Tug of War

Like, it's, he's as good as George Harrison in that regard.

Uh, we all, like, you, you hear it all over the Tug of War album.

And I love Linda's back, backing vocals as well.

Yes.

I thought it appropriate that after beginning in the British pop world of the early '60s, traveling through The Beatles, psychedelia, progressive rock, jazz fusion, power pop, and new wave, we should finish with George Martin reunited once again with Paul McCartney.

Martin produced McCartney's 1982 album Tug of War, and I've always thought our final selection was an especially clever and beautifully arranged piece of music.

Listen particularly to the middle section.

There's a wonderful passage where, to my ears, a clarinet seems to morph into a human voice, which in turn seems to morph into a trumpet.

I've got quite a lot of ballroom dancing fever.

Whoa!

Once again, that was Paul McCartney with Ballroom Dancing from the 1982 album Tug of War, produced by the man we've been celebrating throughout today's program, Sir George Martin.

From Billy J. Kramer and Jerry and the Pacemakers, through his extraordinary partnership with the Beatles and on to America, Jeff Beck, Mahavishnu Orchestra, Cheap Trick, Ultravox, and beyond, George Martin left an enormous and remarkably diverse body of work behind him.

Yeah.

You see, with Paul, hmm, there's the possibility there for a documentary, and I know what you've mentioned about John's passing there, but in a documentary, there is that time, and we've got plenty of footage there in the archive that we've not seen and that we have seen of Paul in Montserrat and around that sort of era of him working on the transition of coming out of Wings and starting his solo career with Tug of War.

That's an interesting era for Paul.

We've gotten bits and pieces through the documentaries that he's put out.

I mean, not quite full documentaries.

They are more half promotional material, half documentaries on his own deluxe archives, the Tug of War and the Pipes of Peace.

But there's a story which could be told there.

I really want, not necessarily from a talking head, but I would really like to s- have Paul nail down the entire story of My Old Friend.

Yeah, it's like a precursor of his more experimental side that, yeah, he would put different monikers over to not put all the pressure on it being an official Paul McCartney release.

And it's so weird because Paul went back to George Martin after John died to do Tug of War and Pipes of Peace.

Pipes of Peace recorded, or certainly the songs were written mostly at the same time as Tug of War.

But George Martin helped Paul ascend to another incredible level of commercial success.

But unlike the Beatles, a level of critical disdain with the say, say, says and the so bads.