Seaside Woman

Credited to Suzy And The Red Stripes, ‘Seaside Woman’ was recorded by Wings in 1972 and released five years later.

The song was written by Linda McCartney, partly in response to a lawsuit from Northern Songs and Maclen Music alleging that Paul McCartney had falsely claimed to have collaborated with Linda on ‘Another Day’.

I fool around with the songs I write, but I don’t take it as a serious career.

I did a song, ‘Seaside Woman’, right after we’d been to Jamaica, about three or four years ago, I guess. Very reggae-inspired. That’s when ATV was suing us saying I was incapable of writing, so Paul said, “Get out and write a song.” And then about a week ago we went in to a b-side for it of something I’d written in Africa, and we just talk over it. It’s very sort of Fifties R&B, the Doves, the Penguins. I love that, that was my era. I’m New York, you know. Alan Freed and the whole bit.

We’re going to put the single out under the name Suzi and the Red Stripes. When we were in Jamaica, there had been a fantastic reggae version of ‘Suzi Q’, so they used to call me Suzi. And the beer in Jamaica is called Red Stripe, so that makes it Suzi and the Red Stripes. It’ll be out someday, but I’ve been saying ‘Seaside Woman’ will be released since 1971 and we still haven’t bothered. It’s a bit like my photography book. Someday there will be a book.

Wings performed ‘Seaside Woman’ during their University Tour in February 1972.

The studio version was recorded at Olympic Sound Studios on 20 March 1972 during the Red Rose Speedway sessions.

The single was released on 31 May 1977 in the USA by Epic Records. It was credited to Suzy And The Red Stripes, although its provenance was never a secret. The b-side, ‘B-Side To Seaside’, was recorded in February 1977 by the McCartneys.

‘Seaside Woman’ was released in the UK on 10 August 1979 by A&M Records. A remix was issued on 7″ and 12″ in 1986 by EMI.

Both sides of the single were included on Linda McCartney’s posthumous album Wide Prairie.

In 1980 Oscar Grillo turned ‘Seaside Woman’ into an animated short film. It won the Short Film Palme d’Or at the 1980 Cannes Film Festival.

This was the first song Linda wrote. Her delight in being exposed to the Caribbean lifestyle inspired this beautiful response. The song was made by Linda and Oscar Grillo into an animated short which went on to win the Cannes Film Festival’s prestigious Palme d’Or.