The dramatic birth of Paul McCartney's greatest post-Beatles song
Following the culmination of the Beatles’ recording story with 1969’s Abbey Road, the former Fabs had carved out distinctive new solo identities. George Harrison set an early high bar with the exemplary double-album All Things Must Pass in 1970, while John Lennon had positioned himself firmly as a cultural figurehead of the revolutionary left. His utopian anthem Imagine became an enduring hymn for the ages.
Paul McCartney meanwhile, despite being quick off the mark to establish his solo career with 1970's amiable 'McCartney', had yet to garner consistent commercial success, or the same level of critical stock that his fellow Beatles were typically achieving.
Though his early solo offerings were creatively bountiful (1971’s gloriously quirky Ram in particular) and had achieved moderate success, it would take the formation of an entirely new band and a complete change of locale to finally land the song (and album) that would fulfil his solo ambitions. It was a song that channelled both his genius for melodicism with a structural fearlessness. An anthem that did much to cement McCartney as the enduring solo Beatle and one of rock's all-time greats.
This was McCartney's victorious gallop out from his former band's long shadow. The Song: Paul McCartney and Wings - Band on the Run
The Magic Moment. Establishing the band Wings on the heels of 1971’s Ram, McCartney was keen to slot himself back into the security of a band-based dynamic.
He told the Independent Free Apple newsletter in 1970 that, “I like the idea myself of just having a sort of easy little thing like a band thing which is just umm…just a band! A simple idea of a band playing together.”
Source: yahoo.com/Andy Price
