okay so here are some less-heralded McCartney songs I am irredeemably fond of, and might conceivably vote for, in chronological order. 100 tracks gives one some room for some of the detours, odd genre experiments, four-track inside jokes, and inexplicable stoner fantasies that make his bloated discography so charming for die-hards, and so irritating for those who wish he would just take the extra week's work to write less stupid lyrics to his best melodies.
i'm assuming that everyone knows mccartney, ram, band on the run, mccartney ii, tug of war, flowers in the dirt, and his numerous smash hit singles. if not, those should really be the focus of any catchup ballot-listening, with ram and band on the run at the head. this is for people who just can't muster sifting through the rest of that massive discography. would love to see other people's faves!
Mumbo all i really need from Wild Life and an encapsulation of why that album completely flopped and was hated - sloppy, pointless, basically lyric-less warmup exercises with a not particularly tight band. it's great!
Big Barn Bed; Getting Closer the "Mumbos" of Red Rose Speedway and Back to the Egg, respectively. the bands are tighter, letting the idiosyncratic, weird, totally hollow and totally appealing lyrics glide right in on enthusiastic deliveries. "SAY YOU DON'T LOVE HIM - - My salamander!" may be the best opening line to any solo McCartney album.
Medley (Hold Me Tight, Lazy Dynamite, Hands Of Love, Power Cut) this album is 42 minutes long and closes with an eleven-minute medley with maybe twenty-five unique lines in the lyrics; a pure exercise in melody and arranging, it's no "Uncle Albert / Admiral Halsey" but I just love this guy putting this much energy and enthusiasm into this thing and it still feels like it's arrived somewhere when we get to the endless go-rounds of "Baby I love you so" as the other melodic motifs weave their way back in.
Single Pigeon got love upthread - it's terrific, this one incredibly focused little piano gem, in the same album of sprawling Technicolor nonsense that includes "Big Barn Bed," the medley, and a preposterous instrumental titled "Loup (1st Indian on the Moon)" which I'm surprised Jamiroquai never tried to arrange for the digeridoo.
Magneto & Titanium Man whiz! bang! comics aren't just for kids anymore! It won Geir's poll of Venus & Mars! of the half-dozen or so mccartney songs i got through in my abortive attempt at a double-album of covers, this was the most fun to learn and satisfying to record. "and the CRIM-SON DY-NA-MOooo!"
I've Had Enough and Name and Address late-70s attempts at glam-stomp and Elvis. macca was a man out of time and somehow everything comes through his filter just slightly wrong and weird. Catchy!
Waterspout a sweet little drum machine number from late in the Wings era that still sounds to me like it belongs on McCartney II. The narrative is perhaps thin but something about the warbly sound and the opening line "Daddy loved a dancer" makes it feel more substantial to me, like this is an old man telling the story of how he met his bride or something.
Morse Moose and the Grey Goose maybe the most "Paul McCartney album track" song title ever. all the theatrics and drama of a "Live and Let Die," surrounding what appears to be the story of a deep-sea moose struggling to use Morse code with his hooves. if it was played for wackiness it'd be death on record but McCartney seems completely unaware that this is a stupid idea for a song, and gives it his all. it rules.
Boil Crisis a truly odd attempt at ... post-punk? I think? Most of the versions online have terrible sound but there's a Youtube of the "Unsurpassed Rudeness" bootleg gets it. The kind of bizarre "Famous Groupies" stoner narrative lyrics that got rarer going into the 80s. "One night in the life of a kid named Sid, he was scoring with a broad in a pyramid." If this was a Tall Dwarves or Elephant 6 track or something people would be all over it. See also "Give Us A Chord, Roy."
Arrow Through Me this has gotten a lot of ILM love over the years so just wanted to make sure it got a shout-out here. It gets compared to Steely Dan, which I don't quite hear but I will concede it is surely the yachtiest Beatles song. wish he'd done a whole album like this.
Baby's Request his best ever "old-timey" number? what a tune on this one.
