Despite its title suggesting a revival, ‘Egg’ sounded like a new wave album as original and atypical as any in 1979. At a time when 70s monsters The Who and Led Zeppelin were moving further away from the guitar music to the softer sound of the keyboard (neither band did much), so Wings also moved in a pop-oriented direction. With Laurence Juber and Steve Holley leading the charge, Wings put together a set that no one could have predicted would be Wings’ last.
And it shouldn’t have been the last, but because of the actions of two major incidents. The first, Paul McCartney’s arrest in January 1980 for smuggling eight ounces of marijuana into Japan, halted his first Japanese tour. The second, the murder of McCartney’s songwriting partner, John Lennon, caused McCartney and his wife Linda to elude the attention of the global fandom.
And so it is a wail from a late album, uninteresting and bland, sandwiched between more worthy peaks of the understated brilliance of ‘London Town’ and the eccentric and esoteric ‘McCartney II’. Too old for new wave, too safe for beatlelites, and simply too labor intensive for any interested buyer besides collectivists. He’s not the weakest in the Wings catalog (he has a moment or two, ‘Wild Life’ didn’t have one), but he’s definitely not a champion either.
Positivity has always been one of McCartney’s trademarks (he called one of his albums ‘New’, for crying out loud!), so let’s start with the positives. There are four: ‘Goodnight Tonight’, while a bit throwaway, has an incredible flamenco crescendo and one of McCartney’s most erratic and nervous bass lines (John Lennon, who didn’t like the song, loved the bass). Denny Laine, ‘Again and Again and Again’ was one of his best Wings ballads, second only to ‘Deliver Your Children’. ‘Arrow Through Me’ immerses the listener in R&B style. ‘Daytime Nighttime Suffering’, released as the spin on ‘Goodnight Tonight’, had lyrical earnestness above the seasoned pop keyboard riff, one of McCartney’s strongest post-Beatles songs, an early example of hit placement proto-feminist (much better than Lennon’s disappointing ‘Woman Is The ****** of The World’). That said, the fact that one of the positives found on this record was not initially released on the record is an indicator of the weak material found here.
Seventies rock extravaganza ‘Rockestra’ played more like a who’s who of rock than a good track, white dust seeping through the track. With Pete Townshend, David Gilmour, Kenney Jones, Gary Brooker and Zeppelin duo John Paul Jones and John Bonham amidst the chaos (Keith Moon was scheduled to play on the record but died weeks before recording), it turned out to be one of the the best of rock indulgences and one of punk rock’s greatest justifications. ‘Old Siam, Sir’ was offensive even for 1979. ‘Spin It On’ had a catchy title but nothing more (no doubt any listener would spin it back a second time!) ‘Reception’, ‘The Broadcast’ and ‘We ‘re Open Tonight’ (each less than a minute and a half long) turned out to be a bit of an attempt to appear artistic. The closing song ‘Baby’s Request’ sounded as stupid as anything any late 70’s radio station played.
And with that, McCartney’s second band came to an end, returning to work on his first true solo record in ten years. If Wings taught McCartney anything, it was that he was best when working alone (it’s telling that ‘Band On The Run’ and ‘London Town’ remain his best records, both recorded when boiled down to the nude trio of Paul, Linda and Denny). ). And with that, McCartney set to work on a triple collection of killer albums (the criminally overlooked ‘McCartney II,’ the pop genius of ‘Tug of War,’ the ’80s Beatle zenith, ‘Pipes of Peace’), his days as a gang leader behind him.