‘Arrow Through Me’: Paul McCartney’s most innovative Wings track
The humble bass guitar, often consigned to the more modest member of a band, with the safe knowledge they’ll keep time and allow the more gregarious members to colour in the lines. Somewhere along the way, Paul McCartney lost the memo and proceeded to become one of the most influential songwriters and frontmen in music history.
He existed beyond the realms of the rhythm section and became a multi-instrumentalist who laid the foundations for modern popular music. From 1966 onwards, The Beatles were steadfast in their pursuit of sonic innovation, and their psychedelic approach to the 4:4 conventions of blues rock brought colour to an otherwise monochromatic music landscape.
But like all great things, it came to an end and a somewhat sour one at that. McCartney and Lennon’s conflicting relationship, which warred with one another in the wider goal of achieving genius, ultimately became creatively untenable, and so the shackles were released. I say the shackles were released, the end of The Beatles brought with it the finale of music’s great experimental force in a decade that fostered the exploration of wonderfully esoteric ideas. So it begged the question, were the days of great innovation over?
Such was the force of McCartney’s genius that the dawn of a new decade brought with it a surprising amount of creative freedom. And as 1969’s summer of love gave way to an unknown 1970, the mood on the ground had unquestionably shifted. America’s war with Vietnam ploughed on, while a growing class war in the UK all fed a wider narrative of discontent. A time where the sun-kissed melodies of the 1960s would no longer cut it as an antidote.
In his upcoming book Wings: The Story of a Band on the Run, McCartney recalls the burgeoning years of his second band and their pursuit of sonic innovation in a changing artistic, political and social landscape. Featuring a breadth of interviews and photographs, it sheds “new light on the immediate aftermath and seismic global impact of The Beatles’ break-up”. Because the break-up of the Fab Four was indeed seismic, and brought an artistic mirroring to a changing societal landscape at the turn of the decade.
As a result, there was a demand for McCartney’s work to become more nuanced, for the inevitable acclaim of a Beatles release had been lost. In keeping with historic trends towards more individual endeavours, critics were eagerly awaiting a disappointing follow-up. But with Wings, McCartney created a project upon which his blue-sky melodies could soar and his acute lyricism could flourish individually.
While their debut album Wild Life engaged with politicism in a more Beatles-esque fashion, Band On The Run and Wings At The Speed Of Sound saw McCartney stretch his experimental muscles to make something more genre-blending altogether, cleverly combining live takes and studio techniques to make something richer. As the decade bore on and the appetite for escapism and innovation grew, McCartney and Wings were on hand to deliver it.
But in 1979 the enigmatic songwriter picked up his trusty bass, the instrument that started it all, to thrust Wings further into the future and cap the decade off with his most innovative track. His sultry bass line in ‘Arrow Through Me’ felt like a stunning departure from the melody led catalogue that preceded it, deeply harnessing a groove that had ran through the entire decade.
With nine years of working out Wings’ artistic patterns, McCartney was operating purely on an instinctual level and has since remarked that the song’s foregrounding of the groove was an innate response to the writing process.
He said: “I have always had a soft spot for this song. There’s a nice horn riff in it, and it’s funky. Sometimes you write to get a sort of feeling rather than a perfectly ‘correct’ lyric. Sometimes the lyric can be secondary to the feeling. This one has as much, or more, to do with the feel of the song, the groove.”
Throughout the track, McCartney gives time for this silky composition to reign free and showcases the simple brilliance of the track’s bassline. It’s a song that could easily have been overcrowded with overlapping melodies, but instead it serves as a largely spacy song that is only interrupted by signature McCartney vocal melodies and a horn section that sits in your bones hours after listening.
McCartney has penned the foreword for his upcoming book Wings: The Story of a Band on the Run, saying, “Suddenly Wings has found its moment. We have a generational shift at work, and it’s like being transported back on a magic carpet. Working on the book has awakened so many beautiful memories of our times back then.”
Wings: The Story Of A Band On The Run is set for official release on November 4th, 2025.