I'll Give You A Ring cheery, bouncy b-side to "Take It Away," and your basic charming trifle, feeling very much like just him and a four-track (though hardly lo-fi); if it were arranged with drum machine and synths it'd be very comfortable on McCartney II but the little touches of "I love pre-rock pop" kind of mark the classicist adult-contemporary turn he was making at this point.
Ode To A Koala Bear b-side to "Say Say Say" and sort of epitomzies Paul's strengths and weaknesses by this point: lovely, singable melody, but the four-track homemade tracks are devolving to just bashing out the chords to hold together a demo before he loses interest and wanders onto something else. there are so many 80s Paul tracks like this. but this also has that spark of weirdness in choosing a koala bear as the central metaphor, deflating (or, if you're less tolerant of all this, spoiling) what could have been a serious ballad of devotion. like, he doesn't sing "i will walk with you to the end of the passage" like this is supposed to be a silly throwaway! it is also easy to hear the refrain as "my little koala nightmare" and i've always liked that.
Pretty Little Head - Best thing on Press to Play besides "Press" and for real his last great "wtf" lyrics. hillsmen! hillsmen!
Put It There beautiful and well-focused father-son fable. if some of these others feel like shapless non-ideas, this (like "baby's request") is a testament to the songcraft he continued to have up his sleeve. avoid the music video, it's a different take/mix and the vocal feels muggy.
Loveliest Thing B-side to "Figure of Eight" that should have closed Flowers in the Dirt (as it did the expanded 1993 CD). except when the louder drums kick in for the chorus, an unforced-feeling would-be piano-bar staple.
Hope of Deliverance okay this was a decent-sized hit but I feel like it's on nobody's radar and it's reeeeeeeeeal fuckin' catchy.
Honey Hush, No Other Baby, and Movie Magg highlights of Run Devil Run, the quickie rock covers album recorded while he was grieving for Linda. boomer throwback albums like this are a dime a dozen but he had a good band and his singing was more focused and motivated than it'd been in years, even on the better Flaming Pie cuts.
― noel gallaghah's high flying burbbhrbhbbhbburbbb (Doctor Casino), Wednesday, 16 May 2018 04:14 (six years ago) link
this is for people who just can't muster sifting through the rest of that massive discography.
this is mostly me, although i'm doing my best to give each album at least one listen in the next few weeks. i'll give more attention to tracks you highlighted!
― obviously DLC (Karl Malone), Wednesday, 16 May 2018 04:18 (six years ago) link
A couple on there I'd hesitated on, but you're right for sure on "Big Barn Bed" and I don't know why I wouldn't include "Mumbo." "Morse Moose" I will revisit.
― timellison, Wednesday, 16 May 2018 04:22 (six years ago) link
Shout out, though, to "Tomorrow," as my favorite from Wild Life.
― timellison, Wednesday, 16 May 2018 04:26 (six years ago) link
oh man
SIDE A SAY SAY SAYSIDE B ODE TO A KOALA BEAR
is still the funniest thing ever
the "You Really Got A Hold On Me" melody in the first line in particular, it really sounds like he was so stoned he started singing a different song. he doesn't repeat it either iirc
― sciatica, Wednesday, 16 May 2018 04:53 (six years ago) link
I'm rather glad I picked up vg copies of Wild Life, Ram and The Sound of the Sand (David Thomas, v weirdly) from the same op shop 20 years ago
― albvivertine, Wednesday, 16 May 2018 05:30 (six years ago) link
There's only five songs on Casino's list that I'd consider voting for! Not gonna say which ones...
― Le Baton Rose (Turrican), Wednesday, 16 May 2018 06:25 (six years ago) link
Big Barn Bed has my vote already!
― Darin, Wednesday, 16 May 2018 06:40 (six years ago) link
Well obv Mumbo
― albvivertine, Wednesday, 16 May 2018 06:44 (six years ago) link
(xpost)
― albvivertine, Wednesday, 16 May 2018 06:56 (six years ago) link
'Mumbo' is terrible - there's some underrated stuff on Wild Life, though. 'Bip Bop' is terrible also.
