Band On the Run

[The Big Guy]

Released in 1973.

[Kylenz]

It's a classic album, and deservedly so. Jet still kicks butt some 34 years later.  Every song is consistently so strong, it's one of the few post-Beatles albums that stands its ground against the likes of Abbey Road etc. My favourite songs are Mrs Vanderbilt and 1985. Jet and the title track are monsters, timeless songs, as is Let Me Roll It with its snarling guitar lead. I used to have a colourful Japanese picture disc edition of this album and was stupid enough to sell it too cheaply - it would've been worth a fortune now! 

[chris]

yeah, this is as good as it gets for me, too. song after song is solid. and the quality is remarkably high throughout. we get a reprise...(so paulie, i love that) and an amazing finale (again. paul has one on all of the best records he has been involved in)

he stillk covers this album fairly well in concert. and i still hope to see a few more songs from this he hasn't done yet. over 30 years later...and i still would poop to see 1985 live. i'd even settle for helen wheels.

[Kylenz]

Yeah how come he never does 1985? It's got a similar groove to Fine Line, so it's not like his current band wouldn't be capable of pulling 1985 off. I bet Wix would love getting into those triumphant synth parts at the end as it builds up to that final chord. It seems like the sort of song that would suit all the band members. They could do all those "oooooh oooooh wooo oooooh" vocal harmony sections. It's strange how Paul has shied away from certain songs that would go down tremendously well in concert. I was surprised he did Too Many People (from Ram).

[chris]

here is to hoping he isn't done surprising us

[mervap]

I have tried for a long time to try to figure out why this album, above all his other solo output, has been considered his finest recorded achievement. I am certainly not saying "BOTR" does not deserve that honor, but I like to find why things are as they are...with that in mind, I set it alongside his solo albums that preceeded it and found four factors that set it apart from those albums:

1. It was recorded in a locale, outside his comfort zone, where Macca could focus on the task at hand.

2. It was his first solo project to be engineered by Geoff Emerick.

3. All of the songs on it at least vaguely relate to the album theme, "Band On the Run".

4. Two band members quit the day before Macca was to leave England for Lagos, where the album was recorded.

Even though most of the tunes were already written before he left, by isolating himself and the two remaining Wings from outside distractions, Macca created an environment where all involved could devote a maximum amount of focus to the project. Granted, it was an uncomfortable locale...Lagos was not a safe place, and they got there at the end of the rainy season...but Macca was not well known there, so I would imagine he felt a great freedom not having people surrounding him and wanting a piece of him constantly.

Point two is, at least to my ears, the most important...even though the songs on "BOTR" still cover a wide spectrum of styles, Emerick never allowed the album to end up sounding like just a collection of songs. Rather, his expert recording techniques give the album a very consistent, very intimate overall feel...and that leads almost directly to....

All of the songs here sound as though they are aimed at creating a sort of travelogue, a feeling of going places, doing cool things and meeting exotic people. There are several modes of travel mentioned in the lyrics...this was truly a story of a band on the run.

Lastly, Henry McCullogh and Denny Seiwell quit just before the trip to record the album...the gauntlet had been thrown, and Macca answered the bell superbly. With his trusty bass pushed well to the forefront, Macca's versatility shines through in his fine drumming...I had no idea before this album he even played drums. He played much of what you hear, save for Denny Laine's guitars, and he did it all with an admirable dose of understatement...not much in the way of flashy solos and such. Nope, here were great songs, well played and presented with a consistency he had not shown since his days with the Beatles.

All in all, this album could be considered Macca's crowning achievement...many still feel it is. However, McCartney has continued to produce fine work over the many years since "BOTR", with some of the best just in the last few years.

[EddieV]

This is my favourite album by Macca

I think with all the difficulties Paul had before and during recordings made him work harder. Remember Paul and Linda was robbed and a tape with the songs was lost!!

Maybe this was his last chance to show that he could make it on his own??


Yeah play 1985, Macca

[chris]

i think (and this is a sore subject for some, because many disagree with it) that this album proves that paul responds well (that is...as far as musical inspiration) to trajedy. this album is probably his most sparkling example. but he did it again with john's death (tug of war), linda's death (run devil run) and his impending divorce (chaos.)

i hate to see paul suffer for anything. and we surely have all heard of the artist suffering for his work. but maybe there is a wee bit of truth in responding, artisticly, in some way, to pain.

[lampie1970]

I agree :)

[Kylenz]

I also think that Paul makes poorer records when he's in a comfort zone and not being pushed hard enough - Pipes of Peace (a leftovers album) and Off The Ground are 2 examples. The Nigeria situation doesn't really show up in the actual music in Band on the Run, but the resulting quality of the output shows Paul on his game 100%.

[Paperback Writer]

....but consider.....Macca is infamous for assembling an album from songs written from a span of many, many years.  The recording process can , also span several years, as we most recently have seen on Memory Almost Full.
So I don't see his albums as time-pieces, like a stop watch, per say.  At times it's a time mosaic.

Now, I agree he is best when focused and zoned in on a recording period and essentially uncluttered with all his other projects.

Booking a foreign recording studio, with a time limit may well have helped him with Band On the Run - whether he had the difficulties there - or not.  Remember, he had the songs pre-recorded BEFORE the troubles.

With Chaos he challenged himself, seeking a producer reccomended by George Martin, and had a bushel full of songs going into the sessions and this focus helped. He actually may have been happy during the writing of some of those songs- despite the subdued hues Chaos is drenched in.

