With their instruments stolen in a foreign land where the recording studio was up to scratch, there was no expectation from anyone for Wings to do anything of note. Paul McCartney still had one foot in The Beatles, more the legal entanglement and estrangement from the rest of the band than anything musically focused. These eat away at your self-confidence. If you cannot focus fully on something you are doomed to wonder how it could have been better down the line. Without his notes, also stolen along with the instruments, and a bout of bronchial spasm which led his bandmates to believe he was dead, McCartney somehow overcame all of this. It would have been remarkable if he left the studio with as much as one song, let alone Band on the Run, an album which would define his career more than most of his previous works.
We cannot break the law and say Band on the Run was a better McCartney project than, say, Abbey Road, because we dare not turn off our brains. But it has the monumental force and playful innovation which defines McCartney still to this day. He has not switched off and not even theft, death and dire circumstances could stop him. It must have felt, as McCartney notes in opener Band on the Run, that he was “stuck inside forever”. Between gasping for air in the backing vocal sections to the under-equipped studio, McCartney also takes on more instrumental roles. This is closer to an experimental burst, an everyman challenge where the former Beatles member had something to prove. Nothing could stop him. Thankfully not, anyway, as Band on the Run may be his best work since The Beatles’ bust-up. This rebellious swing and complete attitude benefits McCartney, who had worked more in flutters and parts than in anything which can be considered a complete project.
Yes, there was Red Rose Speedway and the Live and Let Die song within, but Band on the Run feels like his first truly accomplished, hits-laden effort. From a band being on the run to the freedom heard in the grooves of Bluebird, McCartney and by extension the rest of the band, feel a liberated momentum. They turn in some of their best-ever songs, the likes of Jet and Let Me Roll It still staples of the McCartney set. These songs are not great because of their live show longevity but because of what they reflect at the time, and how the meaning can transform over time. Steady pop rock is the foundation for those thrills, and yet it is easy to forget the controversies they caused at the time. Let Me Roll It was seen as mockery and pastiche of his former bandmates John Lennon and George Harrison, and yet under these lush mixtures of brass and slick guitar, it is easy to forget. Such is the timeless nature of Band on the Run.
This is something which extends even to the lowest portions of the album. No Words is the excess of Red Rose Speedway, a song which never quite fits in and feels more like a transition here than anything of weighty importance. For every moment of indifference, Band on the Run has multiple slots of inspired pop-rock. Mrs. Vandebilt remains a song of self-liberation. Why worry? This is all McCartney asks. This is the poptimism he would go on to adapt over the years and it feels like the defining message of all his songs. From Maybe I’m Amazed right through to Friends to Go, the joy and positivity outweigh the dark cloud certainly hanging over the studio at points. Band on the Run would have been an acceptable disaster; the circumstances do not lend themselves to comfortable recordings. And yet, through some artistic inevitability, Band on the Run comes good. It is a powerful piece of work – one which would define McCartney more than it would Wings.
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