emotive on all of those levels.

Lovely Linda is so sweet in it's simplicity.

The jams are just in your face on the mix and organic and fun.

So much going on here yet so simple.

And even then it still ranks in the lower half of my McCartney list if I'm forced to rank.


I will agree that Every Night (or any McCartney song) on Unplugged is a knock out.

 

Yes, I mentioned that tidbit on page two of this thread, post #34 I'm not sure about Lennon either- I'm only assuming the bluesy, laid back style of "That Would Be Something" and the minimal lyrics are something he noticed and maybe liked, as there is proof of him really liking McCartney's songs similar in style during the Beatles years- no idea though- maybe he hated it. I remember being surprised when reading George's positive comments though- not entirely positive as I recall, but he did single out that song by name.

 

Hot As Sun - a high 3/5 from me. Very tuneful and love the teasing excerpt from Suicide at the end.

Junk - 5/5: a beautiful melody with complementary wistful lyrics.

Man We Was Lonely - 3/5. Like Linda's vocals on this and also the Davy Jones version posted above.

 

Missed that one, sorry. I was reading quickly to catch up with the thread.

 

I'm not sure if I'll be able to keep up with this thread but I'll try to stay with it best I can, when I can. I know the OP here doesn't require ranking of songs- I've learned from the Monkees song a day thread that I don't enjoy ranking songs as much as I thought I did- at least in public anyway! On my J River library, it's a different story- I can be the jaded, takes a lot to impress me listener rating songs accordingly. A three out of 5 is still a really good song to me and a two even has its qualities as well. My side one of McCartney's debut would look something like this:

The Lovely Linda: 3/5 (as far as songs less than a minute go)

That Would Be Something: 4/5 (loved this song as a kid. first song I responded to)

Valentine Day: 3/5 (a staple of early 90s mixtapes of mine where I would slip this one between say, Stereolab and Flying Saucer Attack. It hasn't quite held up for me like others, but for instrumentals that some would dismiss as pointless noodling taking up precious space, I've always liked it)

Every Night: 4/5 (some people would consider this the first good song finally appearing. I would say the song only seems so good because of where it's positioned in the sequencing. Still I'm giving it 4 because there is an above-average, seemingly effortless quality to it)

Hot As Sun/Glasses: 3/5 (I appreciate the experimental nature of mixing an early composition with weird noises and frustrating snippets of fully formed songs that no listener is yet familiar with, yes)

Junk: 5/5 (one of my top 5 solo favorites of his. I've only ever thought the WA demo was OK- probably because I was only familiar with this perfect version for years before I ever even heard that. Can't say the same for "Teddy Boy" though opposite, in fact.

Man We Was Lonely: 3/5 (disliked this one for decades but I've softened my views in the last few years. There are things I can appreciate about it. I was shocked to see this one on the Wingspan CD comp though Wasn't aware of a Davy Jones version, I'll give that a listen a bit later.)

 

same here.

 

For those who cannot keep up , you better get your Macca together.

 

You do this thread any way you want. I just thought I would let folks know that there have been 14 McCartney album Song by Song threads for various McCartney albums. There have also been career spanning Album by Album threads, but there has never been to my knowledge a career spanning Song by Song thread. My advice would be to this one year at a time, i.e. change the thread title to

Here is a link to all of those threads for anyone interested:

Search Results for Query: mccartney song by thread | Steve Hoffman Music Forums

 

Love the charm of the Mccartney album, though I still wish he had put his version of Goodbye on it.