Band on the Run
Paul McCartney & Wings
Apple
Paul McCartney's solo LPs never reached the heights of his work with The Beatles. But Band on the Run, his third album with Wings, comes close.
His early post-Beatles works were homespun affairs which espoused a DIY approach that contrasted with his former band's careful studio experimentation. So it's surprising that Band on the Run sounds fully formed from the start. The title track is a three-part musical suite based around the idea of a band escaping from prison. It starts off quietly, and ends up rocking. Two standouts, Jet and Let Me Roll It, give the set some extra thrust.
McCartney generally kept himself out of his lyrics. Unlike John Lennon, he preferred to write songs with characters rather than make personal statements. But an interesting review by Rolling Stone magazine critic Jon Landau, in 1997, claims that Band on the Run is an extended musical essay about personal escape and musical freedom.
'Band finds McCartney walking a middle ground between autobiographical songwriting and subtle attempts to mythologise his own experience through the creation of a fantasy world of adventure,' Landau writes. 'He does it by uniting the myth of the rock star and the outlaw, the original legendary figure on the run.'
The sleeve, which achieved a degree of fame on its own, emphasises the theme of escape. Taking its cue from the collage cover of Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, it features a number of famous faces posing as a group breaking out of jail. The celebrities include British talk show host Michael Parkinson, boxer John Conteh, and actors Christopher Lee and James Coburn. A video detailing the cover shoot was included in a special 2010 release of the LP.