Album Review: Paul McCartney & Wings – One Hand Clapping

Paul McCartney & Wings – One Hand Clapping

June 21, 2024

ALBUM REVIEW

OVERALL (OUT OF 10): 5

Can anyone explain to me what the point of a “live in the studio” album even is?  Personally, while I am no fan of false dichotomies, I think albums should mostly fall into the categories of “studio” albums and “live” albums.  I don’t really understand how something that falls in between would be all that compelling.  After all, if you’ve already recorded a song in the studio originally, how excited should I really be if you are recording it in the studio again?  Go ahead and reheat that soufflé if you want, but don’t expect me to be excited about eating it.  And if you are performing a song live without the additional octane an audience generally brings to the proceedings, why should I be interested? It is undeniable – a performance generally gets a boost when a performer is performing to an audience, while a performance for the technical engineers and recording operators doesn’t usually add much magic to the experience. 

So I actually find the impetus behind McCartney’s decision to film and record a “live in the studio” album in the 70s somewhat puzzling, and the decision not to release it at the time seems wholly justified insofar as that goes.  If you want to have a live album, go get yourself an audience and record one, you’re not gonna get as much juice out of just playing for yourselves.  That attitude is why while we’ve had the One Hand Clapping film available since 2010 in the Band on the Run Archive Box, in almost 15 years I’ve never actually bothered with it.  Maybe it’s a slice of pure cinematic musical magic, I wouldn’t know, I couldn’t motivate myself to ever watch the thing.  The whole thing just screamed “snoozefest” as far as I was concerned.

So 14 years later McCartney decides to release it as an album, and without the visuals I expected it to be even snoozier. But lo and behold, when I actually listened to the thing I found it has some surprising, and dare I say even compelling reasons for existing.  Which should teach me a lesson about making an assessment of something I haven’t even listened to, but to be honest it isn’t a lesson I am actually going to learn anytime soon.   But there are some good reasons for McCartney to have released this here album, to wit:

The best damn live version of “Live and Let Die” money can buy.   Who doesn’t love the song?  Not me.  Who ever wants to see a Paul McCartney concert without it?  Not me.  Who thinks there’s ever actually been a decent live version of the song released up to this point?   Not me.  The live version on Wings Over America was a hopelessly flaccid affair, with a meagre horn section valiantly trying to stand in for a whole orchestra.  They even mixed out Jimmy McCulloch’s lead guitar for some reason, making it even piddlier, so I’ve always despised that version of the song.  It’s like a Walmart, nay, a Dollar General knockoff version of what originally was an exciting song, and I skip it whenever it comes on.  And every other live version has Wix Wicken’s pukey keyboards making a truly cringeworthy attempt to fill in the orchestral parts.  Personally, I think every live version of “Live and Let Die” has been a train wrecking into a dumpster fire. 

But not this version.  Actually, I’m halfway tempted to say this version might be even better than the studio original.  Compared to the other live versions, having a real, actual orchestra handling the orchestra parts makes a world of difference.  Finally there is a “live” version of the song that doesn’t sound cheap, phony, and plastic, and if this version of “Live and Let Die” was the only good thing on the album, well by golly Paul won me over and this “live in the studio” album was worth releasing after all.  By the way, a few years back I saw The Who with an orchestra, and it was a phenomenal concert experience – why has McCartney never done the same?  Why have we always had to put up with Wix’s mockery of what actual instruments sound like in Paul McCartney concerts?  McCartney has more money than God – why the hell can’t he spring for an orchestra like The Who did?  Cheapskate.

Anyway, there’s also a ripping version of “Junior’s Farm” that outrocks the original.  Not that I consider it a great song by any stretch – the Poker man really needs to get out of the Poker business if he can’t keep the other guy from seeing his hand.  And if the old man in the grocery store can’t figure out that everything costs more thanks to the kind of parasitic, crass corporate greed that goes on unimpeded and unchecked for those of us who live in capitalist economies, well he’s pretty hopeless then.  But while “Junior’s Farm” isn’t a masterpiece or anything, the song always did rock, that was the one thing it had going for it.  And this version rocks even harder.  And for that, I’m glad to have it.

And wow, there was a time when a live version of “Jet” could be as straight ahead a rocker as the original.  Sometimes McCartney does this weird thing where he takes a straight ahead pounding rocker and dilutes it with a shuffle beat when he performs it live. I don’t know why, maybe to make it safer for the kiddies and grannies in the audience.  Listen to any live version of “Jet” on any McCartney live album and you’ll see what I mean – for some reason he always wants to water it down from the original.  He does the same thing with live versions of “Back in the U.S.S.R.” and “I Saw Her Standing There”, and it drives me right up the wall, because I love the intensity and pounding attack in the original versions of those songs.  Nice to have a live version of “Jet” that hasn’t been neutered.

