We here in the Halls of Rock Town are sometimes taken to task for being overly negative, snarky, hyper-critical, and all too often, just downright rude. As part of our collective efforts to bring a bit of sunshine and light to the world wide web, we occasionally make an extra effort effort to find something good to say about, you know, stuff that is clearly godawful. To some people.
It is in that spirit that we embark on yet another effort to bring some positivity to our proceedings. Please spend some quality time with music written by the band above, then—if you can—please find something nice to say about them. You’ll feel a whole lot better, I promise you.
I look forward to your comments. Just remember, if you can’t say anything nice about this “Arrow Through Me” video…please don’t say anything at all.
I’ve always been intrigued by this era where Paul has his most normal looking haircut
I hadn’t realised there were so many twins in the band*.
They all look very presentable, especially Linda. She was often spotted in the charity shops in Rye, near where they lived, (and Paul still does), not far from where I grew up and by all accounts from people I know was always friendly and approachable. Unfortunately I never met her myself.
She looks very thoughtful in the video, perhaps the song was inspiring her to invent a new recipe? Possibly she was trying to remember if she’d put the cat out. Sadly, we’ll never know.
I was previously unfamiliar with the song. Since it was quite short, it didn’t have long to make an impact, negative or otherwise, and hardly outstayed its welcome.
* I wonder if this was a Macca joke as he’s a Gemini, and the only one not doubled up in the video?
I love this song unapologetically. Every part of it is hooky and it neatly balances blue-eyed soul and disco. Hadn’t seen this video before, looks like Lawrence Juber playing the role of Steve Holly on drums. A few years back I channel surfed onto the end of a Brady Bunch reunion show, and there was Juber’s name on credits. which lead to me learning that he is married to the daughter of the show’s creator, Sherwood Schwartz. If you were looking for a Macca connection to the Brady Bunch, there you go.
Cherguerva, we reach! This is such a great Macca smooth R&B jam. If only Bryan Ferry had covered it around the same time.
I believe Back to the Egg is one of those albums where they made videos of most or all of the songs, even the non-singles. Other albums in this genre include Blondie’s Eat to the Beat, Sonic Youth’s Goo, and Beyonce’s B’Day.
I loved Paul McCartney and Wings very very very nearly as much as I loved the Beatles in the mid-to-late 70s. (Hey, I was like 9, okay?) And yet even I had to admit London Town was something of a dog. Sure, “With a Little Luck” is a perfect pop confectionary—I stand by that unreservedly—but most of the rest of the album veers between okay and utterly disposable.
And that was pretty much it for me and my love of Wings. Oh, I still had a fondness for them, albeit a slightly embarrassed fondness, but after that I was all Beatles all the way. (I mean, obviously not really: shortly after that I fell big-time for Bruce Springsteen before becoming a hardcore David Bowie fan. And then REM and the Replacements and so on and so forth.)
So despite loving “Coming Up,” and even liking the Rockestra theme, I somehow missed “Arrow” entirely. I vaguely recall hearing about it over the years, but it was some time this decade, I think, when I saw it on a list of Macca’s all-time greatest and thought, really? I should check that out. And thanks to the magic of YouTube, you can do that now! Unlike the 70s, when you’d have to buy it or have a friend who had it.
And damn does it sound nothing like I’d expected, or just the title would lead you to believe. And it is absolutely fantastic. It is Paul at his most Paulest and from my POV that is very nearly nothing but a good thing. (Generally.)
Paul could’ve been a great John Oates foil for Darryl Hall’s ethereal tenor.
I like the fact that as wealthy as he is, he’s still singing through a humble Sure SM 58, the People’s Mic ™. It indicates a certain humility and unpretentiousness.
It’s really cool how he took all the best ideas Gary Wright had about making a band with all keyboard players and threw them out the window. It’s like he cut right to the heart of what makes Dream Weaver what it is, without any of the bullshit.
The “horns” section references Stevie Wonder’s Sir Duke. What a lovely homage.
It should come as no surprise that I’m all for this as a song, too. I am a staunch Back To The Egg partisan all the way through. Definitely Paul just effortlessly doing some H&O blue-eyed soul with just enough weird touches to still be a Paul song of the era. And now I really want to hear what Ferry would have done with this, too. Definitely different percussion on it if he does it in the late ’70s (maybe with a few of his Benny Hill Singers in the background); more modern Ferry would go hard on this with a megaphone crooner approach and it’d still work.
Paul and Linda appear to be wearing matching suits, proving that Paul was once again far ahead of the curve by anticipating the matching suit moves from Rain Man.
So let’s talk about that hear, yeah. Definitely Paul’s first Regular Guy haircut since Germany. I was wondering if the timing worked out so maybe he’d cut his Space Mullet after getting out of jail in Japan, but this actually pre-dates that slightly, so he went into jail like this. Now I feel compelled to track how long it lasted.
Hello! I just found this website – so that’s Thursday sorted. Anyway – what I especially like about Paul during this phase (and indeed probably still today on occasions) is that he is unhindered by needing to be ‘great’ because he got that out the way early on with the Beatles – so even though sometimes he gets all anxty and tries to come up with something great and ‘classic’ – for most of his post Beatles work he’s quite happy to noodle about and just enjoy himself. I didn’t know the track above – but it sounds and looks like a band just enjoying themselves. If that wasn’t enough I check it out on Wikipedia and I quote “The song was used with the opening credits of… the 1980 movie Oh! Heavenly Dog, starring Chevy Chase, Jane Seymour and Benji.” So, ladies and gentleman – let’s hear it for the theme tune from Oh Heavenly Dog. Fun website by the way – as Ringo would say ‘peace and love, peace and love… no autographs’.
foamhuman, welcome aboard the Pandemic Relief Revival of our rickety old blog! Make yourself at home. You’ll occasionally see some knives come out, but they are usually in jest. What I’ve always liked most about this place are the times when people express their opinions on some trivial music issue, then let out something interesting about their experiences with and through music.
OK, enough of my meta talk. Dig in!
Sorry, I can’t stop looking at Paul’s partially upturned jacket collar. WARDROBE!