jeff_wilder78's Full Review: Flaming Pie by Paul McCartney
In his "Book Of Bad Songs" humorist Dave Barry posed a very prominent question: what happened to Paul McCartney. The man was a Beatle who wrote some of the greatest music of all-time and then when he went solo proceeded to write some of the most generic schlock the world has ever seen. His songwriting talent never really left him. But he managed to crank out far too many "Silly Love Songs" that didn't show off that talent. There were flashes of brilliance through both his tenure with Wings and his solo work in the 1980s. Yet it seemed that without Lennon to keep his Schmaltz excesses in check, Paul was doomed to repeat "Ebony And Ivory" 5000 times.
Until 1997 and the release of the Flaming Pie album. According to the album's liner notes, the Beatles Anthology project left him in a reflective state of mind and made him want to go back to making music the way the Beatles did. That apparently also meant going back to making music that was of or near to Beatles quality, since Flaming Pie is easily the best album he had done in a long time. Definitely his best since Band On The Run and maybe his best since the Beatles.
"The World Tonight" (the second track on Flaming Pie) may in fact be the best song Paul has offered since the demise of the Beatles. Driven by an electric guitar riff that recalls the one on "Get Back", the song is Paul's letter of advice to a young up-and-comer in the music business: "I saw you sitting in the center of a circle/Everybody/Everybody wanted something from you...I don't care what you wanna be/I go back so far I'm in front of me...I can see the world tonight/Look into the future/See it in a different light".
Another one that harkens back to his Beatles days is the title track. Over a boogie woogie piano beat similar to the one he used on "Lady Madonna", McCartney waxes lyrical about those days especially in reference to a story Lennon used to tell about how the Beatles got their name ("A man appeared on a Flaming pie and said 'from now on you are Beatles with an A'").
Also good are two jams with Steve Miller (of "The Joker" fame) "If You Wanna" and "Used To Be Bad". The former sounds like something from an 80s Dire Straits album, while the latter is a bluesy boogie. These songs prove McCartney can still rock out when the mood strikes him and he would prove that even further on his next album: the 1999 50s rock and roll throwback Run Devil Run.
Another good one is the up-tempo pop number "Really Love You" which recalls "Coming Up" and features McCartney singing in a growling tone, similar to the one he used the Beatles "I'm Down". Ringo Starr makes one of two appearances handling the drumming.
For those who can't imagine a McCartney album without ballads, never fear. There are plenty of those on here too. The best of them are the romantic "Calico Skies" and the philosophical "Somedays". Also great is "Beautiful Night", which again features Ringo on drums. What gives this song an edge is the tone of uncertainty yet optimism that McCartney conveys through it. "Make it a beautiful night" he asks and he's not doing that for schmaltz, he's doing that because we all need a beautiful night.
On "The Song We Were Singing" Paul doesn't reminisce. He talks about reminiscing over a string backing. "We always came back to the song we were singing,” he sings, in a way making peace with his image as a Beatle.
Unfortunately, Paul couldn't completely get the schmaltz out of his system and so there's some of that here. "Young Boy" for instance, has Paul attempting to re-write Lennon's "Beautiful Boy" and not succeeding. "Heaven On A Sunday" and "Souvenir" also suffer from this. On the other hand, we also have the poetic "Little Willow" and the short album closer "Great Day" which is just the right length.
Flaming Pie is highly recommended to Beatles fans and McCartney fans as well as those who just happen to like good pop music. Let's hope Paul makes more albums like this one and Run Devil Run instead of schlock like Pipes Of Peace. For most of his solo career, Paul seemed content to be merely okay. Here he shows he can still be great if he has the motivation.
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