Paul McCartney’s 1977 hit that the UK adored and the US ignored
Ever since the dawn of pop, the singles charts of the US and the UK have shared many of the same names. During the 1960s, for instance, The Beatles’ world domination meant they often topped the standings on both sides of the Atlantic, but the same could not always be said for the subsequent solo efforts of Paul McCartney.
As has been the case with a multitude of different British groups over the decades, the US took a little longer to catch Beatlemania than their cousins over in Europe. Once the Fab Four touched down on US soil for the first time in 1964, though, the pop charts of America were dominated by their presence for the rest of the decade, regularly topping the Billboard Hot 100 and spawning a litany of appreciators, obsessives, and copycat groups, thus driving the American music scene forth into its own revolutionary period.
For a while, however short, the singles charts of both the UK and the USA were united by McCartney and the gang, but just as the band bitterly went their separate ways in 1970, those linked charts eventually fell apart, too. In 1977, for instance, Macca boasted one of his defining hits as a solo artist when Wings’ ‘Mull of Kintyre’ went to number-one on the UK charts, becoming the best-selling song of that year.
Across the ocean, though, that incredibly successful single received almost no attention whatsoever. Although it had topped the chart standings of the UK, Ireland, West Germany, the Netherlands, Australia, and a multitude of other nations, it only managed a dismal placing at number 45 in the ‘Adult Contemporary’ charts in the US.
In other words, ‘Mull of Kintyre’ had about the same impact in the US as if it hadn’t ever been released at all, in stark contrast to the chart dominance of McCartney’s previous output. The exact reasons for that surprising commercial failure are tenfold, but it ultimately comes down to the song’s roots in Scottish folk music.
While the United States, going right back to the colonial era and in the wake of the Highland clearances, has always featured a significant number of Scottish settlers and family ties, it seems there was little for mainstream American audiences to relate to in McCartney’s pulchritudinous ode to his farm in south-west Scotland.
You must also take into account the state of the US pop charts more generally in 1977. At that time, dominated by disco and soft rock, there was little room in the standings for a song as distinct as ‘Mull of Kintyre’; it simply would not have fit in on radio playlists besides the likes of Thelma Houston, Debby Boone or the Eagles.
Luckily, the commercial flop of ‘Mull of Kintyre’ didn’t keep Paul McCartney up at night. It isn’t as though he was a struggling artist and that single was his last hope; he is one of the most successful songwriters of all time. What’s more, the colossal, eye-watering success of the 1977 track in his native UK did more than enough to make up for its lack of attention in the USA.
Still, ‘Mull of Kintyre’ stands as an excellent example of the disparities between the music industry and the habits of the music-buying public in the US versus the UK, even when an artist as universally powerful as Paul McCartney is involved.
