Latest posts by Nancy Carr (see all)
- Hey Dullblog Online Housekeeping Note - May 6, 2022
- Beatles in the 1970s: Melting and Crying - April 13, 2022
- The Beatles, “Let It Be,” and “Get Back”: “Trying to Deceive”? - October 22, 2021
It was 50 years ago today that Paul and Linda McCartney released Ram, an album that’s become more popular over the decades. I’ve talked at length about my love for the album here, and have often recommended this Jayson Greene Pitchfork review of the album’s 2012 reissue.
Perhaps because Ram was created at a time in Paul McCartney’s life when he had to figure out how to pick up and keep going when everything was falling apart, my affection for the album has increased over the past year and a half. In this second decade of the 21st century, we’re all trying to “ram on” in our individual ways, I think.
Related posts:
Happy birthday, Paul! (with a few notes on style)
Ram’s Resurgence
Ram On!
Review: RAM (Paul McCartney Archive Collection)
Happy Birthday John Lennon, Whoever You Are
Happy Birthday Paul McCartney, Friend of the Jews
Imagine Beatles chocolates
Happy birthday, Ringo!
Happy Birthday John Lennon, wherever you are!
Re-slamming "Ram"
Happy 65th birthday to Beatle Ted…I think?
That was your first mistake
The critics may have hated it, but lots of other people, especially in America, seem to have enjoyed it at the time — big album sales, US #1 in “Uncle Albert”…
So… is there anyone on here who bought “Ram” in 1971 and would like to share their memories of how it affected them at the time? (If so – thanks in advance.)
And on a vaguely related topic in that “Flowers In the Dirt” was my first contemporaneous Paul music purchase, does anyone know why there isn’t a single song from that LP on the fairly recent “Pure McCartney” comp? I mean, I’ve never felt that “FItD” is an brain-meltingly marvellous achievement, but… not even “This One” or “My Brave Face”? Was that because there was an archive collection “update” due out the year after?
I bought “Ram” when it was first released and really liked it. I loved hearing it with headphones. So many little sonic details, harmonies, stereo effects, etc. to enjoy.
I remember the bad reviews, and it wasn’t considered as “cool” as McCartney’s first solo album. Brian Wilson spoke highly of it, though.
Something about the overall sound that appealed to me. It wasn’t the Spector overproduction. Instead the sound was drier and closer, if that makes any sense.
That is a great review– thank you! And the album continues to grow on me, also. I got into it later, but realized upon first listen that I’d heard a lot of the songs before.
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It become pandemic-fun to watch reaction videos and there’s at least one really good one I’ve watched for the entirety of Ram: videos where younger people get patrons who pay them to watch/listen and react to music. There’s an entire reaction-video industry.
I often wonder: what would Paul McCartney’s solo career have sounded like had this record been praised to the heavens and not completely panned? Completely different, probably.
@Ben S – Good point. I think the criticism of this album really knocked Paul’s confidence and made him doubt himself – as it was intended to do.
Would Wings have happened if Ram had been critically acclaimed? Probably not, as critical acclaim would have been more or at least as important to him as commercial success.
I recently listened to an interview with Eirik the Norwegian, the mixing engineer who was heavily involved in the making of Ram, and he says during the sessions Paul was already talking about putting a band together and going on the road. So I think some version of Wings was inevitable. It is an intriguing question though.
The full interview is on the One Sweet Dream podcast, it’s a great listen. He’s very charming and it even had some new (to me!) details!
The guys on the Take It Away podcast posited that it would have all sounded more like The Fireman / Electric Arguments, which I can certainly see. To me the criticism of Ram was the moment Paul started trusting fans’ opinion of his work more than critics’, and that’s why he had to keep his commercial flag so high – just to judge how he was doing, all through the ’70s and ’80s. Had the homespun wackiness of Ram been viewed as a post-Beatles artistic statement like All Things Must Pass, I think he’d have made a lot of weirder music in the ’70s. Though it was all still pretty damn weird.
“Paul’s weird shit”
Reception
Backwards Traveller
Cuff Link
Bridge On the River Suite
Picasso’s Last Words (Drink to Me)
Kreen-Akrore
Fluid
Strawberries, Oceans, Ships, Forest
Lunch Box/Odd Sox
3 Legs
Seaside Woman
Hot As Sun/Glasses
Baby’s Request
Let ‘Em In
Check My Machine
C Moon
We All Stand Together
Give Ireland Back to the Irish (Version)
Loup (1st Indian On the Moon)
The Broadcast
Ram On
Bip Bop
Hey Diddle
Darkroom
Pretty Little Head
Secret Friend
Morse Moose and the Grey Goose
Cosmically Conscious
Rinse the Raindrops (the last 4:20)
Here’s the cover:
https://i.redd.it/qfn3fle37s251.jpg
(sorry for the reddit link)
Thanks for sharing this, Velvet Hand! I’d add:
* “Bogey Music”
* Liverpool Sound Collage (collaboration with Super Furry Animals)
* “Darkroom”
* “Mr. H Atom” “You Know I’ll Get You”
* “All You Horse Riders” / “Blue Sway”
Those last two mashups appear as bonuses on the McCartney II reissue. In certain moods I would put the Red Rose Speedway medley (“Hold Me Tight” / “Lazy Dynamite” etc.) on this list as well.
It’s interesting to me that McCartney clearly likes stitching song snippets together. He’s like a musical quilter in that way.
Ooh yes… that McCartney II extra deluxe thingy is insane. It’s got a 9-minute version of “Check My Machine” too!
One of many lovely things about the RRS medley is how at the end, “Power Cut” reprises all the songs that have come before (a potpourri inside a collage?).
The quilting you mention is there, I feel, from “All My Loving”, when the guitar solo goes off into an almost totally different song, or the start of “Here, There and Everywhere” which does not reappear, same as the 3/4 bit that opens “I’ve Just Seen a Face”… John did that too, but perhaps not so much as Paul’s influence on him waned.
Yes, it’s as if excess melody just sprouts out of some of McCartney’s songs. I unabashedly love the RRS medley, especially the xylophone interlude. Unexpected and very catchy.
He also has some interesting unreleased instrumentals, like “Squid” and “Christian Pop.” No idea what either of those titles has to do with the songs— more weirdness.
Oh, and “Spirits of Ancient Egypt” is also deeply weird.
I remember after my 100th listen to my Ram album, and the “who’s that comin’ round that corner, who’s that comin’ round that bend” ending being imprinted into my brain.
And how satisfying it was a few years later, hearing Big Barn Bed on Red Rose Speedway… I was all “Ahh! He finished the song!”
I remember listening to RRS with headphones the summer of 1973. I always liked Big Barn Bed.
I just discovered that on the original Ram album cover, the colourful zig zag border was designed by McCartney himself. Embedded among the zig zags is the acronym L.I.L.Y. Yes, a secret message.
It turns out that L.I.L.Y. stands for Linda I Love You. Pretty gosh-darn romantic.
To Ram fans out there, is (was) this common knowledge? In 1971, did fans notice the L.I.L.Y. and were they trying to figure it out?
https://www.udiscovermusic.com/stories/paul-mccartney-album-covers-explained/?amp