― Le Baton Rose (Turrican), Wednesday, 16 May 2018 09:22 (six years ago) link
I'm with you on "Hope of Deliverance" -- just a giant arc of a lovely melody. And when a pal and I heard "Arrow Through Me" in early 2007 we thought, "Man, imagine if a hip hop producer sampled it..." Erykah Badu did three years later
― morning wood truancy (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 16 May 2018 10:20 (six years ago) link
Yeah for Wild Life the real keepers are Some People Never Know and Tomorrow.
― ColinO, Wednesday, 16 May 2018 10:46 (six years ago) link
Agreed about "Hope of Deliverance". I wonder why it's not on his "Pure McCartney" comilation (not even on the 67 tracks deluxe version !)
― AlXTC from Paris, Wednesday, 16 May 2018 10:57 (six years ago) link
Yeah for Wild Life the real keepers are Some People Never Know and Tomorrow.― ColinO, Wednesday, May 16, 2018 10:46 AM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
― ColinO, Wednesday, May 16, 2018 10:46 AM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
Yup, completely agree!
― Le Baton Rose (Turrican), Wednesday, 16 May 2018 12:12 (six years ago) link
lol I almost presented it as Mumbo *and* Bip Bop. wish the whole album was more like those. "Hey Diddle" would slot in well with those. Just a whole album of a novice band finding a single hook and a chord progression that feels good and running through it over and over.Usually Paul had much more of a filter for that kind of thing - like you can tell he knew that "A Love For You" sounded incredible but that as a *song* it was sort of shapeless compared to the other Ram material - could be two minutes, could be eight. With the Wild Life stuff, even more than the ostensibly dgaf home-grown debut, it's like he just lets the tape run and there's the album.idk how many of my above list *I'll* vote for once I have all the stone-cold classics locked in, but definitely a few...
― noel gallaghah's high flying burbbhrbhbbhbburbbb (Doctor Casino), Wednesday, 16 May 2018 13:57 (six years ago) link
Agreed on both of these, I quite like Love Is Strange as well.
― Gavin, Leeds, Wednesday, 16 May 2018 14:20 (six years ago) link
I thought the real keeper off Wild Life was Dear Friend, I'm a sucker for songs Paul and John write about each other tho
― albvivertine, Wednesday, 16 May 2018 15:01 (six years ago) link
― morning wood truancy (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn),
i didn't know about the badu connection til now! "arrow through me" came on (listening to Pure McCartney to try to brush up on the hits) and i was deeply confused for a second. "gone baby, don't be long" has been one of my most played songs this year, and i had no idea it sampled wings!
― obviously DLC (Karl Malone), Wednesday, 16 May 2018 15:32 (six years ago) link
here's a deep Ringo cut someone already voted for
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RdjA1UeR-SQ
― Οὖτις, Wednesday, 16 May 2018 16:18 (six years ago) link
also just realized I left the tracklistings off of Ringo's albums, will fix shortly
Yay!
― Mark G, Wednesday, 16 May 2018 16:22 (six years ago) link
RINGO STARR
Solo
Sentimental JourneySentimental Journey Night And Day Whispering Grass (Don't Tell The Trees) Bye Bye Blackbird I'm A Fool To Care Star Dust Blue, Turning Grey Over You Love Is A Many Splendoured Thing Dream You Always Hurt The One You Love Have I Told You Lately That I Love You Let The Rest Of The World Go By
Beaucoups of BluesBeaucoups Of Blues Love Don't Last Long Fastest Growing Heartache In The West Without Her Women Of The Night I'd Be Talking All The Time $15 Draw Wine, Women And Loud Happy Songs I Wouldn't Have You Any Other Way Loser's Lounge Waiting Silent Homecoming
