How Paul McCartney paid tribute to John Lennon with a solo album
After re-immersing himself within the world of The Beatles for Anthology, Paul McCartney let his former group influence his next solo offering. Although he was operating as a solo artist, The Beatles had become part of his life once more and were part of his psyche during the recording process of 1997’s Flaming Pie.
Anthology had again brought McCartney close to his former bandmates, Ringo Starr and George Harrison. It also forced him to reminisce upon his relationship with the late John Lennon. Therefore, when naming his tenth studio album, McCartney secretly paid tribute to the fallen Beatle. He once memorably used the phrase which had a lasting impact on Macca, even if the act of devotion was lost on the general public.
When the album was reissued in 2020, McCartney explained the title’s origins in a Q&A: “When we had started off as The Beatles in Liverpool there was this local music paper called Mersey Beat. John was asked to do a little explanation of where we were at at the time. He did this typical Lennonese thing and said, ‘It came in a vision – a man appeared on a flaming pie and said unto them, from this day on you are Beatles with an A’. And so it was. That was always the explanation when people asked us, ‘well why are you called The Beatles?’
“And so I just thought, I’m the man on the flaming pie! I’ll write a song about that. It’s a little bit tongue in cheek. The character who is the man on the flaming pie, he’s quite cool. He’s quite mad. Anyone I mentioned it to just smiled.”
He concluded: “And there’s a lot of heritage with it coming from that Mersey Beat article. John’s right there in it, so it had a lot of resonance and fond memories for me. John and I used to place great value on titles — Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, Rubber Soul, people’d go ‘What!?’ So I really liked this left field idea of Flaming Pie.”
McCartney’s decision to honour Lennon by naming the album Flaming Pie was fitting due to The Beatles’ inspiring the record. In the album’s liner notes, Macca wrote: “[The Beatles Anthology] reminded me of the Beatles’ standards and the standards that we reached with the songs. So in a way it was a refresher course that set the framework for this album.”
Additionally, Starr contributed drums to the record, which also helped McCartney with his bid to add a sprinkling of Beatles flavouring to the album. Anthology helped rejuvenate him artistically, and Flaming Pie was a return to form for Macca as he rediscovered his groove thanks to the fundamentals he learned with the ‘Fab Four’.
