a new wings compilation!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

'WINGS is the ultimate anthology of the band that defined the sound of the 1970s. Personally overseen by Paul, WINGS is available in an impressive array of beautifully designed formats -- all including the timeless international hits 'Band on the Run', 'Live and Let Die', 'Jet' and 'Let 'Em In' -- songs that still feature in Paul’s live shows to this day.' So said an email I received a couple of days ago from the Wings Fun Club. 

I just don't know why - since there are obviously great things in the vaults - the Wings repackaging is so constantly just (almost completely) stuff that's been released before, and the canon generally concentrates heavily on the very commercially successful mid-period of Band on the Run - Venus and Mars - Speed of Sound. I mean of course I do know why but I don't like it. So, this new collection does cover a few, well, I suppose deep cuts though that's a weird phrase to use for records which have been heard by millions if not billions. Still, some brave moves. 

I mean, I wouldn't buy any iteration of this new collection* because I've got it all anyway, but here's the tracklisting of the 3LP-2CD collection, I guess PMcC's idea of what constitutes the 'best' of Wings. I've bolded the songs I also think fit this category:

Band on the Run (2010 Remaster) ⁠Hi, Hi, Hi (2018 Remaster)  ⁠Silly Love Songs (2014 Remaster) ⁠Letting Go (2014 Remaster)  ⁠Nineteen Hundred and Eighty Five (2010 Remaster)     Live and Let Die (2018 Remaster)  ⁠Mamunia (2010 Remaster)  ⁠Junior’s Farm (2014 Remaster)  ⁠Helen Wheels (2022 Remaster)  ⁠Some People Never Know (2018 Remaster)   Let ’Em In (2014 Remaster)  ⁠Get on the Right Thing (2018 Remaster)  ⁠Jet (2010 Remaster)  ⁠My Love (2018 Remaster)  ⁠Call Me Back Again (2014 Remaster)   Getting Closer (2022 Remaster)  ⁠Listen to What the Man Said (2014 Remaster) ⁠I’ve Had Enough (2022 Remaster)  ⁠Love Is Strange (2018 Remaster)  ⁠London Town (2022 Remaster)  ⁠Arrow Through Me (2016 Remaster)  Venus and Mars/Rock Show (2022 Remaster)  ⁠She’s My Baby (2014 Remaster)  ⁠Bluebird (2010 Remaster)  ⁠Deliver Your Children (2022 Remaster)  ⁠Let Me Roll It (2010 Remaster)  ⁠Mull of Kintyre (2016 Remaster)   Wild Life (2018 Remaster)  ⁠C Moon (2018 Remaster)  ⁠With a Little Luck (2018 Remaster)  ⁠Soily (One Hand Clapping Sessions) ⁠Goodnight Tonight (2016 Remaster) 

So, we do agree on quite a few (12) tracks, but where we disagree, we really disagree. 'Soily'?! 'She's My Baby'?!!! 'MAMUNIA'!!!??? Puh-leese. What it looks like to me is that he has tried hard to bring in something from every era, to help us understand the spread, mass and consistency of the ten years of Wings ('71-'81). But I don't think he knows what was good. 

This is my alternative best of wings which I shared only with Laura but I suppose in a manner of speaking I'm sharing it with you too now, and you could easily recreate it if you wanted to, and you could put Red Hot Chili Peppers' 'Under the Bridge' slap bang in the middle of it too if you felt like it. 

So it starts with a lie: 'Message to Joe' is not anywhere near a best thing of Wings or even a good anything, though it's entirely fine I suppose mainly because it's over in a split second. I just thought it was a good way to start. 

'Oriental Nightfish' is Linda-Paul-Denny Wings, doing a Linda composition, and I can totally imagine Paul and Linda being like 'people are already saying Linda shouldn't be in a band with men, what would they say if an actual Linda McCartney composition got on a Wings record', but it's so much better than so much stuff that did come out under Wings' name, and I don't just mean 'Mary Had a Little Lamb' etc. 'Some People Never Know' is masterful and, yes, deserves to be on the real best of collection (the 3-LP version at least, I haven't looked at the one-LP version but I assume that's just things you'll hear on classic rock radio every day of the year). 

I have already whinged everywhere I could about how much I love 'Must Do Something About It'. This is the official Joe English version, not the Paul singing version which appears on the CD/extended Speed of Sound, but to be honest they're pretty similar, but I think any variety in voices is good. 'Getting Closer' and 'Silly Love Songs' are no-brainers. 'When the Wind is Blowing' is, like 'Rode All Night' from the Ram outtakes, one of those songs where you're like... (some of) PMcC's throwaways are things other people could have based whole careers on! I'm not saying anything new or exciting here, but I'm saying it anyway. 

At this point in my life I can do without anything from Red Rose Speedway, an album which apart from anything else irritates me because I always have to stop myself calling it Red Rose Speedwagon. But 'I Would Only Smile' and 'Tragedy' are two songs which would really have lifted the whole of that LP a hell of a lot. They were both on the originally conceived double album version, which PMcC was forced to distill to a single LP and still no-one liked it (this isn't true). 'I Would Only Smile' is a Denny Laine song and he deserved to be there, and it's great. 'Tragedy' is just remarkable, a cover of someone or other. Not the Bee Gees. 'Tomorrow' and 'Junior's Farm' from One Hand Clapping just sound fresh. 'Dear Friend' is definitely exceptional. 'Coming Up' live I'm not sure about tbh and if I was going to lose anything it might be that, but it's a tremendous song even if it's not the best version but the best version isn't by Wings. 

Maybe it's cheesy to end with 'Goodnight Tonight' so perhaps something should be done about that. Swap it with 'Helen Wheels'? Still, two really impressive pop hits of very different varieties, right at the end is bound to make you want to start all over again. Isn't it? 

Mainly I'm just really pleased with what I left off. I hope Paul sees this. I bet he sits up at night to see if anyone's writing about him on the internet... 

*Technically the third I think if you don't count the 'McCartney solo' compilations, but really it's the first to be 100% pure Wings, whereas Wings Greatest and Wingspan erroneously included bits off McCartney and Ram and maybe more I can't remember.