Band on the Run: the story behind a pop masterpiece
For many, Band on the Run is the album that best represents McCartney after the Beatles. Among his seventies efforts, it was the most acclaimed release, after some bad reviews from the press, especially about RAM and Wild Life. It was a great success, reaching n.1 in America on three different occasions during 1974 and remain in the charts for an amazing 124 weeks.
Following text from the book Paul McCartney: Recording Sessions 1969-2013:
"What happened in August 1973 is well known: Paul asked EMI for a studio in an exotic place and, among the suggested locations – which also included Rio de Janeiro and Beijing – Lagos looked very appealing to him.
However, McCartney could have heard about the Lagos musical scene some time before, very likely through Laine’s connection with Ginger Baker, who in 1971 also went to Abbey Road to record with Ransome Fela Kuti and Nigerian musicians.
McCartney: “We checked on the availability of Lagos and it turned out to be free for the three weeks we wanted to record. So we thought, ‘Great – lying on the beach all day, doing nothing. Breeze in the studios and record.’”
After the leaving of guitarist Henry McCullough, the very night before the departure, drummer Denny Seiwell also decided to leave the band. The departure date is uncertain: although some sources report August 9th, other accounts refer to August 29th. The latter date is consistent with McCartney’s statement above about the three-week period of recording.
Once in Nigeria, Paul, Linda and Denny Laine soon understood they would share not only a musical adventure but also a difficult human experience, sometimes dramatic, and therefore unforgettable. Soon after landing at the airport at Ikeja, Paul realized he wasn’t welcome.
During a visit to the city, Paul and Linda were held up at knifepoint and robbed of their cassette-recorder containing demos of some tracks Paul had recently written.
Fela Ranson-Kuti, a well-known local musician and political activist, led a media campaign denouncing McCartney’s attempt to steal African music. Even Ginger Baker, Cream’s former drummer, didn’t make life easy for Paul, insisting that he record the album at his own studio.
The equipment was taken directly to Baker’s ARC Studios, but at the EMI’s insistence, Wings moved to their company’s studio, causing friction with Baker. McCartney entered the EMI studio, but unfortunately, he had not checked its condition beforehand. When Paul got to Apapa, he found a small and underequipped studio, still being built, with a Studer eight track tape machine and a control desk, which worked intermittently. Emerick noticed that apart from two Neumanns, the microphones were “inexpensive models”.
The McCartney-Laine team worked perfectly and the sessions were very productive: the two laid down the basic tracks for seven songs – mainly starting with Denny on electric guitar and Paul on drums – worked hard on overdubs (except for some of Laine’s guitar parts here and there and Linda’s keyboards, McCartney played everything else) and finished the recordings in three weeks. As noticeable from some photographs, McCartney also used his Fender Jazz bass during the Lagos recordings."
Only six tracks were recorded at the EMI studio: “Band on the Run” (part one), “Mamunia”, “Bluebird”, Let Me Roll It”, Mrs. Vandebilt and Helen Wheels. One track, Picasso’s Last Words was taped at Ginger Baker’s ARC Studio and the rest (part 2 and 3 of “Band on the Run”, “Jet”, “No Words” and “1985”) was recorded at A.I.R. Studios, London in October.
SONG-BY-SONG EXCERPTS (taken from the book Paul McCartney: Recording Sessions 1969-2013)
1. Band on the Run
(…) “Band on the Run” marked a milestone for McCartney’s career. The recording of the track masterfully links three different sections. Judging from the pictures of the reel tapes included in the Band on the Run Deluxe Edition (2010), only part one and two of the song were taped in Lagos while the final section was recorded in London. As the tapes went through some oxidation that nearly made them unplayable, this could be the reason for the guitar sound in the first two sections is affected by noticeable distortion and over-saturation (…)"
"Band on the Run" original video clip
2. Jet
"(...) Just as years earlier, Paul had been inspired by the name of his dog, for “Martha My Dear”, the same happened with “Jet”, whose title came from the name of his new Labrador puppy. As reported by Melody Maker in 1973, Paul had composed a track called “Suffragette”, very likely an early title of “Jet”. McCartney said: “’Suffragette’ was crazy enough to work. It sounded silly, so I liked it.” It could be a citation of “Suffragette City”, Bowie’s track included in his 1972 album The Rise and the Fall of Ziggy Stardust. By a strange coincidence, some year later Bowie himself put some vocals, echoing “Jet”, on his song “Sons of the Silent Age”. (...)"
