Wild Life (Wings album)

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Wild Life
Studio album by Wings
Released 7 December 1971 (UK)
8 December 1971 (US)
Recorded August 1971
Genre Rock
Length 39:39
Label Apple, EMI
Producer Paul McCartney, Linda McCartney
Wings chronology
Wild Life
(1971)		 Red Rose Speedway
(1973)

Wild Life is the debut album by Wings. Paul and Linda McCartney had worked with drummer Denny Seiwell on their prior album, Ram, and they added Denny Laine, the former leader of the Moody Blues, to that trio to become Wings.

Contents

[edit] Recording

With a fresh set of McCartney/McCartney tunes, in August 1971 the newly formed Wings recorded their debut in slightly more than a week, with the mindset that it had to be instant and raw in order to capture the freshness and vitality of a live studio recording. Five of the eight songs were recorded in one take. Paul McCartney would later cite the quick recording schedule of Bob Dylan as an inspiration for this.[1]

The album was rehearsed at McCartney's recording studio in Scotland dubbed Rude Studio, which Paul and Linda had used to make demos of songs that would be used in albums from Wild Life to Driving Rain, and recorded at Abbey Road Studios with Tony Clarke engineering. Paul can be heard saying "Take it, Tony" at the beginning of "Mumbo".

On the promotional album, "The Complete Audio Guide To The Alan Parsons Project", Alan Parsons discusses how he did a rough mix of "I Am Your Singer" that Paul liked so much, he used it for the final mix on the album. Paul can be seen at Rude Studio in the 2001 documentary 'Wingspan'.

Paul handled all of the lead vocals, sharing those duties with Linda on "I Am Your Singer" and "Some People Never Know".

[edit] Release and reception

Professional ratings
Review scores
Source Rating
Allmusic 2.5/5 stars [2]
Robert Christgau C−
MusicHound 2.5/5 stars[3]

After a party announcing the band's formation in November 1971, Wild Life was released on 7 December to lukewarm critical and commercial reaction.

John Mendelsohn wrote in Rolling Stone that he wondered whether the album may have been "deliberately second-rate."[4] In The Beatles: An Illustrated Record, Roy Carr and Tony Tyler called the album "rushed, defensive, badly timed, and over-publicized" and wrote that it showed McCartney's songwriting "at an absolute nadir just when he needed a little respect."[5]

The album reached #11 in the UK and #10 in the US, where it went gold.

[edit] Songs

One notable song, "Dear Friend", recorded during the Ram sessions, was apparently an attempt at reconciliation with John Lennon. It was certainly a timely follow-up to John's attack on Paul in the song "How Do You Sleep?" from the album Imagine, which had apparently been in retaliation for Paul's digs at John in "Too Many People" on Ram. Music critic Ian MacDonald used "Dear Friend" as a counter-argument to the caricature of McCartney as an emotional lightweight.[6]

Wild Life also included a reggae remake of Mickey & Sylvia's 1957 Top 40 hit "Love is Strange" in acknowledgment of Linda's love for reggae music and Jamaica.

[edit] Liner notes

The liner notes for Wild Life (and on the Thrillington album) were credited to Clint Harrigan, but in 1990 McCartney admitted that he was Harrigan to journalist Peter Palmiere.[citation needed] Lennon claimed to know the identity of Harrigan during their Melody Maker feud in 1972.[citation needed]

[edit] Re-releases

In addition to naming the previously hidden tracks, the original CD version added "Oh Woman, Oh Why" (the B-side of "Another Day"), "Mary Had a Little Lamb", and "Little Woman Love".

In 1993, Wild Life was remastered and reissued on CD as part of "The Paul McCartney Collection" series with singles "Give Ireland Back to the Irish" and "Mary Had a Little Lamb" as well as B-sides "Little Woman Love" and "Mama's Little Girl" — all recorded in 1972 except for "Little Woman Love", which was a Ram outtake — as bonus tracks, and also two hidden tracks: "Bip Bop Link" (an acoustic guitar piece) between "I Am Your Singer" and "Tomorrow"; and "Mumbo Link" (an instrumental jam) after "Dear Friend".

A version recorded in the garden of Paul's Scotland home circa June 1971 of the bluegrass-styled "Bip Bop" featured Paul and Linda's daughter Mary giggling in the background, and segued into a riff called "Hey Diddle". This surfaced in 2001 on the compilation Wingspan: Hits and History.

[edit] Track listing

All tracks written by Paul and Linda McCartney, except where noted.

