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Paul McCartney and Wings: Red Rose Speedway

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Dave Amitri on Red Rose Speedway

September has been a strange month so far. My mum passed away in August and her funeral was on the 8th September. We were sat having a beer and a sandwich at my brother’s house as the news filtered through that The Queen had died. Why is that relevant to this, my fourth McCartney / Wings album Red Rose Speedway? Well, I’d been listening to the album and trying to find an angle but nothing came. It was all very nice, pleasant, middle of the road, radio friendly fare. Then as I was thinking about Mum and my childhood it hit me. The whole album reminded me of a day off school in 1973 when I was seven. Following mum round the kitchen as she did her chores while listening to Terry Wogan, Pete Murray and Jimmy young on Radio 2. I don’t claim to remember the songs that were being played but I remember the style and mood and Red Rose Speedway sits firmly in its midst. Very nice, pleasant, middle of the road, radio friendly fare.

I feel the need to address the cover at this point. Wild Life had a really cool cover. It was a band together. It was Wings. This is a literal interpretation of the album name. As literal as a Pans People dance. McCartney, just McCartney no band, red rose in his mouth and a motorbike. It’s ridiculous. It’s a Macca thing. It doesn’t bode well after the high of Wild Life. Might as well be Yellow Daffodil Stock Car. Anyway, on with the music.

Big Barn Bed opens which is one of those McCartney songs I’m becoming familiar with and it’s ok. Decent enough tune. Some repeated lyrics. Some Linda harmonies. A little bit country. Some Maccaesque scatting. Extended outro. It’s ok.

Now, My Love was the hit, a huge hit and undoubtedly a song I would have heard in the kitchen with mum in 1973. It has Radio 2 written all over it. It’s one of those songs that was probably intended from day one to be Number 1. Does that make it a good song? I’m not so sure. It’s the sort of thing Gary Barlow could knock out without thinking and we’d all be reaching for a bucket. It has a wedding band feel but McCartney does sing it beautifully. It reminds me a bit of Yesterday or Long and Winding Road. It plods a bit and then has the big shift for a perfect ending which would have played into Wogan and co’s hands for some cringeworthy back announcing. Even Edmonds, Travis and Blackburn on Radio 1 would have thanked the lord for McCartney’s finish to My Love. Before the end of the last “Woah woah…” they would be sat drooling into their microphones over some profound statement that McCartney was “back, back, back” and “that’s a number 1 record right there”. They were right but is actually any good?

Get On the Right Thing has a bit more going on and at times has an Inspiral Carpets early 90s vibe that lifts it out of the speakers and shakes you from the permanent feeling of nice. It does remind me a little bit of the Simply Red song of a similar name but maybe it’s just that the words are almost the same. I expect Pete Murray loved it.

One More KIss is back to a country song. Maybe he should have just made a full-on country album. It’s a route Mike Nesmith trod very successfully after escaping The Monkees. I feel like it’s something McCartney wanted to explore and it may have suited some of his Linda and Paul songs I.e., most of them. One More Kiss is unfortunately not even a very good country song. This guy is a frustrating to me as those pesky Duke boys were to Boss Hogg.

Little Lamb Dragonfly is absolutely the highlight of the album. The epitome the Macca / McCartney tightrope being constantly walked. When he gets that balance right musically, lyrically, vocally of course he’s brilliant, he’s Paul McCartney. This is still lovely, it’s lovely +++. It sounds like it could have been a Beatles song. I hear a bit of No More Lonely Nights in there too. I love it and when I come to put my best of McCartney / Wings together this will be on it.

Single Pigeon then. Sigh. I know what he’s trying to achieve here. You can even picture the conception of this song lyrically. The only interesting thing about it is the idea that he and Linda might have had a fight which he why he went looking for solace in a pigeon and a seagull on a Saturday morning. Surely by now patience was running out. It’s just pointless.

When The Night is just a bit of background music that is hard to have any view on either way really. I don’t know what to say to be honest. Not great for a reviewer or the review but there we are.

Loup (1st Indian On The Moon) again is a tough one to analyse. What’s it about? Is it racist? What were they actually taking? Where was he trying to go with this? I found this on Paul McCartney.com so I’ll just leave it here

PM.com: Do you remember where something like ‘Loup (1stIndian On The Moon)’ came from? It’s so different from everything else on the album.

Paul: Because it’s an album track we had a bit more room to manoeuvre. And I think it’s the rebellious aspect of Wild Life coming back in. So you’ve got ‘My Love’, and that’s a proper song. You’ve got some other proper songs on the album. But then we’ve got something like ‘Loup’, where it was sort of a bit of fun for us. It’s pretty experimental. But we didn’t ever play it live, it was just something fun that only existed in the studio.

Finally, he gives us a medley of four songs that drifts on for eleven minutes by which time even the staunchest McCartney fan must have been shrugging apathetically. Even Murray, Wogan and Young must have thought this stuff is even too dull for us.

