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Read the original blog post9.37pm
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1 May 2011
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Always suprises me that there is no thread for this album.
I always believed that ‘Press To Play ‘ was the worst of Paul’s 80’s catalogue, having heard it all again its now between ‘Pipes Of Peace ‘ and ‘Give My Regards To Broad Street ‘. Considering that i love the title track and ‘So Bad’ it was a real shock when i listened to it a few months back and found the rest of the album sucks.
The lead-off single, ‘Say, Say, Say’ (a duet with Michael Jackson) i cant decide if its better or worse than the badly dated ‘Ebony And Ivory ‘, ‘The Other Me’ sounds like a crap demo with a few overdubs and Paul being smug at the end (no idea why as the song is s**t), and the least said about ‘Keep Under Cover’ the better. As for side two the first five tracks (‘The Man’ (beating ‘Say, Say, Say’ to the title of crappest Paul and Michael duet*), ‘Sweetest Little Show’, ‘Average Person’, ‘Hey, Hey’ and ‘Tug of Peace’) are the worst run of songs on any Paul album ranging from utterly pointless (‘Tug Of Peace’) to incredibly annoying (‘Hey, Hey’).
That leaves ‘Through Our Love’ which is your bog-standard Paul ballad, failing to arouse any reaction from me in the slightest – it starts, it finishes and i forget every last second of it.
If this is the bulk of what was left of ‘Tug Of War ‘ then whoever made the suggestion of trimming it down from a double to a single album got it right, sadly they didnt go further and suggest Paul ditch the lot and start over. Yet then i remember that ‘Give My Regards To Broad Street ‘ was Paul’s next project…
On a diffferent note this stripped back mix of ‘So Bad’ is every bit as good as the official release if not better.
*For completists sake i’ll add that ‘The Girl Is Mine’ is also dreadful. Three tracks from two of the biggest stars in music and all are ghastly. Great job.
"I told you everything I could about me, Told you everything I could" ('Before Believing' - Emmylou Harris)
10.12pm
7 April 2013
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This is definitely his weakest album along with Wild Life . Hey Hey and Tug of Peace are his two worst songs, however tracks like Average Person and Keep Under Cover can be fun when I’m in the mood. I’ll agree that its just the stuff not good enough for Tug Of War (which by the way I think is a masterpiece) which ended up here.
"We can do what we want, we can live as we choose"
11.43pm
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1 May 2011
Offline No!!!!!! I Love ‘Wild Life ‘ (except for ‘Bip Bop’?)
"I told you everything I could about me, Told you everything I could" ('Before Believing' - Emmylou Harris)
4.41pm
Reviewers
14 April 2010
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The following people thank Zig for this post:
meanmistermustardTo the fountain of perpetual mirth, let it roll for all its worth. And all the children boogie.
2.56am
17 October 2013
Offline I like it. ‘Through Our Love’ is beautiful. Pipes itself was number one in the UK for weeks
The only Paul albums I haven’t bought were Wildlife….and Off The Ground …..
I’ve enjoyed much in all the others. I think his duets with Michael and Stevie were fun.
Wasn’t ‘Say Say Say’ Michael’s biggest ever chart hit?
And Ebony won the prestigious Ivor Novello award that year.
Just saying,saying,saying.
9.04am
31 March 2008
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I’m sure this has been mentioned elsewhere on the forum already, but it’s worth posting here. Manic Street Preachers’ frontman James Dean Bradfield recently had a chat with McCartney about the Pipes Of Peace album:
http://diymag.com/2015/09/30/s…..-bradfield
It’s always interesting when people wax lyrical about albums which generally aren’t held in high esteem, and Bradfield seems genuine in his love for the record (side note: our kids went to the same nursery in Cardiff, and I once met him after an Easter magic show there. Optimum rock.).
One bit that caught my eye was this:
JDB:There’s a beautifully placed and well-chosen quote [“I light a candle to our love, in love our problems disappear,” in the introduction to opening track ‘Pipes Of Peace ’] from you, referencing [Indian poet] Rabindranath Tagore. Obviously, he wrote some amazing poems, and there’s always an edge of reconciliation; he always talked about love. I just thought that the quote on the record actually seems like it informed the lyrics of ‘Through Our Love,’ too. That is unbelievable, it’s like conducting open heart surgery with feathers instead of scalpels. Is it hard to write like that when you have no bounds of cynicism? It’s so open, it becomes an easy target in itself, the lyric. Do you know what I mean?
PM: My stuff is an easy target. I always have to make a decision – am I going to try to be clever, or am I just going to write from my heart? I nearly always make the decision to write from the heart, because a lot of the music I like is from the heart. I figured, in the end, when you’re done with all the cynicism, people go back to loving each other. You can have all the cleverness in the world, but people go home at night. If they’re married, they go home to their wife, they go home to their kids. I think that’s a very central point. I’m not shy to write about it. As you say, I’d been reading a lot of Tagore, and there’s a line, “I light a candle to our love,” – something similar to that – and I’ve never been able to find the quote. I talk to people about this, and they say, oh I’ll look it up’. They get back to me and they can’t find it.
The opening line of Pipes Of Peace is obviously not a verbatim quote, and I’m no Tagore expert, but I think it might this one:
Light A Candle
light a candle,
see it glow,
watch it dance,
when you feel low,
think of me,
think of light,
I’ll always be here,
day or night,
a candle flickers,
out of sight,
but in your heart,
I still burn bright,
think not of sadness,
that I’m not near,
think of gladness,
and joyous cheer,
I have not left,
I am not gone,
I’m here to stay
my little one,
so when you light a candle
and you see it glow
and you watch it dance
in your heart you’ll know
that I would never leave you
even when you feel so blue
I’m sitting up here with the Lord
and now watching over you
The second line in PoP was adapted from another Tagore quotation, “In love, all of life’s contradictions dissolve and disappear.” But I think that one might be quoted in the sleeve notes anyway – is that right? I’ve got the vinyl reissue on order but it hasn’t arrived yet.
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2.15am
12 May 2015
Offline Barring the brilliant title track and a the jacko collaboration i actually didn’t like the album at the time of release and that hasn’t changed today. Sounds like a bunch of outtakes from ‘Tug Of War ‘
3.50am
25 August 2012
Offline Half this album was primarily recorded during the Tug Of War sessions. How weird is it that the very best songs recorded during those sessions ended up on that album while the very weakest songs from those sessions ended up on this album? 
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