The week of July 19, 1975, found Wings atop the Billboard Hot 100 with ‘Listen to What the Man Said,’ the leadoff single from the album Venus and Mars. This was the third of five #1 hits by Wings during the 70s.
This is the song I know least of those five, which include ‘My Love,’ ‘Silly Love Songs,’ ‘Band on the Run,’ and ‘With a Little Luck.’ I’m sure I’ve heard this before but it doesn’t exactly ring a bell.
Throwing back to the week of June 2, 1973, we find Paul McCartney and Wings at the top of the Billboard Hot 100 with their song ‘My Love.’ The track would spend four weeks at #1 and 18 weeks in total on the chart. This was the first of six #1 tracks McCartney recorded with Wings.
This song sounds like it took McCartney about ten minutes to write, and not in the “genius strikes” sort of way. It’s a simple love ballad with an uninspired melody and pedestrian lyrics.
It’s appropriate coming off three weeks dedicated to 1973 that today’s Random Weekend selection appears on another album from that year.
Band on the Run was the third album by Paul McCartney & Wings and their most successful. It is also the top-selling album of McCartney’s career outside The Beatles, reaching the #1 spot in five countries.
I don’t know much about Wings and I’ve never listened to Band On the Run — the only album of theirs I own — all the way through. So today’s Random iTunes selection was new to me.
Listening to it, it struck me as very much a cousin to late-era Beatles, something that would have felt at home on Abbey Road. Which makes sense, because it was presumably written by Paul McCartney.
I came across this mash-up of John Lennon’s ‘Imagine’ and Wings’ ‘Band On the Run,’ somebody’s attempt to manufacture a Lennon/McCartney reunion post-Beatles breakup.
It’s an interesting experiment that improves on the latter song (at the expense of the former). But I’m mostly intrigued by the crazy creative things people can do now with basic computer equipment.
Meet Me In Montauk 