Band On The Run - the third studio album by Paul McCartney and Wings, released in December 1973.
Did you know that the title of this album came about by a comment George Harrison made while attending one of many business meetings the Beatles had with their appointed manager of Apple Allen Klein in 1969 in their ongoing battle regarding the problems with The Apple Corporation. George felt that with all the meetings, he felt that they were a "Band on the Run".
Bored with recording in the UK, McCartney wanted an exotic location to record. After receiving many location choices from EMI, he finally chose Laos, Nigeria as the thought of recording in Africa appealed to him.
Rehearsals started at his home in Scotland, and during one session Henry Mc Cullough (lead guitar) and McCartney argued and subsuquently McCullough quit. A week later Denny Sewell (drums) also quit leaving just McCartney, his wife Linda and Denny Laine to carry on with the album one day before flying out to Nigeria.
After arriving at the EMI studio, they found it very underequipped, however, they carried on working in the late afternoons, sometimes going into the early hours of the morning ,just to make time up for the missing band members.
One evening Paul and Linda were out for a stroll and were robbed at knifepoint , various valuables were taken along with a bag containing a notebook of handwritten lyrics and songs and cassettes with demos for the songs to be recorded.
A few of the track titles reflect events that had happened in the past.
Band On The Run : as forementioned earlier from a comment made by George.
Mamunia: The name of a hotel in which Wings had stayed in in Marrakesh.
Jet: Supposedly about a puppy which McCartney had bought.
Mrs.Vandebilt:The opening lines are from a catchphrase of the english music hall performer Charlie Cheste ( slightly changed )
Picasso's Last Words:Written during a chance meeting with Dustin Hoffman and Steve McQueen during the filming of Papillon. Hoffman didn't believe that McCartney could write a song about anything, so he grabbed a magazine with an article about the death of Pablo Picasso and his famous last words.........."Drink to me , drink to my health.You know I can't drink anymore ".
Bluebird:Originally written while Paul and Linda were on vacation in Jamaica in either 1970/1971.Although there is no history behind the title i would just like to add that this song ( in my opinion) has the best saxophone segment in it along with possibly "Us And Them " by Pink Floyd.
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Mark Riordan
Contributer
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