Other great albums are not accountable to tragedy, but probably focus - Ram - booked NYC session men, studio time.
Flaming Pie - was great, both tragedy and focus in play there with Linda ill and Jeff Lynne aboard. Songs there were also written during good times and span several years.

I think his work suffered when he was distracted by things, whether happy, sad or just varied.
Since I like Driving Rain, I feel he is WAY past this problem, since TOW - (minus Pipes when he relapsed into coasting) he has been sensational!

May Paul be happy AND focused!

[chris]

i've been going thru a band on the run renaissance, of sorts. and it very well could be that the meaning...or intended meaning...of these lyrics are all in my head. but i have a theory brewing...

the album as a whole is about a search for freedom (from the beatle's shadow...from the expectations from actually being a beatle) and the flight from restrictions (of following up his former band's glory with his own similar, but thus far, fleeting success)

On Band on the Run, there are two separate searches going on: McCartney's for himself and the listener's for McCartney. The title song begins soberly, its narrator in jail, his music depressed. Both he and the album explode at the moment of his escape, the newfound exhilaration suggesting that there could have been no such pleasure without the preceding pain and that while McCartney prefers the former to the latter, he has learned how to cope with both.

From the moment of escape, everything on the album eventually evokes the notion of flight. "Jet," a superb piece of music suggests an overwhelming desire not only to get away but to get away to someone. It ends up a love song, a tribute to both a person and a state of mind, propelled forward by a grand performance.

"Helen Wheels" (which wasn't supposed to be on the album) is about the McCartneys' Land Rover and is another travel song, more upbeat, and feeding the fantasy of a rock band looking for action. Even on a simple love song, "Bluebird," we find the narrator "... flying through your door" to take his lover away, "... as we head across the sea/And at last we will be free."

"Mrs. Vandebilt," which evidences some of Paul's healthy propensity for playfulness and nonsense, is vaguely about the outlaw's need for a haven, in this case the fantasy world of carefree jungle life (presumably inspired by their recording the LP in Lagos, Nigeria).

As the rockk & roll of "1985" suggests, he plans to stick around for some time. It would have been easy to end Band on the Run with the cut's happy projection of the future, but McCartney doesn't take the easy way out this time around. At the exciting conclusion of "1985," he segues into a short reprise of the title cut, a move suggesting once again that he isn't really sure that he wants to give up the search.

He holds the record together through the continual intimation that he enjoys the search for freedom more than he might enjoy freedom itself. In the best tradition of outlaw mythology, he makes being on the run sound so damned exciting.

[Kylenz]

I just had a re-read of what I said about Band on the Run and the prospect of 1985 performed live.. well if they were going to do it, Wix would be well-advised to invest in some better equipment - namely a genuine 1973 mini-moog or whatever Linda played at the time. It's insane to think that here we are in the year 2010 and the best sounds Wix can come up with at the end of Jet is a squawky cheap Casiotone sound. Maybe the band have to go 'back' to head forward?!

[Kylenz]

Well I saw Wix and the gang play 1985 live at Hyde Park this year at the Hard Rock Calling, and the synth sounds he used were just fine! It sounded epic actually :)

Just got this in my email:

Paul McCartney & Wings' Legendary "Band on the Run" To Be Reissued 1st / 2nd November
PAUL McCARTNEY & WINGS' LEGENDARY BAND ON THE RUN
TO BE REISSUED 1st / 2nd NOVEMBER

Paul's epic #1 album from 1973 will be available in multiple
configurations featuring remastered rare bonus audio & video
content with special exclusive packaging.

Looking forward to it. Thought they did a pretty good job with the 25th Anniversary Edition, how they can continue to improve the sound fidelity (and physically discern it) will be interesting.

[Borris]

It's a classic album, and deservedly so. Jet still kicks butt some 34 years later.  Every song is consistently so strong, it's one of the few post-Beatles albums that stands its ground against the likes of Abbey Road etc. My favourite songs are Mrs Vanderbilt and 1985...

This album has a good reputation and I do like it but it doesn't wow me as it does many others.

It is a well constructed album, but standing it's ground against Abbey Road? Not for me it doesn't, in fact there are other McCartney albums that I like much more. The songs don't move me the way those on RAM do, I find RAM way more playful and vital. But getting back to Abbey Road, that was the album where George played an Ace, "Something" for me that is the great song of that album, there is no Something on BotR. Here comes the Sun is a gem too, and Come Together nothing that has that kind of power. BotR can compare to the great side two medley songs and it does lack an "I Want You" which I find to be a blotch upon Abbey Road.

The song writing for me has none of the power of George's All Things Must Pass, the songs on BotR sound nice they are nice, but not great, 1985 is a really cool song my favourite on the album. Please don't shoot me down, I love Paul's work and I like BotR but I just can't see it as a towering achievement. I think Paul's solo career taken as a whole is amazing, it is rich, musical, melodic, individual and gives me a nice warm inner glow, but I find it's achievement is more in its abundance than in any single towering achievement. If someone asked me to name one album to get a sense of Paul's work I'd say that you can't do that, you've got to soak in his work, listen to McCartney, RAM, Red Rose Speedway, Band on the Run, Venus and Mars, London Town, McCartney II (maybe), Tug of War, Flowers in the Dirt, Off the Ground, Ecce Cor Meum, Flaming Pie & Chaos and Creation.