Tyler: Got a much-maligned band and a mostly-forgotten album today, Peter.
Peter: Yeah, I’d never heard this one before. I knew the single, but that was it. How familiar were you with this one?
You picked this one, I should add, for the audience.
Tyler: Very familiar with this one. The same solo-Beatle record-collecting phase that led me to George Harrison brought me to each Wings LP, from Wild Life through to Back To The Egg. There’re efforts of real merit in that stretch, paired at times with much lesser work. We’ll get into the merits of the album in a moment, but, suffice it to say, I did return to London Town more than many of the rest. An excellent McCartney-fan podcast called Take It Away described this one as “relaxing.” And it kind of is.
Peter: Yeah, it is that. It’s got a lot of light rock/easy listening tunes. It’s interesting. George Harrison shared a similar sort of vibe.
Tyler: I have a soft spot for this stuff, it appears. No shame.
Peter: Alright, let’s get to the opener, “London Town.” It has some pretty embarrassing lyrics:
Walking down the sidewalk on a purple afternoon
I was accosted by a barker playing a simple tune
Upon his flute – toot toot toot toot
Tyler: Man, that “toot toot toot toot.”
That is rough right there.
Peter: It is!
Tyler: I’ll tell you, it takes a lot of repeat listening to forget how ugly that bit is. And it recurs! Frequently!
Revisiting the album, I found myself right out of the gate hearing “toot toot toot toot” and remembering the occasional art of McCartney self-sabotage.
Peter: This is how you know Wings wasn’t a real band. Because the other “members” didn’t say, “Hey, Paul. That sucks. Write better lyrics. We’re not doing it that way.”
Tyler: If my sources are to be trusted, post-breakup John once said of Paul, something along the lines of, “Paul is a good lyricist who thinks he’s a bad one, and therefore he doesn’t try.”
Sources being podcasts. So many Beatle-nerd podcasts out there.
Peter: Interesting. He can write good lyrics. It’s true. The tune itself is pretty good. The kind of thing we expect from Macca. (That’s what we Anglophiles call Paul McCartney, because we read it in MOJO 20 years ago).
Tyler: See, there ya go, there’s a fair amount of “London Town” that I enjoy. Macca—see what I did there?—can pull melodies out of thin air and dress them up beautifully. And, he’s Paul. The voice will always be Paul’s. There’s something to be said for the comfort of that.
Peter: For sure. It’s just so easy for him. The danger is he can just sort of put it on auto-pilot.
Tyler: I sought confirmation of a fact about London Town by glancing at Wikipedia. This glance reminded me that part of this album was recorded on a yacht. When Paul and Linda indulged, they indulged right.
Peter: Literal “Yacht Rock!”
Tyler: The fact I wanted to confirm, and did, is that quite a bit of London Town features the five-piece incarnation that brought us Venus And Mars, a great piece of music, and the phenomenal Wings Over America live triple-LP. Jimmy McCulloch, exceptional lead guitarist, and steady drummer Joe English played with Paul, Linda and Denny Laine on those and on Wings At The Speed Of Sound—not a very good album. McCulloch and English left the group midway through the recording of London Town. This should mark it as a transitional album, but it’s a damn sight more consistent than Speed Of Sound.
Peter: I’m not familiar with any of those albums! I love Ram…
Tyler: Ram is, like, one of the best albums of the ‘70s, and ever. A wonderful thing, that album.
Peter: Ram might be the best Beatle solo album? It’s terrific.
Tyler: Anyway. “London Town” is a weird could-be-better slice of soft-cheese Paul, excluding the bafflingly stinging guitar solo.
Peter: “Cafe On The Left Bank,” is kind of New Wavey? It’s slick. It sounds a little like Duran Duran. He beat them to it by like 4 years. It’s pretty… unsubstantial? It’s stylish, but vacant. Like Duran Duran! Fun fact: the first concert I ever attended was Duran Duran in like ‘89? They were not at a peak at that point. It was pre- “Ordinary World” and “Come Undone.”
Tyler: I really like “Cafe On The Left Bank,” I gotta say. If you’ve gotta pick your city-lyric poison between “London Town” and this one, you gotta go “Cafe.” Something feels hackneyed about Paul name-dropping Charles de Gaulle, yes. But this one paints a picture that eludes “London Town.”
