Illustration titled "There's No Better Place Than This Cloud" by Clare Victor Dwiggins by John Kendrick Bangs' Andiron Tales, 1906
I usually avoid discussing "classic" albums in my "It's New to Me" posts, simply because I probably don't have anything new to say about these much-discussed records. I do have a couple things to say about Band on the Run, though, because I ordered it from Amazon while reading Geoff Emerick's book about working with the Beatles, Here, There & Everywhere. One of the last chapters in the book is about the making of Band on the Run, and it made me curious - up till now, my only solo McCartney CD has been the Wingspan collection, which I bought when it came out because Border's had accidentally marked the 2-CD set at five bucks! I never really connected with the collection, though, so I thought Emerick's fascinating book might give me a way into McCartney's solo work.
As you may or may not know, Geoff Emerick LOVES Paul McCartney - many of the chapters of Here, There & Everywhere read like a sloppy tongue-kiss from Emerick to McCartney. I didn't know this when I started reading the book, and, while it's a fascinating view into the way the Beatles recorded their albums, I found the book's bias more than a little off-putting. Emerick pays lip service to the other Beatles, but the general tone of his narrative runs Lennon, Harrison, and Starkey down in a variety of little ways. He goes on at length about Harrison's lack of competence as a guitarist and Lennon's inability to express his musical ideas, while portraying Ringo as disengaged from the musical process almost entirely. I had to grit my teeth when Emerick opined that McCartney was as passionate about politics as Lennon but with more intelligence and subtlety, calling "Blackbird" a masterpiece while deriding Lennon's "Revolution". He praises almost everything McCartney touched (with the exception of "Ob-La-Di Ob-La-Da", which EVERYONE hates) - he even talks up McCartney's goofy throwaway "All Together Now" from the Yellow Submarine soundtrack, while basically calling Harrison's "Only a Northern Song" from the same release a piece of garbage.
Which brings me to Band on the Run. It's actually really good - the first half is pretty much flawless, beginning with the oddly-structured but note-perfect title track and "Jet". Over its length, though, it starts to sound like an album falling in love with itself and it ends quite messily. The last two tracks, "Picasso's Last Words" and "1985" are overlong and uninteresting - notably, each of them also contain reprises to earlier songs on the album ("Jet" and "Mrs Vandebilt" on the former and "Band on the Run" on the latter"). It comes across as self-indulgent. Of course, I've heard most of these songs before, but my favorite new discovery on Band on the Run is the second side's strongest track (not counting "Helen Wheels", which was added to the track list later). "No Words" is interesting in a couple ways - for one, it is the only track with a Denny Laine co-writing credit. It's also the album's shortest song, but there's a lot going on in it, including a crazy high-pitched chorus that only comes up twice before a great guitar solo that fades out a little abruptly.
Oh, and "No Words" is a total ripoff of George Harrison's songwriting style to my ears. The slide guitar, the melody, and the sound of the harmonies all borrow from the sound of All Things Must Pass, which came out three years earlier. I wonder if Emerick would acknowledge that the great McCartney might have learned a thing or two from his "lesser" bandmates in the Beatles.
"No Words" by Paul McCartney & Wings
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