Wings Greatest

[Elwanda Menhennett]

Thealbum was compiled after McCartney's decision to leave EMI's American label, Capitol, for a six-year stay with Columbia (United States and Canada only), though he remained with EMI worldwide during his US sabbatical from Capitol. Four of the twelve tracks make their album debut with this compilation: "Another Day", "Junior's Farm", "Hi, Hi, Hi" and "Mull of Kintyre". "Live and Let Die" had previously appeared on the soundtrack album of the same name but did not appear on any previous McCartney albums.

All but two tracks were credited as "Wings" or "Paul McCartney & Wings"; the exceptions being "Another Day" - a non-album single credited to just "Paul McCartney" - and "Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey" - credited to "Paul & Linda McCartney" from their 1971 album Ram.

Despite the fact that McCartney had amassed enough successful singles by late 1978 to potentially fill a double album, he opted to release Wings Greatest as a single disc for commercial reasons.[citation needed] Thus, several songs would be overlooked for Wings Greatest. Indeed, not one song was excerpted from 1975's Venus and Mars, despite "Listen to What the Man Said" being a number 1 US hit. The album was promoted by a TV commercial in the UK, which featured several members of the public (played by actors) singing Wings tunes in public places. At the end a dustman, waiting in his lorry at a set of traffic lights (in Abbey Road), sings to himself an out of tune rendition of "Band on the Run", at which point Paul, Linda and Denny pull up alongside and Paul shouts out "You're a bit flat mate!". The driver leans out his window and says "Funny, I only checked them this morning!"[8]

The front cover of Wings Greatest depicts a chryselephantine (gold and ivory) statuette created by famed Art Deco sculptor Demtre Chiparus.[11] This antique statuette was purchased by Linda McCartney at a 1978 auction[12] and Paul McCartney decided this statuette would be ideal as the cover for the band's forthcoming greatest hits album.[12]

On 14 October 1978, the McCartney family flew to Switzerland, accompanied by a photographer named Angus Forbes, to arrange a photography session depicting the statuette in genuine snow. The snowdrift backdrop within the image was created with the assistance of a hired snow-plough, and the actual image upon the cover was an aerial photograph taken by helicopter.[10][12]

The rear cover depicts the record covers of the twelve releases, mostly singles, from which each of the Greatest's songs were taken, in columns on either side of the album. In the middle is a photograph of Paul, Linda, and Denny Laine. The original photograph also had Jimmy McCulloch and Joe English, but both members had left the band by the time this greatest hits album was issued and, as a result, were airbrushed out.[citation needed] The background is another scene of the Alps.

The statuette also appears on the inner sleeves of the original vinyl, as well as on the record's labels.[10] It can also be seen on the album cover of Wings' next (and last) studio album, Back to the Egg, in the background, on the mantlepiece.

Wings is perhaps the most misunderstood group of the '70s, victim to the legend of Paul McCartney's previous band, to their own ever-changing lineups, to their propensity to issue huge-selling ballads from albums that often featured gritter, far more interesting fare.

Even as Wings went through four drummers and three lead guitarists, the group had a chart run between 1971-80 that compares very favorably with what the Beatles did in the '60s. McCartney, along with his wife Linda McCartney and Moody Blues alum Denny Laine as musical companions, would notch an amazing 14 Top 10 singles in America -- while releasing five consecutive U.S. No. 1 albums. Included were six chart-topping songs, and that's to say nothing of the typically overlooked deep cuts and also-ran singles. By 1980, Wings had 11 Grammy nominations, same as the Beatles. The group officially split a year later, and with Linda's death on April 17, 1998, all hopes for a reunion were apparently put to rest.

Despite all of that, Wings still unfairly suffers in the considerable shadow of the Beatles. It's time to leave behind those comparisons, as consistent as they were unfair, and celebrate Wings for what it was: One of the decade's very good bands. Don't believe it? We dug deep to compile this Top 10 Wings Songs...

We find McCartney letting loose vocally, in the style of his old Little Richard rave-ups -- ascending into a rattling fervor, then whooping and calling all the way back down. And he was still composing with an episodic flair that recalled the best moments from the 'Abbey Road' era. And, again, the song also rocks in a way that drive-by fans might never have guessed after wading through the gauzy web of strings on 'My Love,' found elsewhere on Wings' sophomore effort.

By this point, John Lennon and McCartney had found common ground again to the point where McCartney apparently felt comfortable enough to appropriate not just Lennon's instrumental primitivism but also his raw vocal style. Lennon returned the favor, by embedding the riff from 'Let Me Roll It' into his 1974 instrumental 'Beef Jerky'.

The No. 6 cut on our list of the Top 10 Wings Songs was actually recorded during the sessions for McCartney's previous album 'Ram.' This devastatingly raw track served as an apology to former Beatles partner John Lennon -- with whom McCartney had been arguing, both in person and on record, for the past couple of years. A series of turbulent, well-placed fills from drummer Denny Seiwell, who'd be a cornerstone of Wings' first incarnation, only add to the drama.

It took a surprising amount of time, but with 'Jet,' the early-'70s McCartney finally started sounding like the late-'60s McCartney again. Full of zooming, Beatlesque ambition, and no small amount of swagger, this Top 10 power pop gem is as impossible to decrypt as it is impossible to ignore. Was it about a dog?? A pony? In the end, it didn't matter. 'Jet' is that good.

A blast of new-wave inventiveness, 'To You' finds McCartney employing these Ric Ocasek hiccups and post-punk howls, while guitarist Laurence Juber furiously saws away over a fidgety beat -- then runs his guitar, in a moment of smeared brilliance, through an Eventide harmonizer during these totally wackadoo solos. Nowhere else on 'Back to the Egg' is there a greater sense of the fizzy future that never was for the final lineup of Wings. In a few years, of course, this sound would be airing wall-to-wall on MTV.

An overstuffed rock opera that features, in order, a sad requiem for the 1960s, a thunderous George Martin score and a weirdly effective reggae-styled middle eight. Over the top? There simply is no top here. But that fits the James Bond aesthetic for which it was written, and it points directly to the success Wings would have at mixing and matching seemingly divergent elements into a broader theme on the subsequent 'Band on the Run.' Meanwhile, 'Live and Let Die' has remained a fireworks-blasting mainstay of every McCartney concert appearance since.

Following the success of 'Band on the Run,' McCartney took a rebuilt Wings into recording sessions at Nashville, where they stayed at a farm owned by one Curly Putman Jr. -- and the cool-rocking 'Junior's Farm' was born. McCulloch makes an explosive debut with Wings, illiciting a happy shoutout from McCartney. He's joined by an absurd cast of characters that includes a poker man, Oliver Hardy, an Eskimo, an old man at a grocery and a sea lion. That was some farm, apparently.

From their lowest moment arose Wings' greatest triumph, as a band searching for direction after a pair of member defections crafted an ageless, multi-part paean to escape. No individual McCartney effort -- to that point, or since -- took so many chances, nor so successfully blended his interests in the melodic, the orchestral, the rocking and the episodic. It's a perfect choice to top our list of the Top 10 Wings Songs.

From its first gnarled riff (courtesy of the underrated, gone-too-soon guitarist Jimmy McCulloch), 'Letting Go,' the first song on our list of the Top 10 Wings Songs, sets a dark, roiling tone completely at odds with their flimsy hit 'Listen What the Man Said' from the same album. Instead, McCartney explores that narrow space between love and obsession to great effect, if much fewer sales. 'Listen' went to No. 1, while this bluesy, brassy rocker somehow stalled at No. 39.

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