Paul McCartney, Wings - Red Rose Speedway

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Music reviews of Red Rose Speedway

Music Review: Get on the right thing
Rating: 4 Stars

But "My Love" is not by any chance a distinctive characteristic of what you can find inside the "Red Rose Speedway" album. The LP itself is quite confusing, as it contains reminders from the "Ram" sessions as well as new songs that make us surf through very different styles of music. It's quite hard to compare this album to anything sir James Paul ever did or will ever do... this is simply weird... but the weirdness can always capture you as a listener. "Big Barn Bed", the breakthrough opener of the album, for instance, begins the never-ended "Ram On" story ('who's that coming 'round that corner?') but the lyrics seem to go nowhere ("sleeping on a pillow, leaping armadillo, yeah")... anyroad the music is so fascinating and intrincated, and the chords are so surprising that you won't even care. Wings sound as a band that's just rocking with this powerful track, that also features Henry McCullough's potent guitar and Denny Laine and Linda McCartney's trademark backing vocals. McCullough also offers his best job on the always well critiqued "My Love" solo... His others opportunities to shine are also nice musically, we have very powerful solos during the final mix ("Hold Me Tight", "Power Cut") and on the particularly weird-sounding instrumental "Loup (1st Indian On The Moon)", which also features sir James Paul shining as a bass player and all the members of the band chanting along a somewhat odd indian tribal symphony. Although you can almost never tell what is McCartney talking about, the album is quite stunning... the result reminds one what happened during "Ram", when the lyrics not always were directed to a particular point, but had their results anyway. "Get On The Right Thing" and "Little Lamb Dragonfly" are perfect examples of that fact, having been recorded in fact during the "Ram" sessions with the "Ram" session musician. The second one is one of those lost gems that you can always find in your Paul McCartney albums. A sweet acoustic, somewhat folk ballad that is very powerful without turning into a cheesy affair at all. "Single Pigeon" is a nice little track with Paul on the piano and Linda on backing vocals... just another ingredient into this already variated soup. "When The Night" seems to be the weakest link, a bluesy, although very repetitive riff throughout the whole song, and the final mix does not have to be compared with "Abbey Road" simply because there is no reason. This album is a lot more 'insane' and less 'serious' than "Abbey Road" was to The Beatles, and due to all the facts surrounding the making of the latter, the final mix is to be considered a masterpiece. This is just another album ending, and it's actually quite good... "Hold Me Tight" starts the thing with a vaudevillian rhythm that then gets bluesy with "Lazy Dinamite" and then folky with "Hands Of Love" (again featuring prominent Linda vocals... she sounds at her best on this album), and then the ending with "Power Cut" (a song that was actually written about that particular fact, an electricity cut during a tour) and the four riffs playing altogether. Just beautiful and well built. Nothing more to ask. The comparation with "Abbey Road" which is one of the 20th Century's masterpiece seems just unadequate. This is just fine where it belongs... And it belongs to "Red Rose Speedway", it gets on the right thing because "the right thing" was already a mix of so many different things that it was difficult to close it in another way.

Bonus tracks... the american edition has "The Mess", an unusual rocker performed live during a European tour in 1972, which was originally released as the B-side of "My Love" (maybe to contrast with it), "I Lie Around", the B-side to the mainstream successful James Bond movie single "Live And Let Die", released just months after the album. "I Lie Around" is the only song of the album that's sung by guitarist Denny Laine, although Paul suddenly, during the middle of the song, steals away the lead vocal so you can hear him screaming again. The track is nice, somehow a follow-up to "Mother Nature's Son". "Country Dreamer" was put in here for no special reason, since it was the B-side to "Helen Wheels" and it appears on the European edition of "Band On The Run"... a beautiful track anyway... The "Paul McCartney Collection" edition features also the well-known rock and roll/sex/drugs banned story "Hi, Hi, Hi" and its B-side "C Moon", both attacking the stablishment and two good pieces of music after all.

"Red Rose Speedway" doesn't stand out as the best from Paul McCartney, but still has some great moments, and I guess that's enough for us Beatles fans to buy it. When Paul 'gets on the right thing' and finds a way to say what he's trying to say, everything is perfect, the strange chord progressions, the weird arrangements, the screaming vocals, the nonsense lyrics, the mix of so many different styles... everything works out. I think that mix is what makes "Red Rose Speedway" what it is... a good album by a multifacetic artist. And that should be enough.

Description of Red Rose Speedway

Classic Rock CDs

• Music > Styles
• Pop
• Rock