Paul McCartney – Once Upon a Long Ago Review 

An apt title for a compilation, All the Best! from Paul McCartney still warranted some promotion. What preceded the hits-laden collection was Once Upon a Long Ago, three songs which did not make the cut for the album paired with the title track, which did. It cannot have been too much of a stretch to include those three tracks on the release, but cuts had to be made, and, as such, those three pieces featured after Once Upon a Long Ago are dropped. What was meant to be a collaboration with Freddie Mercury is instead fodder to promote a best-of compilation around the time Return to Pepperland was scrapped. Still, at least these songs are paid their dues, particularly the McCartney overlap with Elvis Costello, which he has shied away from speaking of in recent recollections. 

Even those songs featured on All the Best! feel relatively forgotten. The title track is not exactly vintage McCartney, though it is great fun, a real slice of quality from an otherwise pop-chasing, miserable period in the 1980s. You can hear the crunch of studio lifelessness on Back On My Feet, that ’80s soft rock pop noise, a deflating sound. Compare it with the rock and roll thrills of Wings or the tenderness of the 1990s releases, and McCartney sounds as though he has very little to offer listeners. These pieces are best left off the compilations, which are often dominated by those Wings-era pieces. There is a floaty feel to these efforts, a sound not even Costello can fix. A few of those Costello-featuring songs, those on Flowers in the Dirt, of course, have some sweetness to them. They do not feature on Once Upon a Long Ago. A song like You Want Her Too is criminally absent. 

Instead there are songs from McCartney’s USSR-exclusive album, CHOBA B CCCP. A cover of Midnight Special is nice enough, and it’s clear why it was left off. Still, anything to promote the contemporary materials of the time. Such is the purpose of any compilation, a chance to either remind listeners of an active artist or the chance to cash in on a recently deceased musician. Decades on from Once Upon a Long Ago’s release and it still feels relatively strange. Don’t Get Around Much Anymore, another rip from the CHOBA B CCCP album, an odd addition to feature on an EP promoting the best-of. These moments are far from highlighting the very best works of McCartney, even when it comes to his cover tracks. The echo on Don’t Get Around Much Anymore is relatively poor, though again, it is not something which derails the song.  

A questionable four-piece of songs which, at the time of release, were more a contemporary assessment of McCartney than anything else. CHOBA B CCCP still seems to be a fascinating oddity of McCartney’s discography, though this is not the way to experience it. Fragmented and all too brief, a throwaway EP serving a higher, commercial purpose. Costello features, cover songs and a sense McCartney was spreading himself a little too thin towards the back end of the 1980s, that is what becomes all too clear with Once Upon a Long Ago. He remains one of the very best even during this period but leaves a lot to be desired, especially for those who are thinking the best-of to follow would include, well, his objective best. Ebony and Ivory? May as well slap Give Ireland Back to the Irish on there, too.