Paul McCartney and Wings: Back To The Egg

February 9, 2020 Stan

Despite the title suggesting a rebirth, ‘Egg’ sounded as derivative and as atypical a new wave album as any was likely to get in 1979. At a time when seventies monsters The Who and Led Zeppelin moved further from guitar music to the softer sound of the keyboard (neither band to great results), so too did Wings move towards a pop oriented direction. With Laurence Juber and Steve Holley in toe, Wings put together a set no-one could foretell was Wings’ last.

And it shouldn’t have been their last, but for the actions of two major incidents. The first, Paul McCartney’s arrest in January 1980 for smuggling eight ounces of marijuana to Japan, brought their first Japanese tour to an expected halt. The second, the murder of McCartney’s songwriting partner John Lennon, caused McCartney and wife Linda to shirk themselves from the attention of the worlds clawing fandom.

And so its a whimper of a last record, un-interestingly bland, sandwiched between the worthier peaks of the low-key brilliance of ‘London Town’ and the eccentric and esoteric ‘McCartney II’. Too old hat for new wave, too safe for Beatlelites and simply too plodding for any interested buyers beside collectivists. It’s not the weakest of Wings’ catalogue ( it has one or two moments, ‘Wild Life’ had none), but it’s definitely no champion either.

Positivity has always been one of McCartney’s outstanding features (he called one of his albums ‘New’, for God’s sake!), so let’s start with the positives. There are four: ‘Goodnight Tonight’, if a bit throwaway, has an incredible flamenco crescendo and one of McCartney’s jumpiest and most erratic bass lines (John Lennon, who disliked the song, loved the bass.) Denny Laine’ s ‘Again and Again and Again’ was the one of his finest Wings’ ballads, second only to ‘Deliver Your Children’. ‘Arrow Through Me’ dives at the listener in R&B stylettoes. ‘Daytime Nighttime Suffering’, released as the flip to ‘Goodnight Tonight’, had lyrical gravitas to it, above the pop seasoned keyboard riff, one of McCartney’s strongest post Beatles songs, an early example of proto-feminista hit placing (much better than Lennon’s underwhelming ‘Woman Is The ****** of The World’). That said, the fact that one of the positives found on this record, wasn’t actually initially released on the record is an indicator of the otherwise weak material found here.

Seventies rock extravaganza ‘Rockestra’ played more as a who’s who of rock than a good track, the white powder reaking through the track. Featuring Pete Townshend, David Gilmour, Kenney Jones, Gary Brooker and Zeppelin duo John Paul Jones and John Bonham among the mayhem (Keith Moon was slated to play on the record, but he died weeks before the recording), it proved one of rock’s greatest indulgences and one of the greatest justifications of punk rock. ‘Old Siam,Sir’ was offensive even for 1979. ‘Spin It On’ had a catchy title but nothing else (doubtless any listener spun it on a second time!) ‘Reception’, ‘The Broadcast’ and ‘We’re Open Tonight’ (each less than a minute and a half long) proved a petty attempts to appear arty. Closing track ‘Baby’s Request’ sounded as asinine as any drivel any late seventies radio station would play.

And with that, McCartney’s second band came to an end, returning to work on his first true solo record in ten years. If Wings taught McCartney anything, it was that he was best when working alone (it is telling that ‘Band On The Run’ and ‘London Town’ remain their best records, both recorded when reduced to the bare bone trio of Paul, Linda and Denny). And with that McCartney went to work on a triple collection of killer albums (the criminally overlooked ‘McCartney II’, the pop genius of ‘Tug of War’, the eighties Beatle zenith ‘Pipes of Peace’), his days as the frontman of a band behind him.