Red Rose Speedway is MILES better than Band On The Run - Anyone else agree?

Just think…if history or the present is any indication, years from now you could be mocked for thinking RRSW is better than BOTR. That’s the way things cycle..go in and out of fashion.

 

There’s usually a song on any album folks skip…if that’s yours, then skip it and enjoy the rest of the album. If you prefer rrsw over Band, then listen to that. Because band was hailed as the best album for decades before Ram took the throne, folks don’t like band as much probably because so over played and most youngsters prefer Ram.

 

Because of this thread, I’m compelled to again go enjoy Picasso’s last words and a few other cuts from BOTR, like mamunia, another song sometimes downed on SHF. Lol. I’ll listen to both the album and rock show versions of..Picasso’s last words in this thread’s honor…lol. When I get done with some great BOTR songs, I’ll go back and enjoy some rrsw songs, as I enjoy that album also. You’ve inspired me…these are wonderful albums and memories of my teen years, part of the musical tapestry of my youth so to speak. Also, band is a great reminder of the incredible wings concert I saw in 76.

 

Phony Beatlemania era also helped BOTR sales. Capitol ran a pretty good ad campaign. Ringo lp also prospered from it

 

Exactly! Paul was challenged to create something out of Picasso’s last reported words and used a musical cubist approach to it.

 

In thread starter’s honor I again sampled BOTR and listened to the Picasso song album version all the way through. My album has the great Helen wheels on it…I remember that great Helen wheels video from the time. My verdict? It’s a lush song, even incorporates orchestral music. I couldn’t imagine a song nor an album with its rich variety like that made today. Paul’s albums, especially his wings ones are like steps and progressive stages..it just so happens that that type of mid seventies style is completely out now and more indie folksy or primitive music is the rage today. I so associate BOTR and later albums with the great wings concert I saw, as those songs were the backbone of the tour.

Though I love rrsw, BOTR is a strong, great album and Picasso song, with all its background French talking and party drunkenness celebration of a death wake…the song must stay. I can’t imagine Paul’s seventies career without the necessary huge breakthrough success of BOTR nor his subsequent middle wings albums which incorporates some glam rock as does BOTR …The album was everywhere…I, my two siblings and my friend each had a copy of it. As I’d been listening to rock show versions of many paul songs from this era, thanks indirectly for encouraging me to revisit the album version.

 

I always far preferred the rrsw songs live on WOE as opposed to the album version. They had far more grit, brought the songs to life and wings were always a great live band. I absolutely love the medley on rrsw, almost the best part of the album, with great segues, musical overlays, climaxing at the end.

 

Somebody else gets it!! Lol. It took me 50 years to realize the song was not only about Picasso’s last words… it mimicked cubism.

my wife and I laugh because I was in my late 40’s before I realized what the old disco song “Ring My Bell” was about. I am pretty dense sometimes


Jet is clever as well. Paul sings I heard your father is as a lady suffragette and mispronounces it with a “Get” and the band corrects him by yelling “Jet”.

 

I bought the My Love single back in 1973 and loved it. Loved hearing Big Barn Bed on the JPM TV Special in 1973. Bought the album and cd many years back but never listened to it. Finally got around to listening to the entire album a few years back and found it to be the crappiest album I almost ever listen to. So much garbage and filler. Give me Ringo’s worst over this. This is galaxies away from BOTT, which I love all the way through (minute Momonia).

 

Yes, I didn’t get it for a long time either. Paul began painting himself at age forty and has done many cubist as well as surrealist paintings from pictures I see of his works and his painting books.

 

You mean "kilometers"
......and......no.

 

Someone on the paul McCartney/wings thread I think it was thought One More kiss was pop or even bubble gum I think, but since its release, I always saw it as his first country song, complete with country lilt in vocals and country style of guitar playing. I think the same person thought the rrsw medley was bubble gum which I see as pop, as bubble gum definitely emphasized short hit type songs.

 

Red Rose Speedway is MILES better than Band On The Run - Anyone else agrees?

NO

 

No, not even close.

 

NO

 

My favorite songs on Band On The Run are the title track, “Mamunia,” and “Picasso’s Last Words.”

 

I like RRS. It’s not better than BOTR. I probably stated as much upthread.

Someone mentioned that RAM has overtaken the throne from BOTR as Paul’s best album.

I don’t think so. I’d like to see proof of that, in any event.

 

I haven't read one word of this thread but I'll say that "Get On the Right Thing" is one of my favorite (out of hundreds) of his songs.

Man, does that song rock!!

"They was wrong -- get on the right thang!"

Here's an early version:

 

In my humble and misguided opinion, RRS is the last Project (I mean the 30 tracks recorded between 72 and 73) where McCartney still had some Beatles magic going on. Little bits here and there, at least. BOTR sounds to me much more like a "now we're in the 70s, let's get on with it" record.

That said, BOTR is easily the better album.

 

That’s very true…I realized it then. Earlier albums were more beatlesque, but BOTR was a true seventies album though some of his later seventies and music in subsequent decades still along the way had some beatesque influences and sounds.

 

Both albums are clearly very well produced but to me Band On The Run feels slicker and more polished. It has higher highs than RRS but the double album restoration of Speedway may now be my favourite Wings album of all.

 

For me Red Rose Speedway is significantly better than Band On The Run.

I thought BOTR had 2-3 great songs that inflated the reputation of the album, whereas IMO RRS has no weak songs.

 

It's not even in my top ten McCartney albums. It's just OK. My Love is an albatross to me.

I honestly wonder if it would have been worse in it's original 2 LP incarnation. If this was the best of those tracks I shudder to think.

 

Ram on.....

 

It’s not ‘miles better’ than BOTR, but it’s a very good album and definitely the start of something new.