Peter: I should read the lyrics. It sounds good. It’s got a vibe.
Tyler: My first show was Sheryl Crow, ’94 I think? She was touring behind Tuesday Night Music Club in the considerable wake of “All I Wanna Do”’s success.
Peter: I never saw her. That record was huge.
Tyler: I was obsessed. Fun fact: I called the local Musicland at Beechmont Mall so many times asking when her second album would be released that an exhausted clerk finally asked me to stop calling. I was twelve.
This was over weeks and weeks.
Peter: A DJ once asked me to stop requesting “Russians” by Sting in a very similar scenario.
Okay. We’ll agree on a Thumbs Up for “Cafe On The Left Bank,” but I’m not enthusiastic about it.
Tyler: “I’m Carrying” is another one I dig. It’s simple, it’s short, and it’s lush but not too. Of course McCartney can write this kind of thing in five minutes after a vegan-ass Sunday brunch. But this one has some nice touches that I really enjoy.
Peter: Yes! This is a good one. I like it. I was reading about it on Wikipedia and they said:
“I’m Carrying” is a gentle love song. Although Linda McCartney, Paul’s wife, was a member of Wings, the song was not inspired by her but rather by a former girlfriend of Paul McCartney’s.
I have a lot of questions. My wife would not like that. I’m fairly certain.
Tyler: Goodness. Bold move, Paul.
“Backwards Traveller.” Love it, love it, love it.
Peter: Okay. We’re going to get into it now.
Tyler: Doesn’t make a damn lick of sense. I know.
Peter: So, the next two songs are sort of a mini-suite, ala Abbey Road. But not as good as that. “Backwards Traveller” is a sort of story song? But there’s not a lot of story. It’s a minute long. “Cuff Link” is good. It’s an instrumental. It’s funky. It’s fun. It sounds like the soundtrack to a fun late-seventies heist picture. It’s also like a minute long. It’s totally fine. The combination of the two. It’s fine. I’m not hating. But…
It’s like a McCartney AI wrote this album. It all sounds good, but the lyrics are often kind of ridiculous.
And making a suite of 2 one-minute songs? It feels lazy.
Tyler: There’s a big suite on the B-side of Red Rose Speedway, the album “Paul McCartney & Wings”—the credit changes over the years—released before Band On The Run, and it’s not very good.
As for “Backwards Traveller,” I gotta confess, though, “Rhyming slang/auld lang syne” is utter nonsense that sounds just great.
Peter: Yeah, if it rolls by, it’s good. Some of it just clangs off the rim.
Tyler: “Sailing songs/wailin’ on the moon.” Clannnggggg
Okay, now, we’re gonna get into some really, really weak tea here. I mean, woof.
Peter: “Children Children.” Denny Laine is singing here. It’s fine. Nothing wrong with it. There’s a fiddler. Linda’s autoharp? It’s all over this album. Linda on the autoharp! Wikipedia doesn’t mention her autoharp, but I know an autoharp when I hear one (I think).
Tyler: You wanna talk about twee.
Peter: You don’t let Robin drive the Batmobile.
What was he thinking?
GIF of Obi-Wan telling Anakin his allegiance is to Democracy.
Paul wanted to be in a band.
Tyler: He loved that concept, didn’t he? Hell, on Speed Of Sound, Denny, McCullouch and English all get turns.
Peter: It’s kind of silly.
Like Bowie forming Tin Machine.
Tyler: Anything else we should say about “Children Children?”
Or, “Girlfriend?”
Peter: Let’s do “Girlfriend.”
Tyler: I fucking hate “Girlfriend,” Peter. It’s not good sung by MJ, and it’s really not good here sung by Paul. I’m not even all that offended by the break or the guitar solo. They’re fine. But…
Peter: This song is creepy and weird. Paul was in his mid-thirties when he wrote this. The Michael Jackson version of it is much better, but still not good.
I can’t believe he released this.
The instrumental break in the middle is the best thing about it, but… no. Just no.
Tyler: Creepy and weird. Yes. I mean, what’s the scenario here? He’s cuckolding some hapless dude, wants the dude to know the details, or…he’ll spill the beans? “Girlfriend” Paul is a serious dong.
