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When Paul McCartney first started his solo career, there was no right way of going about it.
The Beatles had been a close family member of almost every rock and roll fan in the world, and while their breakup was bound to happen eventually, Macca seemed to be the one taking things the hardest, wasting his days away in bed before Linda eventually convinced him to make his own music again. He could still move on past what the Fabs had done, and by the time that Wings began, it finally looked like McCartney could actually make a name for himself outside of his masterpieces.
Granted, it’s not like Wings got off to the best start, either. Wild Life was the sound of them jamming in their practice space half the time, and even though the band are in fine form on some of these jams, McCartney kind of shot himself in the foot making that record. He wanted to create a record that stood apart from The Beatles, but he ended up playing against every one of his strengths when it came to songs like ‘Bip Bop’, which even he admitted was absolutely terrible.
And while the record company was more than happy to promote one of McCartney’s new records, they weren’t exactly happy with the idea of him making a new band with a completely different name. McCartney didn’t want to be defined like that as a solo artist, but his label slapped his new band with the name ‘Paul McCartney and Wings’. You got to keep up with branding in the business, but it’s not like Macca was hiding anything about the fact that he called the shots.
He was dictating how the songs were supposed to go every single time he performed, and while Band on the Run was proof enough that he could make some of the best songs of his career without many people around him, he wanted to still feel like part of a band. Denny Laine was his partner in crime throughout most of his glory years, but by the time that Wings at the Speed of Sound got underway, McCartney didn’t feel like he needed to be defined by his last name anymore.
This was the kind of band that he wanted Wings to become, and he felt that the label didn’t need to throw his name at the beginning of that record, saying, “It was never Paul McCartney & The Beatles, Paul McCartney & The Quarrymen, or Paul McCartney & The Moondogs. Wings is quicker and easier to say, and everybody knows I’m in the group anyway. [This album] It turned out less of a McCartney production and more of a Wings effort. It wasn’t intended like that.”
The album is by no means McCartney’s best, but this is probably the most fun anyone could have with a Wings record. The whole album thrives on having some of the best basslines that McCartney ever created, and since everyone was contributing different songs, you could hear the band slowly starting to come into their own when they throw in other tunes like ‘Must Do Something About It’ with drummer Joe English singing.
But even if this is the definitive Wings statement, that does mean that it has a few sore spots as well. The fact that McCartney was taking a back seat could clearly be felt on some of the more forgettable tunes on the record, and while McCartney may have wanted it that way, it’s hard to really take everything seriously when a bulletproof chorus like ‘Silly Love Songs’ is put next to ‘Cook of The House’.
It’s still a fairly decent record, and it’s nice to know that McCartney finally felt comfortable enough to put his band before himself, but it’s not like the rest of the world was ever going to see things differently. Call it whatever you want, but the fact is that this was the place you went if you wanted to hear McCartney’s music, and most people were only going to begrudgingly endure everyone else’s tunes.
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