FEATURE:
Paul McCartney at Eighty
Twenty-Two: Flaming Pie at Twenty-Five
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DURING this run…
IN THIS PHOTO: Jeff Lynne and Paul McCartney in 1997/PHOTO CREDIT: Linda McCartney/Press
of forty features to mark Paul McCartney’s upcoming eightieth birthday in June, I am concentrating on various songs and albums that are very special. As his tenth solo album, Flaming Pie, is twenty-five on 5th May, I thought it was a great opportunity to spotlight what was his first studio album in over four years. Following the underrated and less-strong Off the Ground (1993), Flaming Pie was a solid and emphatic return to form. I think McCartney did have mixed fortunes during the 1980s and 1990s regarding his albums. Flaming Pie was mostly recorded after McCartney's involvement in the highly successful Beatles Anthology project. With several friends and family of McCartney on the album, there is a warmth and sense of family connection that comes through in the songs. I guess it was working on The Beatles’ Anthology project that reminded Macca of the songwriting standard they were held to. Maybe because of this, that sharpened his skillset and kicked him up a gear! I am not sure whether there are plans for a twenty-fifth anniversary release. There was a reissue release from 2020 that I would urge people to get. Like I do with album anniversaries, I want to bring in a couple of reviews and features. Some of McCartney’s all-time best solo songs are on Flaming Pie. The World Tonight and Calico Skies are him at his absolute peak. A beautiful album that ranks alongside his very best offerings, Flaming Pie is a masterful album from an artist who, so far into his career, was writing the most astonishing music!
With production from Paul McCartney, Jeff Lynne, George Martin and a host of remarkable musicians featuring, Flaming Pie is a triumph. The reissue is well worth checking out and owning. One of the absolutely essential Paul McCartney solo albums, Flaming Pie is one that I have loved ever since it came out in 1997. You can find out who played what on each song. Before coming to reviews, Udiscovermusic.com looked back at Flaming Pie in a piece from last year:
“I think I’ve given the Anthology a decent interval,” McCartney told Mojo as the album was being released. “My stuff is suddenly ready, asked Linda if she had any photos, she had a great little selection, banged it together and it all suddenly seemed to work and it was, ‘Oh, there you go…’”
The apparently improbable title was something of a Beatles in-joke, which went to the very heart of their transformation into the group we knew and loved. In an article in the Liverpool beat music magazine Mersey Beat in 1961, John Lennon said with his customary irreverence: “It came in a vision – a man appeared on a flaming pie and said unto them, ‘From this day forward you are Beatles with an A.’ Thank you Mister Man, they said, thanking him.”
The new album had McCartney collaborating with two of the key protagonists of the Anthology series, producer-artist Jeff Lynne and Beatles mentor George Martin, among many other interesting guests. Paul’s longtime friend Steve Miller, on whose “My Dark Hour” he had appeared “anonymously” while still a Beatle, played guitar and sang, even taking a lead on “Used To Be Bad.”
Friends and family
Paul’s constant companion Linda McCartney provided backing vocals as ever, on a record that appeared just under a year before her tragic death. Their son James added to the friends-and-family ambience with some electric guitar, as did Ringo Starr on drums. He was prominent on the greatly underrated “Beautiful Night,” elegantly orchestrated by Martin at Abbey Road.
That track became the last of three UK singles from the set, after “Young Boy” and “The World Tonight.” There was also a first-ever McCartney-Starkey co-writing credit, as Paul and Ringo collaborated on “Really Love You.” Another highlight was “Calico Skies,” written in the early 1990s, even before the release of Paul’s previous solo album, 1993’s Off The Ground.
Flaming Pie performed more than respectably in the worldwide charts, reaching No.2 in both the UK and the US, with gold certifications in each country. It was also gold in Japan and Norway, and a Top 5 album around much of Europe”.
Even though there are one or two mixed reviews for Flaming Pie (NME among them), the overall vibe and reaction was one of positivity. After 1993’s Off the Ground, there was more critical support on Paul McCartney’s shoulders. This is what CLASH wrote when they reviewed Flaming Pie in 2020:
“Honestly, it’s tough sometimes, being a hardcore Paul McCartney stan in 2020. Obviously we know Macca is the foremost artistic genius of his generation, but it’s not as if the great man makes it easy for us, out here in the trenches, defending his honour against those tiresome pub bores who reckon they’re sophisticated for pretending John or, heaven help us, fucking George was the best Beatle.
Fucking shut up about the Frog’s Chorus – it’s a children song, get over it.