This song and the one following it rank among those terrible moments when you hear a McCartney solo track and think about, like, how he recorded “Yesterday,” “I’m Down,” and “I’ve Just Seen A Face” in a day. You think about that, and then you think “What in the hell happened here?”
Peter: Agreed.
Let’s move on.
Tyler: Yes. “I’ve Had Enough.” A rocker!
Peter: This is much better. Kind of a throwback rocker. It reminds me a little of “Oh! Darling” from Abbey Road, and “Smile Away” from Ram. It was the second single, but it kind of tanked.
Tyler: See, I’m not buying this one. It sounds to me like Paul trying way too hard to sound tough. He’s had enough, see? He can’t put up with any more!
Peter: Maybe it’s just a palate cleanser after “Girlfriend.” I was glad to have a rocker. It’s not as good as “Oh! Darling” or “Smile Away,” but I was happy it came along.
But, I never believe Paul anyway. It’s all just words to drape over the music.
Tyler: In public, that dude can mold and remold a story like no other. “Herbal jazz cigarettes?”
I think the guy has revealed more of himself lyrically as he’s aged. “Here Today” is the peak.
Peter: “Here Today” is genuine and real. And terrific.
I shouldn’t have been so broad. Most of the time I don’t think there’s much behind the lyrics? Maybe that’s more true.
Tyler: I think that’s fair. “Magneto And Titanium Man” exists.
Peter: So does our next song. “With A Little Luck.” A real piece of fluff.
Tyler: But I love it. I can’t help myself. It’s synthy and soft and does not use those very particular Wings harmonies well. But I’m a sucker for a hopeful Paul.
Plus, it’s got the fifty-minute abstract nonsense break that had to be cut to make a single. Why does it exist? Makes no sense.
Peter: This was the only song I knew going into this. It was the lead single. It’s on some Greatest Hits albums. It sounds like the theme to an early-eighties sitcom to me.
Tyler: That is an absolutely fair swipe.
Peter: I was going to say it’s well-constructed, but over-long. The radio edit is way shorter.
What is with that wandering in the wilderness middle bit?
It’s like a jam band playing soft rock. Let’s just stretch this out a bit!
Tyler: Did he think it made the song somehow more “legit?” “Well, it’s plenty weak, but at least it’s got that sick jam!”
I’m lost. I think you need it for the song to be good, though. The radio edit feels clipped once you’ve heard the original.
Or, perhaps, I’m a glutton for punishment.
Peter: Interesting. I didn’t go listen to the radio edit for this. Alright. Well, it went to number 1 in the States, I believe.
Tyler: Ain’t that something. Meanwhile, Ram tanked.
Peter: Those fools! They had no idea what they were missing out on.
Tyler: Preach, preach. Ram is a perfect thing.
Peter: 100%.
Tyler: We’ve got another perfect thing right here, man. Please, tell me you dig “Famous Groupies.”
Peter: I don’t know. The famous groupies are paid in rupees? You know that, right?
Tyler: I adore this song. No hyperbole. It’s one of my top-five Macca solo songs. I think it’s ridiculous, completely out there, and exquisite. Swoon.
Peter: He’s having fun. It’s one of the “joke songs.” The tune is good. Wow, I’m surprised. Okay, I’m listening to it again…
Top five?
Tyler: Absolutely embarrassing revelation. Back when I fantasized about winning Oscars and all that bullshit, I imagined myself at one of those random post-ceremony parties where suddenly Paul McCartney is on a stage taking requests because Elton John pushed him up there or something. My request, hollered loudly, would be “Famous Groupies.” Scene.
It sounds like nothing else in his catalog. There are a lot of oddball weird-ass McCartney tracks that could say the same, but they are just as often bad songs. This one is the opposite.
Peter: Alright, I’m not hating it, but it’s not in my top 5.
Tyler: Honestly, I’ve never made a list, but we’ve already discussed two locks, those being this and “Here Today.”
Peter: “Here Today” is in my top 5.
If I make one. It’s in there.
Tyler: When he did it live at Cincinnati’s Great American Ball Park in ’11, I about wept. He was solo on acoustic.
Peter: Wow, alright. Strong feelings. I’m betting you don’t feel as strongly about the next track, “Deliver Your Children.”
Another Denny Laine lead vocal.