RingoI'm The Greatest Hold On Photograph Sunshine Life For Me (Sail Away Raymond) You're Sixteen Oh My My Step Lightly Six O'Clock Devil Woman You And Me (Babe)
Goodnight ViennaGoodnight Vienna Occapella Oo-Wee Husbands And Wives Snookeroo All By Myself Call Me No No Song Only You (And You Alone) Easy For Me Goodnight Vienna (Reprise)
Ringo's RotogravureA Dose Of Rock'n Roll Hey Baby Pure Gold Cryin' You Don't Know Me At All Cookin' (In The Kitchen Of Love) I'll Still Love You This Be Called A Song Las Brisas Lady Gaye Spooky Weirdness
Ringo the 4thDrowning In The Sea Of Love Tango All Night Wings Gave It All Up Out On The Streets Can She Do It Like She Dances Sneaking Sally Through The Alley It's No Secret Gypsies In Flight Simple Love Song
Bad BoyWho Needs A Heart Bad Boy Lipstrick Traces (On A Cigarette) Heart On My Sleeve Where Did Our Love Go Hard Times Tonight Monkey See-Monkey Do Old Time Relovin' A Man Like Me
Stop and Smell the RosesPrivate Property Wrack My Brain Drumming Is My Madness Attention Stop And Take The Time To Smell The Roses Dead Giveaway You Belong To Me Sure To Fall Nice Way Back Off Boogaloo
Old WaveIn My Car Hopeless Alibi Be My Baby She's About A Mover I Keep Forgettin' Picture Show Life As Far As We Can Go Everybody's In A Hurry But Me Going Down
Time Takes TimeWeight Of The World Don't Know A Thing About Love Don't Go Where The Road Don't Go Golden Blunders All In The Name Of Love After All These Years I Don't Believe You Runaways In A Heart Beat What Goes Around
Vertical ManOne What In The...World Mindfield King Of Broken Hearts Love Me Do Vertical Man Drift Away I Was Walkin' La De Da Without Understanding I'll Be Fine Anywhere Puppet I'm Yours
I Wanna Be Santa ClausCome On Christmas, Christmas Come On Winter Wonderland I Wanna Be Santa Claus The Little Drummer Boy Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer Christmas Eve The Christmas Dance Christmas Time Is Here Again Blue Christmas Dear Santa White Christmas Pax Um Biscum (Peace Be With You)
Ringo RamaEye To Eye Missouri Loves Company Instant Amnesia Memphis In Your Mind Never Without You Imagine Me There I Think Therefore I Rock N Roll Trippin' On My Own Tears Write One For Me What Love Wants To Be Lover First, Ask Questions Later Elizabeth Reigns English Garden I Really Love Her
Choose LoveFading In Fading Out Give Me Back The Beat Oh My Lord Hard To Be True Some People Wrong All The Time Don't Hang Up Choose Love Me And You Satisfied The Turnaround Free Drinks
Liverpool 8Liverpool 8 Think About You For Love Now That She's Gone Away Gone Are The Days Give It A Try Tuff Love Harry's Song Pasodobles If It's Love That You Want Love Is R U Ready
Y NotFill In The Blanks Peace Dream The Other Side Of Liverpool Walk With You Time Everyone Wins Mystery Of The Night Can't Do It Wrong Y Not Who's Your Daddy
Ringo 2012Anthem Wings Think It Over Samba Rock Island Line Step Lightly Wonderful In Liverpool Slow Down
Postcards from ParadiseRory And The Hurricanes You Bring The Party Down Bridges Postcards From Paradise Right Side Of The Road Not Looking Back Bamboula Island In The Sun Touch And Go Confirmation Let Love Lead
Give More LoveWe're On The Road Again Laughable Show Me The Way Speed Of Sound Standing Still King Of The Kingdom Electricity So Wrong For So Long Shake It Up Give More Love Back Off Boogaloo Don't Pass Me By You Can't Fight Lightning Photograph
― Οὖτις, Wednesday, 16 May 2018 16:26 (six years ago) link
and revised non-album tracklist
non-album tracksCoochy CoochyIt Don’t Come EasyEarly 1970Back Off BoogalooBlindmanPhotographDown and OutThe Official BBC Children In Need MedleyYou Never KnowI Wish I Was a Powerpuff GirlWhen You Wish Upon a Star
― Οὖτις, Wednesday, 16 May 2018 16:28 (six years ago) link
No Scouse Mouse?
