My Sentimental Journey | Page 2 | Fab Forum | The Beatles Bible

You know that thing where you wait hours for a bus and then two show up at once?  Well, case in point, I have just listened to the 2012 2CD Special Edition of this one, originally from 1971:

by Paul and Linda MccCartney.  Yes, you read that right, Linda co-wrote half the songs here and sings backup on a number of them – she also co-produced the album.  Sounds like a recipe for disaster right?  Luckily it isn’t, and this is currently my favourite McCartney album (bearing in mind I still have a lot of them to listen to).  The remastered CDs are great sonically, with a nice forward presence which complements a nicely varied sound mix.  The set is nicely presented with the booklet including some great photos and the lyrics to the album (not the bonus tracks), though some production notes would have been nice.  The front cover was satirised by John Lennon on one of the inserts to the Imagine LP, the back cover has an ex-Beatle in one photo, and some other beetles apparently copulating in another – make of that what you will.

The songs cover the full range of McCartney’s lyricism and melody, with a few good rockers added to the mix.  It is hard for me to choose favourites as I like all of this album – but Too Many People , Ram On , Dear Boy , Uncle Albert /Admiral Halsey – oh, I give up

At this time Paul was still in the Beatles mind-set of not including singles on his albums (which I hated then and still do now as it made getting all of their songs difficult and playing them all painful) but Eat At Home was a minor hit here in Oz (backed with Smile Away ).  The 2nd CD in the set includes the earlier single, Another Day (which I kind of like) and its B-side Oh Woman , Oh Why; along with Little Woman Love which was the B-side for the later single of Mary Had A Little Lamb.  This second disk is pretty interesting: Hey Diddle wouldn’t have been out of place on the subsequent Wings Wild Life album, and while Rode All Night wears out its welcome it is enjoyably frenetic.  A couple of the other tracks are instrumentals that could have been culled from McCartney and the remaining track A Love For You has some enjoyable moments.

The upshot?  This is another essential post-Beatles album, and the 2CD version is worth consideration.  Now, apparently John felt a few of the songs here were thinly veiled jabs at him, and replied somewhat more pointedly on Imagine , which is the next cab off the rank (or was that bus?).

Funny Paper said
Now there you go — “Hey Diddle” would have been much better than “Kreen Akrore”.

I didn’t know Linda co-wrote a lot of things — but none of the songs on the official Ram list, right?

Nice call on Kreen

Linda co-wrote tracks 4, 5, 7, 8, 9 and 10 on the album – so half of them.  I must say I have always slightly preferred the old Side 1, maybe those writing credits explain that a bit.  As an aside I find her singing varies so much here, from the very effective to the not quite so effective.

We have arrived at late 1971 and Imagine from John Lennon :

While the title track helped me stay upbeat during a severe illness in my mid-teens I have always found the album itself curiously unsatisfying.  I appreciate that it is a complex reflection of John’s state of mind at the time couched in some quite nice melodies – but many of the tracks strike me as great fragments which would have benefited from a strong collaborator (a bit like many of Paul’s songs on his next few albums).  The sound is also a bit thin despite Phil Spector being along as co-producer with John and Yoko, even on the 2010 remaster I just listened to – this is particularly noticeable on I Don’t Wanna Be A Soldier … which has a multitude of musicians on it (including George Harrison ) but just meanders along without making much of an impact.  The infamous How Do You Sleep also has the pot calling the kettle black in the line ‘Jump when your mamma tell you anything’.

Hmm – I’m possibly appearing a bit too negative – I do enjoy the album.  It has the catchy Oh Yoko!, the nicely melodic How?, and Crippled Inside which rocks along nicely considering the acerbic lyrics – while Jealous Guy has been popular with a number of other singers (but not with this listener).  Physically the album has the same sort of booklet that this whole series has – with photos of the two items which were inserts in the LP (the pig-wrestling postcard satirising the cover of Ram and the piano-player poster).  I won’t rant about how these should have been separate items – sigh.  The album sold well at the time and is probably essential listening for Beatles fans – and was certainly better received than the next release from the peripatetic star who moved permanently to New York at around this time.

Next up is another LP I found vaguely unsatisfying at the time – Wings Wild Life .

Bulldog said

trcanberra said
We have arrived at late 1971 and Imagine from John Lennon :

While the title track helped me stay upbeat during a severe illness in my mid-teens I have always found the album itself curiously unsatisfying.  I appreciate that it is a complex reflection of John’s state of mind at the time couched in some quite nice melodies – but many of the tracks strike me as great fragments which would have benefited from a strong collaborator (a bit like many of Paul’s songs on his next few albums). 

I agree. I expected it to be excellent based on what I’d heard (Imagine , Jealous Guy and Crippled Inside , all of which I really like), but I much prefer POB I’m actually also in the minority of preferring Walls And Bridges and Mind Games to it as well. I really like Gimme Some Truth and the aforementioned three tracks, but the album doesn’t really do much for me overall. I find most of the songs on this album too repetitive or a bit overlong for what they are. Oh, and I like Oh My Love quite a bit as well.

Cheers – I expect that I will upset a few Lennon fans here – but it’s just my opinion.  I feel the same about the albums as you do, I think Mind Games is my 2nd favourite behind Plastic Ono Band, with Walls a close third – they feel a lot more cohesive to me.

meanmistermustard said
I’ve never found Imagine to be a great solo Beatle album. Overlooking the overlooked and overstated title track (if i ever did like it that much to begin with) a good chunk is filled with filler (Soldier, Oh Yoko (i dont see the attraction of this number), Truth) and How Do You Sleep? fails to live up to its myth as being as some angst ridden walloper – so that’s half the album gone. The rest is good tho but over the years i’ve grown to prefer Walls And Bridges and Mind Games actually i think that but then i remember how overproduced they are – some great songs when stripped back, love the Anthology outtakes. Gee’s, when i look at John’s albums they aren’t that great outside of POB. Guess i get caught up in the idea that John’s solo catalogue is some wonderful haven of music heaven, a load of fantastic songs just not when you go by officially released albums.

 

Wild Life is one of my favourite solo Beatles albums but loathed by so many so i’m intrigued to see your stance on it trc.

On Wild Life – so am I.  While I recall not being too impressed – when I look at the tracklist it seems quite good – I should get to it in the next few days or so.

[EDIT] Maybe we can sort this now and not disrupt my review.  Is the album called Wild Life or Wings Wild Life ?  The spine of my CD has “Wings Wild Life / Wings” which suggests the latter, some internet sources suggest the former?  Opinions over here please. 

On Lennon, while not wanting to derail my own thread – I pretty much agree with your assessment of the solo years.