In the Nothing Is Real episode on Red Rose Speedway Jason makes a great point about the timing of when you hear Red Rose Speedway. If you were a teenager looking for McCartney the Beatle to blow your mind then this clearly is not the album for you. If on the other hand you had been a Beatles fan, were now older, perhaps with children yourself and settling into adulthood and maybe even Radio 2 then perhaps this was just the thing. I think Red rose Speedway is incredibly weak after Wild Life. Jason has recommended that I do the extended double album which was supposedly how it was meant to be in 1973 but was only officially released in 2018. I don’t have the energy for that this month. Maybe I’ll do a sequel another time. Or maybe not.

Listening to this album happened to coincide with a major life event and I’ve enjoyed some of the feelings it’s brought up. My Mum would have been 44 in 1973 and there’s every chance she was a McCartney fan. I know my dad loved My Love it was right in his zone musically. That I suspect is where McCartney was in 1973 just a purveyor of nice songs who happened once to be in The Beatles. A quick search shows me that Elton was doing Goodbye Yellow Brick Road in 1973. Bowie was on Aladdin Sane, Billy Joel had released Piano man and even Barry Manilow was using Chopin to inspire the majestic Could It Be Magic. There was loads going on in 1973 and Paul McCartney just wasn’t at the races, speedway or otherwise.

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Comments

  1. I rather like the cover. Who can object to a shovel head engine and something blocking Paul’s gob?

    1973 turns out to be my comfort year for music, including Stranded, Mott, Stevie, Sly, Countdown To Ecstasy, Dixie Chicken. Paul McCartney barely registered. I did hear the album at my dad’s friend’s house. As you point out, side one is nice. Henry McCullough’s solo on My Love is excellent. Get On The Right Thing is my favourite.

    I’m sorry about your mum. This record brings back memories of my dad who died thirty years ago.

  3. Firstly, amd most importantly, condolences for the loss of your Mum.

    I agree with you on this one. The big hit is incredibly well crafted and beautifully realised, but I always found it far too gloopy and cloying – I have to add that I was a 23 year old at the time that was a hit and finding all sorts of more far interesting stuff. I only got the album relatively recently as a gap filler and , I think, heard it through for the first time…..and it isn’t great. Macca was all over the shop at this time, and I would include Wild Life in that assessment (other views are available on that however!).

    Things would improve…

  4. Lovely read. I figured you might have a problem with this one, but I thought the same about Wild Life!

    I bought this around 1981 and was initially very disappointed with it. Picked up the (extended) CD in the 90s and my opinion hadn’t changed much. Then around 2005 my ex implored me to give it another chance, so I did. Now I like it a lot.

    I absolutely love Single Pigeon, but you are right about Little Lamb Dragonfly being the best thing on there, I also like Get on the Right Thing and Big Barn Bed. My Love is not my fave, great guitar solo, but all the “woh woh wohs” get on my nerves a bit. The medley at the end is lightweight but enjoyable. The original album was nicely packaged too, a gatefold with a 12 or 16 page booklet.

    I may prefer the double album version, even if the one now released may not be the original idea. You may not like it any better, but as I have requested you to listen to concurrent singles/B sides too you will find a couple on there. The Mess is great, as is Country Dreamer. Earlier C Moon/Hi Hi Hi was an excellent single and I even began to enjoy Mary Had a Little Lamb at one point.

    Certainly signs in general that Wings could work, but that comes to fruition on the next album even after the usual personel changes. Suggest you give RRS another 20 years and you will come round 😉

  5. I agree it’s worth investigating the double album version – it’s not earth shattering by any means but it’s interesting to hear it as it was originally conceived.

  6. Is this the album where Charles Shaar Murray introduced an interview with the words “how do I tell an ex-Beatle that he’s made a shit album”?

      • I think Venus and Mars and the follow up, At The Speed of Sound, are my two least favourite Wings albums, so I seem to be in partial agreement with CSM. There’s something uncharacteristically leaden about them. Despite the obvious effort, all traces of McCartney magic are missing and neither achieve lift off (SWIDT?) Without the magic you’re left with a raft of aimless pastiche.

        I like Red Rose Speedway. It’s not Premier League Macca, but as Dave points out, moments like Little Lamb Dragonfly feel special and linger in the memory. Even if the material isn’t stellar, there’s still a sense of enjoyment in the music making that I don’t perceive with V&M and ATSOS.

        London Town was a marginal improvement, but their swansong, Back to the Egg is probably my favourite Wings album, with Macca sounding interested again (and again and again).

  7. Never actually heard this one – I know “My Love”, and believe that Henry McCullough’s solo is the best thing about the song. But there is little else that interests me.
    Should I investigate? Reading through the above, I’m not sure …

  8. I’ve been sorting through the pile of records acquired while the builders were doing up my garage and discovered second-hand copies of this and Venus & Mars. I don’t recall buying them (did MiniB send?) and I definitely haven’t played it. I’m not sure I’m going to bother just yet.

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