Music: "Let Me Roll It," Paul McCartney & Wings (Seattle, 1976)

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It’s certainly mystifying how he went from being in the Beatles to doing the terrible dad-rock in this video.

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Speaking of 1976, I’m always amazed that he had the number 1 song of 1976- which I pretty much never hear anymore. My takeaway is that if you’re a pop musician and you want a song to be remembered, make music for shaking booty or for making out, and skip the counterpoint.

I simply don’t agree. I think the early to mid 70s were the real golden patch for him. A young guy, freed from the politics and pressure of the Beatles, making effortless, brilliant pop music on his own terms. In love with Linda, a young family, it was all good. (Wild Life and RRS weren’t that strong, but McCartney, Ram, BOTR and V&M are all regulars for me)

(Having said that, listen to George, John and Paul’s albums from that period and contemplate just how good the Beatles albums would have been if they’d been able to keep their shit together)

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AFAIK, Sir Paul is the only Beatle to get busted for dope (several times, in fact), although Ringo has been to rehab; I’d always assumed that “Let Me Roll It” was referring to rolling a joint.

WRT the “dad rock” thing, well, I agree with winkybber that he had a great post-Beatles solo run in the seventies before he became terminally mellow, and also that it would have been great if the Fabsters had felt able to take some time off from the band and do their solo things and still come together (right now, over me) for the occasional group album, instead of staying together until they were terminally bitter at each other. Ironically, it was Paul who struggled to keep the band together after Brian Epstein died; Magical Mystery Tour and Let It Be were basically his ideas to keep the band interested and stimulated by taking them out of their rut, when the rest of the guys were feeling burnt out by Beatlemania and just wanted to go off and do their own thing.

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Holy crap, I was at this show - my first concert ever! Still have the ticket stub.

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Me too. Started out on the 300 level, then moved down to better seats that apparently never sold.
First concert I’d seen with a huge, live video screen.

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Good song, but ouch those out-of-tune-with-each-other guitars.

Stinkinbadgers, it was quite the popular ditty back in the day - I remember it playing on very heavy rotation all that summer. You can sometimes still hear it on “classic rock” stations, but yeah, it’s pretty much dropped into obscurity.

Walter,

I was down in the GA section on the main floor, and managed to worm my way to probably about 50 feet from the stage. Some teenage girl convinced me to let her sit on my shoulders for nearly the entire evening - which, being 15 at the time seemed pretty cool - although in hindsight I’m sure many people behind me had very different opinions on the matter!

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Why does he keep doing that little girl whoop?

Wings across america was one of my first record purchases as a teenager. I listened to it often until I bought bridge of sighs by robin trower and began to play guitar.

My 19 year old’s band plays day of the eagle now.

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