Side One

  1. "Mumbo" – 3:54
  2. "Bip Bop" – 4:14
  3. "Love Is Strange" (Mickey Baker, Ethel Smith) – 4:50
  4. "Wild Life" – 6:48

Side Two

  1. "Some People Never Know" – 6:35
  2. "I Am Your Singer" – 2:15
  3. "Tomorrow" – 3:28
  4. "Dear Friend" – 5:53

[edit] 1993 Remaster Track List

  1. "Mumbo" – 3:54
  2. "Bip Bop" – 4:14
  3. "Love Is Strange" (Mickey Baker, Ethel Smith) – 4:50
  4. "Wild Life" – 6:48
  5. "Some People Never Know" – 6:35
  6. "I Am Your Singer" – 2:15
  7. "Bip Bop Link" - 0:52
  8. "Tomorrow" – 3:28
  9. "Dear Friend" – 5:53
  10. "Mumbo Link" - 0:45
  11. "Give Ireland Back to the Irish" – 3:46
    • Wings' debut single; eventually banned by the BBC for political reasons.
  12. "Mary Had a Little Lamb" – 3:34
    • Wings' second single; like "Give Ireland Back to the Irish", this was never released on an album until "The Paul McCartney Collection" was released.
  13. "Little Woman Love" – 2:11
    • B-side to "Mary Had a Little Lamb".
  14. "Mama's Little Girl" (Paul McCartney) – 3:41

[edit] Personnel

[edit] Charts

[edit] Chart positions

Chart (1971/72) Position
Australian Kent Music Report Chart[7] 3
Canadian RPM Albums Chart[8] 5
Dutch Mega Albums Chart[9] 6
Italian Albums Chart[10] 25
Japanese Oricon LP Chart[11] 15
Norwegian VG-lista Albums Chart[12] 4
UK Albums Chart [13] 11
U.S. Billboard 200 [14] 10
West German Media Control Albums Chart [15] 47

[edit] Year-end charts

Chart (1972) Position
Australian Albums Chart[7] 24
Italian Albums Chart[10] 98

[edit] Certifications and sales

Region Certification Sales/shipments
Canada (Music Canada)[16] Gold 50,000^
United States (RIAA)[17] Gold 1,000,000^

*sales figures based on certification alone
^shipments figures based on certification alone
xunspecified figures based on certification alone

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Garbarini, Vic (1980). The McCartney Interview [interview LP], Columbia Records.
  2. ^ Wild Life (Wings album) at Allmusic
  3. ^ Gary Graff & Daniel Durcholz, MusicHound Rock: The Essential Album Guide, Visible Ink Press (Farmington Hills, MI, 1999), p. 730.
  4. ^ Mendelsohn, John (20 January 1972). Album review, Rolling Stone.
  5. ^ Carr, Roy, and Tyler, Tony. The Beatles: An Illustrated Record. New York: Harmony Books, a subsidiary of Crown Publishing Group, 1975. ISBN 0-517-52045-1.
  6. ^ MacDonald, Ian (2005). Revolution in the Head: The Beatles' Records and the Sixties (Second Revised ed.). London: Pimlico (Rand). p. 128. ISBN 1-844-13828-3. 
  7. ^ a b Kent, David (1993). Australian Chart Book 1970–1992. St Ives, NSW: Australian Chart Book. ISBN 0646119176. 
  8. ^ "Top Albums/CDs - Volume 16, No. 24, January 29, 1972". RPM. http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/rpm/028020-119.01-e.php?&file_num=nlc008388.5338&type=1&interval=20&PHPSESSID=c6btf3r8hs459qqt5ln3o3dcv5. Retrieved 2011-09-30. 
  9. ^ "dutchcharts.nl Wings - Wild Life" (in Dutch). dutchcharts.nl. MegaCharts. http://dutchcharts.nl/showitem.asp?interpret=Wings&titel=Wild+Life&cat=a. Retrieved 2011-09-12. 
  10. ^ a b "Hit Parade Italia - Gli album più venduti del 1972" (in Italian). hitparadeitalia.it. http://www.hitparadeitalia.it/hp_yenda/lpe1972.htm. Retrieved 2011-10-03. 
  11. ^ a-ビートルズ "- Yamachan Land (Archives of the Japanese record charts) - Albums Chart Daijiten - The Beatles" (in Japanese). 2007-12-30. http://www7a.biglobe.ne.jp/~yamag/album/al_beatles.html a-ビートルズ. Retrieved 2011-09-14. 
  12. ^ "norwegiancharts.com Wings - Wild Life". http://norwegiancharts.com/showitem.asp?interpret=Wings&titel=Wild+Life&cat=a. Retrieved 2011-09-12. 
  13. ^ "Chart Stats - Wings - Wildlife". UK Albums Chart. http://www.chartstats.com/release.php?release=37274. Retrieved 2011-09-12. 
  14. ^ "allmusic ((( Wild Life > Charts & Awards > Billboard Albums )))". allmusic.com. http://www.allmusic.com/album/r44374/charts-awards. Retrieved 2011-09-14. 
  15. ^ "Album Search: Wings" (in German). Media Control. http://www.charts.de/search.asp?search=wings&x=0&y=0&cat=a&country=de. Retrieved 2011-09-12. 
  16. ^ "Canadian album certifications – Wings – Wild Life". Music Canada. http://www.musiccanada.com/GPSearchResult.aspx?st=Wild+Life&sa=Wings&smt=0. 
  17. ^ "American album certifications – Wings – Wild Life". Recording Industry Association of America. http://www.riaa.com/goldandplatinumdata.php?artist=%22Wild+Life%22.  If necessary, click Advanced, then click Format, then select Album, then click SEARCH
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