Tyler: I love this one too! It’s a bunch of dead-end Denny Laine non-stories that—this is me guessing—Paul strings together and dresses up to fine effect. If I made a top five Wings tracks, this would be my Denny asterisk.
It just sounds good. Also, when I heard a rugged-but-friendly Denny interviewed about it, his response to a mention of this song was, simply, “Spanish!”
Peter: It’s not a bad song. The vignettes are kind of all over the place, but it sounds good. And, sometimes, that’s enough.
Jinx. It does sound good.
I’d go thumbs up on it. Better than his other track on here.
Tyler: Oh, by miles and miles.
“Children Children” is beyond twee. “Deliver Your Children” is fun.
Peter: It is weird when he pulls a gun on his mechanic, though.
Tyler: Absolute nonsense.
“Name And Address.” Wings do rockabilly!
Peter: I really like this one!
Tyler: Me too, my friend.
Peter: It’s so much fun!
The guitars are so good.
Tyler: The Wings harmonies work well here, too.
“If you want—“ “—my love!”
Peter: Yeah. That’s good.
At the end it just breaks down. They loved the basic track so much they used it anyway.
Tyler: Smart decision.
We’re in the home stretch. “Don’t Let It Bring You Down.”
Peter: This is a weird one.
Tyler: It took years, but I really like it now. For a long time I found it to be a kind of muddled blah moment in between rock songs. I stuck with it, though, and it’s been a rewarding transformation. I think there’s comfort here. He’s aiming for that effect, but I think it’s genuine.
Peter: This one doesn’t sound like Paul to me. I do kind of like it, but it’s very strange.
It has a pretty lazy, slow melody, which is rare for Paul.
Tyler: It definitely takes its time. I think song reaches a high point at “Up and down your carousel will go.” Nice bit there.
I dunno. To quote Neil McCauley, there’s a flip side to that coin. That being “With A Little Luck.” Languid lengthy paeans to optimism. If that makes sense.
Peter: It’s got a kind of a mystic rock feel. I don’t know if that’s a thing. Long noodling lead guitar. Yeah, I’m not against slower harmonic changes. Just noting it. I’ll go thumbs up here as well.
Did I say the last one was weird? The final track, “Morse Moose And The Grey Goose.” is even weirder. It’s like a cross between a sea shanty and something from Saturday Night Fever.
Tyler: It’s absurd. Outrageous.
I used to think that was a bad thing.
Peter: It’s supposed to be the Bee Gees, right? I mean…
Tyler: Hand to God, I’ve never made that connection before.
I’m not saying you’re wrong at all. I’ve just gotta listen for it now.
Peter: But also a sea shanty! That’s a big part of it, too!
Tyler: The Grey Goose was a steady boat. The people said she’d never float. But one night when the moon was high, the Grey Goose flew away.
Peter: It sounds like the soundtrack to Rocky, too. This song is all over the place.
Tyler: It does have those Bill Conti drums going on, doesn’t it? That shit is all over For Your Eyes Only, almost ruining a very good Bond movie.
Peter: Bill Conti! RIP (I assume).
I didn’t look it up.
Tyler: I did. He’s alive and well.
Well, I don’t know how well. But he’s still with us.
Peter: Hey! Good for him!
Tyler: I dearly hope that somewhere, as you typed that, Bill Conti felt a sparkle of goodness.
“Morse Moose,” man. Is Morse an actual moose?
I dearly hope that it’s a moose.
Peter: I mean, I’ll say this… You have to hear it. It’s nuts.
Tyler: Yeah, I agree. It’s over six minutes, but it remains entertaining, one way or another.
And there we have it. London Town. Talk about a hodgepodge. This album would be a wild ride if it weren’t so frequently low-key.
Peter: I can’t sum this album up. It is a hodgepodge.
And, yes, it’s frequently too low-key.
Tyler: Toot toot toot toot.
Peter: It’s never hard to listen to (except for “Girlfriend”).
And some bits are quite good.
Tyler: Real proof here, as there is elsewhere, that Wings should never be dismissed out of hand.
Peter: Well, Band On The Run alone.
Tyler: My current vinyl copy of Band On The Run was given to me by a record store owner as an afterthought.
I can only imagine what he’d think of London Town.
Peter: I still don’t know what to think of it.
Writers' Loom 