Sunday Music – Little Lamb Dragonfly – The Paul McCartney Series (Part 7)

Today’s music video is ‘Little Lamb Dragonfly’ from Wings.

This video was posted to You Tube by cosmicrider287

Wings as a band formed in 1971 and released their first album, which was a bit of a flop. The band added a dedicated guitarist, Henry McCullough in 1972, and released three singles that sold well, even though two of them were banned from airplay. Then they came out with this amazing album, ‘Red Rose Speedway’ and this album saw the beginning of a golden period for the band.

I’ve selected three songs to feature today, all of them from this album.

The album was originally slated to be a double, as Paul was hoping to include some songs he had recorded earlier but not included on any other album. As it was, the album was released as only a single record album.

One of the songs from that album was lifted as a Single, and radio picked up on it, turning it into quite a huge hit for the band, virtually cementing the band Wings in the higher reaches of rock, while prior to this they were probably better known as Paul McCartney’s backing band.

I heard the song on the radio, and having a liking for the three singles the band had already produced, and also for McCartney’s work since leaving The Beatles, I got hold of the album for my now growing collection.

As is mostly always the case, there are other songs on the album that you end up liking better than the one selected as a Single for the radio, and this was the case here. The more I played the album, the more I liked it, and liked every song on that album.

Paul had already been experimenting with ‘blended’ songs, as in ‘Uncle Albert’, and the song featured at the top of this Post, ‘Little Lamb Dargonfly’ is one of those blended songs. It’s done so cleverly that the listener hardly even realises this is really two songs cleverly joined together.

This was one of those songs Paul had recorded earlier, in fact for the sessions in the US that gave us the ‘Ram’ album. Even though Henry McCullough was now the established guitarist for the band, lead guitar for this song is credited to Hugh McCracken. It became my favourite song from this album, but all of them were just so good.

This next song featured here today is the huge smash hit released as the Single from the album, ‘My Love’.

This video was posted to You Tube by gferdinandus6

This song was a Top Five hit in the UK, and the same here in Australia. However, in the U.S. it was a huge Number One hit on the main chart as well as on the Adult Contemporary Chart. It features what has been called one of the best guitar solos in modern Rock, and it’s just so simple, and also relatively short. Paul had most of the input when it came to composition of the music, and he already had a guitar solo worked out for the song. Henry came up during the sessions and asked Paul what he thought of the solo he’d done himself. Paul absolutely loved it, and rightly so as it has gone into rock folklore now. In this clip you see Henry doing his solo on a Gold Top Gibson Les Paul Custom.

While other songs on the album were recorded in the studio, this song was recorded as a live version with the backing of a full orchestra.

This third song highlights the versatility of McCartney as it sounds like such a simple little song. It’s quite catchy and sort of sneaks up on you over time until you find yourself almost humming it yourself.

This video was posted to You Tube by yourtwistedable

For the last track on the album, Paul again does a longer version of a blended song, this one a medley of four songs that all seem to blend together so well that you hardly even realise it is four songs in the one nearly 12 minute set.

The album packaging itself was a fine piece of artwork all on its own with a 12 page booklet stapled inside the fold out cover. The cover art work was shot by Linda McCartney and is one of the iconic album covers from rock music, and in fact designed by Eduardo Paolozzi, famed Scottish sculptor and artist, and probably one of the first artists to use the style described as Pop Art. Oddly, on the back of the album cover is a series of raised bumps. This was a braille message for Stevie Wonder, which says “We love ya baby”.

This was one of the wonderful albums of the era, and as I mentioned, made Wings into a household name, only strengthened by what came next.

WingsTFO

Tagged: Music, Music Video, Paul McCartney, Red Rose Speedway, Wings

Posted in: Music, Videos