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Let the Party Begin.


My internal soundtrack for the past few days, thanks largely to ‘Take it Away: The Complete Paul McCartney Podcast’, is the lesser known 90s Macca b-side ‘Long Leather Coat’.

Songs like this are what makes delving into McCartney’s extensive back catalogue so rewarding. This track was the reverse to the first Macca single I bought contemporaneously: the less satisfying calypso-tinged ‘Hope of Deliverance’ (though I do like the guitar solo in it). While I’d been a Beatles fan for a few years by 1993 when the song came out - and went to see McCartney live for the first time in Earl’s Court that year - there hadn’t been anything new from him since 1989’s ‘Flowers in the Dirt’, which was just a little on the early side for me; eight-year-olds don't make up much of the record-buying public.

Perhaps typically of Paul’s work, a lot of the b-sides from the period are far better than his more mainstream releases, though I am rather fond of the album 'Off the Ground' from whose sessions these songs originated, maybe because it was the first Macca album I got when it came out (it was one of two CDs I was given along with my first CD player that Christmas; the other was Magical Mystery Tour). In the case of 'Off the Ground', there’s a whole album’s worth of songs that were relegated to b-sides and mere curios in the UK, though they made it onto a Japanese double-album pressing, called ‘Off the Ground: The Complete Works’ (forgive me if I’m boring you).

There are lots of great tracks on that second disc that are worth checking out - 'Keep Coming Back to Love', 'Big Boys Bickering' and 'Kicked Around No More' are good starting points - and there are a few gems on the main album too - 'C’mon People', 'The Lovers That Never Were' and 'Winedark Open Sea' to name three - but for some reason ‘Long Leather Coat’ has really caught my imagination lately, far more than when I first heard it all those years ago. It has a strong animal rights message and a solid McCartney vocal and is a convincing rocker for the time. I may even use it as a play-out for this year’s Edinburgh show unless something else comes up. At least then Paul might earn something from the PRS, as I'm sure he's got barely two pennies to rub together these days.
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