Red Rose Speedway

all

right so much of my relationship with this album was based on how i first heard it and so like so many of my lasting memories of paul albums are you know me having that photographic oh i know exactly where i was when i first heard wildlife i was doing door-to-door uh charity sales uh in uh in a really nice uh part of Solly Hull, Red Rose Speedway, doing the same thing again, but I was in the back of some guy's car, band on the run, I was at uni, like they're all there.

Even up, you know, Egypt Station, I was on a train in Stafford.

after my girlfriend had just broken up with me.

And I believe it is one of the most treacly Paul McCartney songs ever.

Ever committed to record, and that includes Little Lamb Dragonfly, you Red Rose Speedway fans.

It's She's Leaving Home, which to me has a pretty lyric and certainly not an ugly melody, but goes on and on.

The ghostly Lennon vocals in the background drive me nuts.

But they're, but they're like these weird 45s, he's coming out with no album, you know.

Then he does, you know, Red Rose Speedway, which had My Love on it, but, eh, what the hell is this? You know, it was a very strange sort of thing.

He wasn't, he was selling, 'cause he was Paul McCartney, but to be honest, again, i- i- in a sort of a Brian Wilson Beach Boys way, as a Beatle, his cachet had really fallen, you know? And now some of it I think had to do with the fact that he had broken up The Beatles, and e- everybody just hated him, you know.

He, he'd sued The Beatles.

You know, couldn't do anything right.

He couldn't even hold a band together.

He had this band, Wings, and they're touring, and he said, "Okay, now we're, you know, we made a record, you know, we made a number one record, Red Rose Speedway.

Number one record." Now we're gonna make another, another record.

Oh, that's right.

When, when Pink Floyd were recording The Dark Side of the Moon at Abbey Road Studios, Wings were doing Red Rose Speedway, and, um, I believe it was Roger Waters, um, had come up with these file cards with questions on them.

Yeah.

And they were to get, if people were to answer these questions without being prompted or anything, without giving any thought, and, uh, they interviewed Paul, they interviewed Linda.

Um, you know, this one is still sealed.

So yeah, Wild Life and other early McCartney albums.

I mean, I could've chosen Ram, I could've chosen Red Rose Speedway.

Uh- Things that, you know, I, I didn't dislike them that mu- well, Wild Life I sort of disliked, but the others I didn't dislike so much as they just sort of, you know, I played them and filed them away and, you know, that was that.

But if you count the Wings albums, it's his 27th.

And yes, I'm counting Red Rose Speedway, Jeremy.

Ooh, you're going behind your back on that one.

No, 27, to be honest with you, I know he had other people singing a couple of the songs, Denny Lane and, uh, Jimmy McCulloch, but I, I count those as Alps solo albums to me.

Yep.

Then you've also got Paul going from Red Rose Speedway up to maybe the beginning of the world tour.

I mean, if you want to take it that far, but where I would kind of end it would be with the birth of Sean.

Give it a happy ending.