― mfktz (Camaraderie at Arms Length), Wednesday, 16 May 2018 16:43 (six years ago) link
those are on an album
― Οὖτις, Wednesday, 16 May 2018 18:05 (six years ago) link
(listed under the "with Other Artists" category, since it's a soundtrack featuring other performers and is not a Ringo solo album)
I'm very interested to see how the Ringo stuff fares.
― Le Baton Rose (Turrican), Wednesday, 16 May 2018 18:11 (six years ago) link
for the uninitiated approaching my list, the most defensible subset from the POV of songcraft and effort would be something like Single Pigeon, Put It There, Baby's Request, Arrow Through Me, Loveliest Thing, Hope of Deliverance, and No Other Baby... with Waterspout and Magneto as slight glimpses into a weirder world. but if your response to the Macca you've heard is that he's too cloying and sentimental, you might want to punt most of those and go for Secret Friend (unless you find his experimental/electronic tendencies facile) or Oh Woman, Oh Why (unless you find his "rock" mode affected).currently starting on a ringo deep dive with Sentimental Journey. it's nice so far! can't imagine it satisfying beatles fans (you want ringo to rock out a little) or standards/big-band fans (to quote mst3k, "wow, they don't call john carradine 'the voice' for nothing!") but even if it kind of sounds like your genial uncle pasted over a very nicely-recorded band who he never once met, it's still warm and he's clearly got a smile on his face all throughout... i mean, it's lovable old ringo! good for him for trying his hand.
― noel gallaghah's high flying burbbhrbhbbhbburbbb (Doctor Casino), Wednesday, 16 May 2018 18:12 (six years ago) link
I started to listen through your list yikes Mumbo is like a shitty Beach Boys outtake (sans vocals, but that hammering 8th note piano style is total Brian Wilson)
― Οὖτις, Wednesday, 16 May 2018 18:15 (six years ago) link
ringo's double-tracked vocal on "bye bye blackbird" is pretty winninghahahaha yeah I made the post-smile beach boys/macca comparison a bit back and it makes more and more sense to me as i think about it.
― noel gallaghah's high flying burbbhrbhbbhbburbbb (Doctor Casino), Wednesday, 16 May 2018 18:18 (six years ago) link
Big Barn Bed is pretty good but god I find this creepy for some reasonhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQzVJlLpriY
― Οὖτις, Wednesday, 16 May 2018 18:19 (six years ago) link
70s BW and Macca are p interesting compliments of each other - at opposite ends of the success/functionality scale and yet their approaches to their musical output are kind of similar: stoned, slapdash, occasionally brilliant, often mind-numbingly stupid, casually unpredictable, largely shadows of their former selves. But tbh I prefer BW's output more just because he is so much farther *out* than Macca, and there is a real emotional core to a lot of his stuff (the "tragic figure" arc of his life def figures into this) that Macca rarely dips into. Even when BW is writing stupid throwaways about Johnny Carson, they still contribute to this peak into what feels like an actual, lived in life. Macca is usually more opaque, it's all just goofy smoke and mirrors and platitudes about how much he loves Linda or whatever.
― Οὖτις, Wednesday, 16 May 2018 18:25 (six years ago) link
His vocal on "No Other Baby" is I guess what boomer critics had in mind when they longed for a Paul McCartney who used the gifts displayed in the Beatles.
― morning wood truancy (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 16 May 2018 18:29 (six years ago) link
I like this song that I'd never heard before today.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YSS2ABconDg
― purrington, Wednesday, 16 May 2018 19:01 (six years ago) link
shakey, that's a solid summary and I don't disagree with any of it. and yet I have always liked paul's stuff more! maybe i'm just more oriented to his melodic/arranging sensibility or the sense of variety and polish - stuff always sounds more *finished* and i do think there's a greater range of musical territory (all within the pop/rock megagenre obv). i also grew up with more of paul's stuff so that probably shaped my taste as much as my taste informs which i'd rather listen to most days.meanwhile on ringo-watch: Beaucoups of Blues is another very pleasant listen so far! Nashville Skyline is the inevitable comparison but this feels less idiosyncratic/unique than that - Ringo's voice and the material he ginned up with the band fit very, very comfortably into the early 70s country/AM-gold interzone. he's obviously way more at home dolefully explaining that someone gave him the fastest growing heartache in the West than he is doing "night and day" or even than he is belting out a rocker like "back off boogaloo." i kinda wish that after that initial wave of early hits he'd just decided to be a country artist, but maybe these listens will change my mind...
