Red Rose Speedway [IMPORT]

Wings, Paul McCartney

Product Details

• Audio CD (June 8, 1993)
• Original Release Date: 1987
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Import
• Label: MSI:EMI/PARLOPHONE
• ASIN: B00000721M
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (49 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #10,915 in Music (See Bestsellers in Music)

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  Music > Imports > Classic Rock

Track Listings

1. Big Barn Bed

2. My Love

3. Get on the Right Thing

4. One More Kiss

5. Little Lamb Dragonfly

6. Single Pigeon

7. When the Night

8. Loup (1st Indian on the Moon)

9. Medley: Hold Me Tight/Lazy Dynamite/Hands of Love/Power Cut

10. C Moon [*]

11. Hi, Hi, Hi [*] - Paul McCartney, Paul McCartney & Wings

12. Mess [Live][*]

13. I Lie Around [*]

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

You could trawl the rock & roll archives all the way back to the start and never find an album quite like Red Rose Speedway. Which is not to say that it's great. Just that it's... weird. Though it's a Wings album, it's entirely irradiated with Paul McCartney's personality--to the extent that virtually the entire band left him while attempting to rehearse for the supporting tour, claiming they couldn't operate in his huge, overbearing shadow. You can see where they were coming from. Red Rose Speedway, right down to the cover shot of Macca with a rose in his mouth, is about Paul McCartney, specifically his unique ability in the '70s to pump up slight, pretty songs to the scale of "Hey Jude," seemingly unaware or unworried that that didn't necessarily make them as good as "Hey Jude." The high spot is the saccharine sauciness of "My Love," a lurching soft-focus ballad about his wife's sexual excellence. The rest of it--lazy, lushly produced rock, sometimes sweet, sometimes just cloying, but always unmistakably Macca--is worth hearing if just to ponder: "What the hell did he think he was doing?" --Taylor Parkes

Product Description

Digitally remastered reissue of their top 10 1973 EMI album featuring the #1 smash 'My Love' & four bonus tracks: the hits 'C Moon' & 'Hi, Hi, Hi', plus 'The Mess' and 'I Lie Around'. 13 tracks total. 1993 EMI release.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

22 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Get on the Right Thing, March 18, 2005

By	Tom Emanuel (Deadwood, SD USA) - See all my reviews

On 1973's Red Rose Speedway, Paul McCartney & Wings achieve the logical midpoint between the domesticity of RRS's predecessor Wild Life and its intense follow-up Band on the Run. Balancing the homespun looseness of the former with elements of bombast and production from the latter he creates a sort of domestic art-rock. This is most obvious in the medley, which is more ambitious than it seems at first glance - four simple, mid-tempo pop songs woven together into an eleven-minute suite, building so all are interrelated jigsaw pieces but entities in and of themselves. Twisted in its way, but strangely succesful, as on the infectious Get on the Right Thing, for instance, or the melodic When the Night.

However, where the album triumphs on a melodic level, except for a few very notable exceptions it stumbles lyrically. The opener Big Barn Bed, for example, has a great tune and is incredibly catchy, but there's not much substance to it beyond that. I suppose you could construe "Keep on sleeping in a big barn bed" to mean "Get out to the country, away from the bustle of city life", but I think that may cross the line to overanalyzing. This carries throughout - When the Night, One More Kiss, much of the medley, and (despite its overall quality) Get on the Right Thing are married to essentially lightweight words.

However, as mentioned before, there are some very conspicuous exemptions from this "rule". My Love (for all its "syrup"), Single Pigeon, and parts of the medley come to mind with heartwarming, uplifting messages and fine imagery. But the best and brightest of the lot is Little Lamb Dragonfly. With quite literally brilliant words set to an achingly beautiful melody, this song is like immense sorrow and regret blended with a kind of hope; it truly is extraordinary and worth every penny of whatever you have to pay for this disc. Production- and performance-wise it's all good - gone is the sloppiness of Wild Life, replaced by a quirky warmth more reminiscent of Ram.

