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   CLUB SANDWICH 82

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            YOUNG BOY Club Sandwich 82

            The emerging talent of young James McCartney as a guitarist has latterly been prompting son-to-father questions about "early days". Among the pieces remembered and re-played from the vinyl years has been 'My Dark Hour', a scorching rock number recorded by Steve Miller and (hiding under the pseudonymous surname Ramon) Paul McCartney back on 9 May 1969, immediately after a Beatles session for Abbey Road broke up in disarray after an Apple business squabble. Paul played drums, bass and sang the backing vocals while Miller did the rest, and the piece was finished inside the evening. Listening again with James to 'My Dark Hour' in 1994, Paul was prompted to contact Miller and suggest they resume the double-act after an interlude of some 25 years. So, together with his family, and engineer Geoff Emerick, he made the trip out to Miller's home studio in a snowbound Sun Valley, Idaho, in February 1995, as soon as the Beatles had completed their work on 'Real Love'. Remembering fondly what had transpired that night back in London, the two musicians set to work in a similar manner: Paul and Steve played guitar tracks, then Paul drummed and Steve wound up the lead guitar, Paul added bass and the lead vocal, and Steve contributed the harmonies.
            The song they were singing, 'Young Boy', was another one written by Paul under a self-imposed deadline, and in similar circumstances to 'Somedays' in that he took himself off to a quiet room while Linda concerned herself with cookery matters. The date was 18 August 1994 and the location this time was the Long Island home of-famous chef and culinary author Pierre Franey, for whom Linda was making a meal, watched too by New York Times food writer Bryan Miller and a photographer. While his wife prepared an assortment of vegetarian dishes Paul took himself off to the den, began strumming some favoured chords (C, A minor, E minor) and out popped 'Young Boy' (albeit, at this time, 'Poor Boy'), recalling not only his own earlier days but those of his son and his son's friends who find themselves at that age where Great Questions are asked of oneself.
            Paul re-emerged into the kitchen while Linda was baking a cake and played his new song to the audience of four, telling the Times writer "I do it [songwriting] very simply at first, just to get the feeling. It's just like cooking: a simple expression can be the best."

            CALICO SKIES

            While it wreaked havoc along the north-east US coastline and inland, the category-three storm Hurricane Bob that made landfall in August 1991 happily sparked the creation of 'Calico Skies'. The McCartneys were on vacation on Long Island when the power went down, and as they welcomed the return of the old pioneer spirit, spending candlelit evenings, cooking over a wood fire and making and receiving visits from neighbours, Paul sat with an acoustic guitar and penned what he's since described as "a love song that becomes a Sixties protest song, recorded in the vein of'Blackbird', without drums or an arrangement". Not entirely suitable, then, for the full-band Off The Ground album taped in 1992, Paul waited until those sessions were over and then invited George Martin to co-produce the piece, which - owing to its instrumental simplicity - was started, finished and mixed within a single session. The tape was then filed away for future use, making it the earliest recording on Flaming Pie.

            FLAMING PIE

            One of the many remarkable aspects for Paul when revisiting his earlier years for The Beatles Anthology was the problem of correlating differing memories of the same event. Perhaps the knottiest issue was the all-important "how did the Beatles acquire their name?". The crux of the matter was a short, witty article written by John Lennon for the launch issue of the Liverpool pop paper Mersey Beat, published in July 1961, in which he wrote "How did the name arrive? It came in a vision - a man appeared on a flaming pie and said unto them 'From this day on you are Beatles with an A'. Thank you, Mister Man, they said, thanking him." While some recognise this as characteristic Lennon whimsy - much like the prose that would later go into his best-selling books - there remained, during the making of the Anthology TV series, a fantastic private debate as to whether or not John really did receive a vision about a man appearing on a flaming pie.
            The dispute fascinated Paul, and one morning in February 1996, while out horse-riding, his musings about song lyrics caused him to recall the phrase "flaming pie". With what he now admits to being a "mischievous" gleam in his eye, he quickly wrote the entire set of verses and chorus, which fitted perfectly with some funky riffs he and Jeff Lynne had evolved days earlier while waiting to overdub guitars on to 'Souvenir'. With lyric and music fashioned, 'Flaming Pie' was recorded quickly - for, entirely appropriately, Paul suggested that the song be taped with the speed that the Beatles often worked, cutting three songs in a day. Setting themselves a four hour deadline, the track came together with relative ease, Paul singing live to his own piano accompaniment (something rarely done in these days of expansive multi-tracking) with Jeff Lynne on guitar, before adding drums and bass and then more guitars and harmony vocals.
            Months later, with his collection of songs complete, Paul dismissed Calico Skies, The Song We Were Singing and Souvenir as possibilities and, finding its comedic element coming nicely unto him, had the vision to title his new album Flaming Pie.