Promo stiker for the "Jet" single
3. Bluebird
"(…) Among the Band on the Run songs, “Bluebird” was perhaps the oldest one written by Paul, who composed it in Jamaica maybe during his early December 1971 vacation. It was also, to some extent, already known to McCartney’s audience: Paul and Linda had sung it in 1971 during a radio performance in New York, and McCartney had also included it in the acoustic medley on the James Paul McCartney show in April 1973 (…)"
Wings' improptu acoustic performance of "Bluebird", 1975
4. Mrs. Vandebilt
"(…) But everything didn’t go smoothly during the recording: there was a black-out and they had to rely on the studio’s power generator! The dramatic ascending refrain, reinforced by Howie Casey’s sax solo – this melody was repeated exactly in “Mine for Me”, the song that Paul would give to Rod Stewart in May 1974 – makes this song particularly catchy. It was issued as a single in some countries: in Italy and New Zealand the song charted respectively at #15 and #10. (…)"
5. Let Me Roll It
"(…) As soon as Band on the Run was released, “Let Me Roll It” was unanimously hailed by music critics as one of the most representative tracks of the album. Consciously or not, McCartney addressed a sort of stylistic homage to John Lennon. Several elements of the recording resemble Lennon’s productions with Spector, such as the use of the tape echo on vocals (Lennon’s trademark, found in songs like “Instant Karma!”) or the Oriental style guitar riff, so clearly a parody that even Lennon was amused, borrowing it in his “Beef Jerky” on Walls and Bridges. (…)"
6. Mamunia
"(…) During Wings’ Marrakesh holiday in February 1973 – some pictures of their vacation are in the Red Rose Speedway booklet – the band stayed at the sumptuous Mamounia hotel, one of the most renowned in the world for its luxury and elegance. Once in the studio, “Mamunia” was arranged in a simple way. It was “the first song we recorded in Lagos, in the middle of a tropical rainstorm”, as McCartney recalled. (…)"
"Mamunia" original video clip
7. No Words
"(…) “No Words” – Laine’s first issued composition with Wings and his first collaboration with Paul – was a song Denny had written earlier in the year. In Lagos, McCartney had helped him finish the track, adding a melodic middle eight and some verses. McCartney’s contribution to the lyrics is obscure, but significantly autobiographical. The lines “It’s only me/I love you” refer to some episodes that really happened between him and John Lennon.
McCartney: “We were once having a right slagging session and I remember how he took off his granny glasses. I can still see him. He put them down and said, ‘It’s only me, Paul.’ Then he put them back on again, and we continued slagging... That phrase keeps coming back to me all the time. ‘It’s only me.’ It’s became a mantra in my mind.” (…)"
Helen Wheels (only American edition of the album)
"(…) In McCartney’s career, “Helen Wheels” is known mostly for being at the center of a marketing strategy. The song proved, once again, Paul’s art at turning every aspect of his life into music. “Helen Wheels” was the affectionate nickname Paul had given Land Rover, the car that drove him, Linda (and, occasionally, Wings) from his farm in Scotland to London and back. (…)"
9. Picasso’s Last Words
"(…) 'Picasso’s Last Words' is one of the most popular examples of Paul’s songwriting method, often based on the transformation of cues taken from the surrounding world. The birth of “Picasso’s Last Words” had an exceptional witness, actor Dustin Hoffman. In the spring of 1973 Paul was at Hoffmann’s house in Jamaica, where the actor was shooting Papillon with Steve McQueen, when suddenly Dustin asked: “Can you just write (songs) about anything?” Paul answered that he could and Hoffmann handed him a copy of Time with an article titled Pablo Picasso's Last Days and Final Journey, which was about Picasso’s death, that happened on April 8th. (…)"
10. Nineteen Hundred and Eighty-Five
"(…) McCartney admitted that the main inspiration was related to a simple rhyme: “All I had of that song for months was the first verse, ‘No one ever left alive/In Nineteen Hundred and Eighty-Five’. ‘Nineteen Hundred and Eighty-Six’ it wouldn’t have worked.” (…)
McCartney performs "1985" at the 12.12.12 concert
All the above text is taken from the book Paul McCartney: (Recording Sessions 1969-2013). Could be not reproduced in any form without written permission from the author.
Copyright: Luca Perasi