Anyway, there we’ll be, arguing the toss about the relative merits of ‘Live And Let Die’ compared with, fucking, ‘You’re Sixteen You’re Beautiful And You’re Mine’, when bang, here he is again, cringeing up the place on telly, undermining all our good work, like a croaky old dear off an Age Concern fundraising ad.
So yeah, loving sir Paul McCartney is frustrating as hell, except when a tidy little archive gem resurfaces on the radar of public consciousness to remind everybody who the motherfucking king is.
Is 'Flaming Pie' (1997) Paul McCartney’s greatest masterpiece? No, of course it isn’t. His greatest masterpieces are towering cultural touchstones to rival the pyramids.
What you have here instead, in this handsome reissue, see, is a snapshot of 55-year-old Macca – the elder statesman, the wizened old artisan, humbly proffering a suite of songs that would easily sit at the apex of literally any other cunt’s career.
Opening number ’The Song We Were Singing’ says it all, really – a timeless fingerpicked McCartney waltz, all languid choppy rhythms and poetic imagery. It’s about John Lennon, I think, and weed – what’s not to like – over a bracingly unusual outing of what I will argue to my grave is a hip-hop-inspired flow.
Some context, for what it’s worth – in 1997 Sir Paul had just finished filming The Beatles Anthology, marinating in reminiscences of his Fab Four heyday. This set a lofty artistic bar, while in the background a dispiriting cancer diagnosis for his soon-to-be-deceased partner Linda lends an irresistible tragi-romantic poignancy to the slow numbers.
And the slow numbers are really where it’s at on this record – ‘Calico Skies’ and ‘Great Day’ especially wouldn’t sound at all out of place mid-White Album.
History’s foremost balladeer also smashes it out the park on light-touch lament 'Little Willow' – penned in tribute to Ringo’s ex-wife Maureen, who herself not long ago succumbed to leukaemia – and the achingly sad ‘Souvenir’.
“I go back so far / I’m in front of me” on 'The World Tonight' is probably the LP’s standout lyric. Here is a man bitterly conscious of his advancing years and declining relevance – two solid decades before James Corden took him for a spin and broke the internet. All the while, bashing out top-drawer melodies with a master-craftsman’s panache.
Sure, boomers are gonna boomer, and Paul boomers the fuck out the gaff here, especially on dumb cod-blues jam 'Used To Be Bad' and the execrable 'Really Love You', on which Ringo plays drums, apparently, woo.
But man alive, if you do nothing else today give the title track a spin and marvel at Sir Paul McCartney’s deftness of touch, his impish sense of glee, his preternatural knack for a toe-tapping pop hook.
Take heart, and hang in there, fellow McCartney truthers – soon enough he’ll kick the bucket and everyone will realise we’ve been right the whole time. Until then, enjoy this stellar mid-career effort; perfect for slipping on next time you're engaged in a vain struggle to convince some knobhead that Harrison actually sucked”.
I am going to round up with a review from AllMusic. Other McCartney albums have big anniversaries this year (Tug of War is forty on 26th April; I am going to cover that separately). Flaming Pie is a very important album in the Macca cannon:
“According to Paul McCartney, working on the Beatles Anthology project inspired him to record an album that was stripped-back, immediate, and fun, one less studied and produced than most of his recent work. In many ways, Flaming Pie fulfills those goals. A largely acoustic collection of simple songs, Flaming Pie is direct and unassuming, and at its best, it recalls the homely charm of McCartney and Ram. McCartney still has a tendency to wallow in trite sentiment, and his more ambitious numbers, like the string-drenched epic "Beautiful Night" or the silly Beatlesque psychedelia of "Flaming Pie," fall a little flat. But when he works on a small scale, as on the waltzing "The Song We Were Singing," "Calico Skies," "Great Day," and "Little Willow," he's gently affecting, and the moderately rocking pop of "The World Tonight" and "Young Boy" is more ingratiating than the pair of aimless bluesy jams with Steve Miller. Even with the filler, which should be expected on any McCartney album, Flaming Pie is one of his most successful latter-day efforts, mainly because McCartney is at his best when he doesn't try so hard and lets his effortless melodic gifts rise to the surface”.
Ahead of its twenty-fifth anniversary on 5th May, I wanted to use this feature to discuss and dissect an incredible album. It sounds as good and powerful now as it did back in 1997. If you are a McCartney fan, but have not listened back to Flaming Pie for a while, then I would definitely urge you to…
GIVE it another spin.