― noel gallaghah's high flying burbbhrbhbbhbburbbb (Doctor Casino), Wednesday, 16 May 2018 19:11 (six years ago) link
if Nashville Skyline is an homage to Lefty Frizzell (which is how I hear it) who is Beaucoups of Blues an homage to...? Buck Owens? (I've never listened to it tbc)
― Οὖτις, Wednesday, 16 May 2018 19:16 (six years ago) link
Morse Moose and the Grey Goose maybe the most "Paul McCartney album track" song title ever. all the theatrics and drama of a "Live and Let Die,"
ahh, the dramatic build was used in the Twin Freaks version of Coming Up! tyvm for this pointer, Doc Casino.
― chilis=lyrics...hypocrits (sic), Wednesday, 16 May 2018 19:46 (six years ago) link
BOB is solid, and, yeah, Conway Twitty should have worked with Ringo.
― morning wood truancy (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 16 May 2018 20:11 (six years ago) link
Oh man that's an inspired pairing
― Οὖτις, Wednesday, 16 May 2018 20:21 (six years ago) link
Missouri Loves Company*massive eye roll at Ringo*
― obviously DLC (Karl Malone), Wednesday, 16 May 2018 21:30 (six years ago) link
Single Pigeon = man this also reminds me of post-Smile Brian Wilson, a pretty but fairly simple piano progression with dumb lyrics about a bird outside his window. at least until the horns briefly come in, which have a very Beatle-y arrangement.
― Οὖτις, Wednesday, 16 May 2018 21:39 (six years ago) link
not bad, but slight
RRS is a lousy album though.
― morning wood truancy (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 16 May 2018 21:42 (six years ago) link
when I said upthread that I can listen to McCartney albums and enjoy them while they're on and then not be able to remember a single thing about them as soon as they stop playing, RRS is what I had in mind. Totally forgettable.
― Οὖτις, Wednesday, 16 May 2018 21:43 (six years ago) link
I wrote this about "My Love." I love Rob Sheffield's theory that Paul wrote it out of envy for George's "Something."
― morning wood truancy (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 16 May 2018 21:44 (six years ago) link
er, this.
Morse Moose and the Grey Goose = omg the Animal Collective buzzing high-pitched synth running through this whole thing is so fucking irritating, what a horrible sound.
Paul could be actively irritating in a way the other Beatles' solo works never were (at their worst, they were boring and flaccid).
But this just makes me want to stab something, it's a sonic crime.
Temporary Secretary also quickly goes from cute novelty to actively irritating, although there it's the chirping refrain that really grates.
― Οὖτις, Wednesday, 16 May 2018 21:47 (six years ago) link
re: ringo's homage - i'd trust anybody itt's judgment more than mine as to what styles or performers ringo is going for on this record - i own a few classic country LPs but i don't really know the genre! loving these classically shakey-esque track reviews. can't believe i got you to listen to "morse moose and the grey goose."giving a thumbs up to beaucoups of blues. will keep these first two ringo albums in rotation and recommend any particular standout tracks if they come to me. moving on now to his "rock" albums which have always looked worrisomely "i had me own albums to do, peace and love" to me, but i could easily believe they have some gems. ringo opens with the lennon-penned "i'm the greatest," the silliness of which i've always appreciated, but it's like 10 BPM too slow or something, just kind of plodding. what happened to his instincts as a drummer (the thing he's actually the greatest at)? my fear has always been that these next few LPs are mostly like that, but we'll see....
― noel gallaghah's high flying burbbhrbhbbhbburbbb (Doctor Casino), Wednesday, 16 May 2018 21:57 (six years ago) link
i had me own albums to do, peace and love
lol this is probably a little too on the nose...
― Οὖτις, Wednesday, 16 May 2018 21:58 (six years ago) link