Red Rose Speedway gives credence to the argument both for and against Paul McCartney, and is probably not the best place to dig into his repertoire - it's kind of hard to fathom that Band on the Run would be released at the end of the very same year. But for what it's worth Red Rose Speedway is a warm, imaginative, and, if you open your mind past (most of) the lyrics, thoroughly enjoyable listening experience.

NOTES FOR REMASTERED PAUL MCCARTNEY COLLECTION:

The bonus tracks are all excellent. Culled from Wings' contemporary and preceding singles, they share in RRS's vibe - the best I'd argue is either the raunchy Hi, Hi, Hi or laid-back I Lie Around.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars one of the most underappreciated albums ever made, March 23, 2004

By A Customer

I'm glad to see there are some other reviewers on this site who really enjoy this album. Personally I really like every track, but especially "One More Kiss," "Get on the Right Thing," "Single Pigeon," and the medley. Two brief observations: (1) I noticed someone else here commented that "Little Lamb Dragonfly" was about a sheep (or lamb) on Paul's farm that died. I don't dispute that was the inspiration, but I have always found the song to have a very poignant subtext, related to the death of Paul's mother when he was 12 or 13. A number of Paul's Beatles songs have this theme as well, including "Things We Said Today," "Yesterday," "Let It Be," and "The Long and Winding Road." In "Little Lamb Dragonfly," I always imagined the "Little Lamb" part was Paul's mother singing to Paul about her death ("I have no answers for you little lamb/I can help you out/But we may never meet again"). The "Dragonfly" part continues the theme even more strongly ("Don't know why you hang around my door/I don't live here anymore/Since you've gone, I never know/I go on, but I miss you so"). It's really heartbreaking, if you ask me. A beautiful song, and the above is just one man's interpretation of it.

Point (2): I listened to the ending medley many times before it hit me that the guitar solos that end the album are actually playing the melodies of "Hold Me Tight," "Lazy Dynamite," and "Hands of Love," first individually, then at the same time. That realization just blew my mind. What a creative way to tie the medley together!

A great, unfairly unappreciated effort -- probably Macca's best.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Buy Buy Buy, May 11, 2001

By	Matthias Schmidt - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I think RRS is a really good album. It has a fine starter (Big Barn Bed) which has a beautiful refrain melody. What follows is the wonderful ballad My Love. There are some tracks that are just good fun, throw-away stuff, like Get On The Right Thing and (which should have been about two minutes longer, to be a nice country song) One More Kiss. There is only one disspointment, Loup (1st Indian On The Moon) is a boring instrumental which has no straight melody staying in your ears. The best songs are Little Lamb Dragon Fly, a sort of folk-hymn, dedicated to a shhep that died on Paul's farm, which is a banal background, but it has a melody which is very touching. Single Pigeon is a short waltz thing, a song that stays in your ears after hearing it some times, and to which Linda contributes fine background vocals. And When The Night... I don't know why so many people don't like it. It's a waltz that has harmony vocals by Paul, Linda and Denny which remind me of Because. The song is very lovely and it has a really clouless-night-feel. The Medley is a funny idea, but I like the Abbey road Medley much more. The Songs aren't bad, they're also worked out very well and all in all the Medley has its moments. I don't really know why I prefer Abbey Road. The bonus tracks are very very good also, C Moon is my favorite Wings song. A grooving reggae, which I always have in my mind. Hi Hi Hi is a rocker, also is The Mess. Both are worth having, showing the Wings were a good rock-band. I Lie Around is a song, Paul also liked. It is sung by Denny Laine and always remembers me of the Band On The Run style. It's a watch into the future... All in all compared to other Wings albums I would say, it is as good as the much praised Band On The Run. Even better, bacause there are no songs I don't like (while I can't stand Bluebird and No Words). You can listen to it and just relax. A must have. A great, under-rated album by Macca. Buy. Buy. Buy.