{"id":26724,"date":"2024-01-25T05:30:55","date_gmt":"2024-01-25T10:30:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=26724"},"modified":"2024-01-04T12:59:35","modified_gmt":"2024-01-04T17:59:35","slug":"take-five-outside-the-box-paul-mccartney-tracks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2024\/01\/25\/take-five-outside-the-box-paul-mccartney-tracks\/","title":{"rendered":"Take Five: Outside-the-box Paul McCartney Tracks"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>If Paul McCartney isn\u2019t the greatest songwriter who has ever lived, he\u2019s right up near the top of the list. Continuing his prolific output right into his 81st year, McCartney has been writing enduring melodies since the late 1950s (though audiences outside of Liverpool and Hamburg wouldn\u2019t hear any of them until 1962). To date McCartney has written or co-written 32 songs that reached #1 on <em>Billboard<\/em>\u2019s singles charts, with sales in excess of 25 million units.<\/p>\n<p>Most listeners know a Paul McCartney tune when they hear one. But along the way, McCartney has embarked upon a number of unusual projects, producing results that don\u2019t always sound like what one might expect. One of those, <em>Strawberries Oceans Ships Forest<\/em>, made in a pseudonymous collaboration with Youth as The Fireman, was released just over 30 years ago. Here are five notable (but unlikely-sounding) Paul McCartney releases.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The Country Hams \u2013 \u201cWalking in the Park with Eloise\u201d (single, 1974)<\/strong><br \/>\nWritten by Paul\u2019s dad Jim McCartney, this jazz tune was released as a single in 1974. The band on the instrumental recording included Paul on bass and washboard, along with his Wings bandmates Denny Laine (acoustic guitar) and Geoff Britton on drums. The one-day Nashville session for the track also featured a superstar lineup of session players that included Chet Atkins on guitar and Floyd Cramer on piano.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/WDU8BrIhHvw?si=FAJmny3jujRJSib8\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>The George Martin Orchestra \u2013 \u201cLove in the Open Air\u201d from <em>The Family Way<\/em> soundtrack (1967)<\/strong><br \/>\nThe Beatles were at the height of their popularity (and creative powers) when McCartney was asked to provide a score to a comedy-drama motion picture starring Hayley Mills and Hywell Bennett. In practice, McCartney\u2019s involvement took the form of rough musical sketches that George Martin fleshed out to create music for the movie. \u201cLove in the Open Air\u201d provides the audio backdrop for a key love scene in the film. A remastered version of the 1967 soundtrack was released on CD in 2011.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/l7EKnYQ_XZk?si=K-eztM5UGx1HFOzn\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>Percy \u201cThrills\u201d Thrillington \u2013 \u201cThe Back Seat of My Car\u201d from <em>Thrillington<\/em> (1977)<\/strong><br \/>\nPaul and Linda\u2019s 1971 LP <em>Ram<\/em> is rightly considered among McCartney\u2019s best works. Around the time of its creation, Paul embarked upon a somewhat idiosyncratic side-project: using studio musicians and an orchestra conducted by Richard Hewson, he produced an \u201ceasy listening\u201d version of <em>Ram<\/em>. It wouldn&#8217;t see release until some seven years later. Mostly instrumental, <em>Thrillington<\/em> does include some vocals, courtesy members of both the Mike Sammes Singers (who sang backing on The Beatles\u2019 \u201cI Am the Walrus\u201d and \u201cGood Night\u201d) and The Swingle Singers. The album has been reissued on CD; original vinyl copies are rare.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/fdEcAaddmj0?si=Y5-ldWg7yjYMXaQN\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>London Symphony Orchestra \u2013 \u201cCelebration\u201d from <em>Standing Stone<\/em> (1997)<\/strong><br \/>\nBy the 1990s, Paul McCartney had nothing to prove, but his creative ambitions hadn\u2019t left him. In 1991 he collaborated with conductor-composer Carl Davis to create<em> Liverpool Oratorio<\/em>, a modern classical work for vocal and orchestra. Eight years later he created<em> Standing Stone<\/em>, enlisting the talents of the 80-piece London Symphony Orchestra and 120-member Chorus. The work premiered at London\u2019s Royal Albert Hall in October 1997, weeks after the release of the album; it was subsequently broadcast on television in the UK and U.S.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/5Vq7AxJbvto?si=4SLY-pEGbx-ndKG9\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>The Fireman \u2013 \u201cSing the Changes\u201d from <em>Electric Arguments<\/em> (2008)<\/strong><br \/>\nPerhaps the most \u201cMcCartney\u201d sounding of all Paul\u2019s side projects, \u201cSing the Changes\u201d is a supremely catchy selection from <em>Electric Arguments<\/em>, the third album he made as The Fireman with Killing Joke bassist Youth (Martin Glover). The Fireman began as a sample-based project with limited involvement from McCartney, but on subsequent albums he took on a greater role; his sessions with Youth emphasized spontaneity over preparedness.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/YgKcYxRdWYs?si=cfDbc2Xo99HZ0ykM\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If Paul McCartney isn\u2019t the greatest songwriter who has ever lived, he\u2019s right up near the top of the list. Continuing his prolific output right into his 81st year, McCartney [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":26725,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[1663],"class_list":["post-26724","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-essay","tag-paul-mccartney","cat-27-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26724","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26724"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26724\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26726,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26724\/revisions\/26726"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26725"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26724"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26724"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26724"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}