Wings – ‘Red Rose Speedway’
How does one leave the most successful band in the world? After Paul McCartney became known as the ‘cute one’ in the Beatles in the 1960s, the next decade saw him slip from relevancy, becoming known as the one that broke up the band and getting critically lambasted for albums like RAM, which, ironically, is actually a masterpiece. Although the formation of his new band Wings was meant as a subtle bit of course correction, it wasn’t until Red Rose Speedway that Macca was officially back on track.
Whereas past records were fairly skeletal, this album presents the old McCartney back into the world with songs that were a lot more forceful than what Wild Life had to offer. After having time to gel as a group, McCartney is enjoying playing with a band again on the opener ‘Big Barn Bed’, ripping off the rest of the group with a zany Fleetwood Mac energy. While McCartney might have received pushback from his folksy sound on his early solo records, songs like the opener and ‘Get On The Right Thing’ have a quirky quality behind them, driven by Linda McCartney’s endearingly-out-of-tune vocal harmonies.
While Wings are still very much McCartney’s band, some of the best moments come when non-McCartney members are allowed to spread out. For instance, the lead single ‘My Love’ would have come off as a little too syrupy were it not for Hugh McCullough dropping in a lyrical guitar solo reminiscent of George Harrison. Most of the tune is very Harrison-ian as well, with McCartney following a theme similar to The Beatles classic ‘Something’.
Denny Laine of The Moody Blues also makes his first appearance writing material with McCartney on the song ‘Little Lamb Dragonfly’. Inspired by a lamb that was badly wounded on McCartney’s farm, this is a gentle lullaby song for the animal, with some of the most delectable harmonies on the record. Although McCartney has a penchant for writing songs that can get a bit too sentimental, he somehow finds a way to make it work across these tracks. A song like ‘One More Kiss’ almost harks back to the sweet teeny-bopper days of Macca, but the schmaltzy nature of the tune is almost too innocent to resist.
While each of these songs offer a nice window into what Wings would do later on, the fact that it’s only a single album is a crime. Though the initial plan was to release a double record, paring things down to a single disc drastically hurts the flow of the project. As much as some songs are in their final form on the tracklisting, something like ‘Single Pigeon’ sounds blatantly unfinished, petering out after less than two minutes before it really gets going.
Although ‘Loup (1st Indian on the Moon)’ could be considered filler on the project, it provides a nice palette cleanser from the borderline-diabetic coma that the first few tracks offer. Featuring ominous chanting noises and a bluesy guitar line to hold it all together, the whole song almost feels lost in space, drifting through the cosmos in search of new lands. Coming from the same man who wrote songs like ‘Let It Be’, this is closer to Pink Floyd territory for its entire duration.
Speaking of progressive music, the end of the record culminates in a medley of four separate pieces pushed together as one. While McCartney has been no stranger to stringing bits and pieces of songs into one, this is definitely a step down from Abbey Road. Despite all existing in the same key, the song still holds the listener’s attention for its 11 minutes, going through different chord colours on ‘Hold Me Tight’ before dropping into ballad territory on ‘Lazy Dynamite’ and then back to fun romps on ‘Power Cut’. Although McCartney’s old band would have just thrown old ideas of songs together without rhyme or reason, this medley is carefully choreographed, down to the reprising of different ideas. In the middle of ‘Power Cut’, McCartney gives a callback to the other parts of the medley, playing the melody of ‘Lazy Dynamite’ on guitar to play out the rest of the song.
Even though most of the tracks aren’t single material, McCartney created a world of his own while building Red Rose Speedway. In favour of making something more interesting than standard rock and roll, there’s a particular quirky energy that isn’t found on any other McCartney album. Sure, some of the songs might not be as successful as ‘Another Day’ or ‘Maybe I’m Amazed’, but nowhere else are you going to find songs like ‘Lazy Dynamite’, complete with its brass section being performed by Paul and Linda.
Even without the core songs, the single material released from around the same time is McCartney at his finest, penning the iconic Bond theme ‘Live and Let Die’ and the energetic rocker ‘Hi Hi Hi’. McCartney would go on to make even more daring works during the rest of Wings’ tenure, but this is the one album fans can have fun listening to because of how much the band is having fun making it.