Don’t get me wrong, I like the rhythm box on the other versions of “Bluebird”, but its kind of cool to have a version with drums.  Makes the song feel a little more human, if you get my drift.  This version is a little rougher around the edges, a little less polished, and that actually suits the vibe of the song a little better.  This is another version I am glad to have.  The same is true of “Let Me Roll It” – it’s a great song, and having a different version brings just a little bit more joy into the world really.  Not sure why I dig the mellotron in this version, but this is another win.  The sped up tempo on this one is a plus as well, if I’m going to be honest the original version does drag a little, it helps when the song moves along a little faster.

So there are some real gems on the album.  Having some great new versions of some classic McCartney songs isn’t a bad thing at all, and they aren’t nearly as superfluous as I thought they’d be.  

Unfortunately, those are pretty much all the highlights in my estimation.  There’s a ripping version of “Soily”, but I miss the horns from the Wings Over America version, so it ends up being nice but non-essential.  “Band on the Run” is OK I guess, for some reason Giles Martin opted to mix the Moog synthesizer real high in the mixes of a lot of these songs, and this is one of them.  I’m not super excited about either of these versions.  “Hi Hi Hi” is a great example of how the absence of an actual audience makes it hard to maintain the same level of excitement performers experience in an actual concert – this version is competent, but certainly not inspired.

There are a couple of nice new intros – the piano intro to the short version of “The Long and Winding Road” is gorgeous – unfortunately it is a truncated version of the song that segues into a kind of lamish piano-only version of “Lady Madonna”.  There’s a lovely new electric piano intro to “Maybe I’m Amazed”, but what follows is a surprisingly limp wet noodle version of one of the greatest love songs ever written.  I guess I do like this version better than the supersize bloated stadium-ready monstrosity the song became, but when all is said and done McCartney only ever gave us one version of the song true to its spirit, heart and soul, and that’s the original.

“Blue Moon of Kentucky” seems to be a McCartney favorite – he did it on the 1972 tour with Wings in Europe, and on Unplugged, and when he coerced and cajoled and begged and badgered the other two Threetles into performing on camera together for the Anthology series this was one of the songs they jammed to (that, by the way, was perhaps the most anticlimactic reunion in the long sordid history of reunions).  One Hand Clapping gives us a rousing if not an arousing version, but I’ll take it.  There’s a not-baddish acoustic-guitar-only version of “Sally G” that I actually like better than the original, although you may have noticed I’m damning it with faint praise.  

That, unfortunately, is the full extent of what I enjoyed about the album.  The rest is mostly the kind of patented McCartney tomfoolery he’d have never dared engage in had John been around to make fun of him for it.  McCartney goofs around with “Let it Be” on electric piano, and it’s kind of heartbreaking to hear him treat a song that is so close to sacred with such cavalier carelessness.  Did anyone order a “Power Cut” on electric piano?  I highly doubt it, but Paul delivers one anyway, and there’s a minute and thirty-three seconds of noise the world would have been better off without.  There are several fragments of half-hearted songs McCartney hadn’t seemed to put a lot of effort into, which is good because they didn’t deserve what little effort they got – stuff like “Let’s Love” and “All of You” and “Love My Baby”.  Many of these are just McCartney accompanying himself on electric piano, makes for a pretty boring listen for the most part. If you were excited to hear some McCartney songs you might never have heard before, hate to harsh your buzz, but you can’t blame me if these songs aren’t anything worth getting buzzed about.  I’ve always liked the version of “I’ll Give You a Ring” from the b-side of “Take It Away” – the version on One Hand Clapping is little more than a sketch of what would become a much more fully realized song, that is actually pretty fun after it’s all grown up.

“Tomorrow” was one of the few and far between highlights of Wild Life.  Paul thought it would be fun to lounge lizard this baby up, and that goes about as well as you’d expect.  And of course “Wild Life” from Wild Life is going to suck no matter what you do to it – this version has more teeth, but more teeth on a terrible song doesn’t add much.  Gotta say though, that background vocal melody on the last verse is intriguing – wish he’d used that in a song that didn’t suck.

What have I missed?  The version of “Go Now” on Wings Over America  has a lot more energy, and the horns add a lot that is missing on the One Hand Clapping version, and not having an audience makes Denny Laine a bit listless in his performance, so there’s no reason to ever listen to this version really.  There’s a passable if unremarkable version of “My Love” with an orchestra – this is a case where a little less polish = a little less charm, and consequently this one feels like a hand-me-down version of the hit single. Paul seems to be having a lot of fun with “Baby Face”, and I have to admit, he manages to conjure an old timey sounding vocal so well that I almost find it enjoyable in spite of myself.  By way of contrast, there is no possible realistic scenario where listening to “C Moon” is going to be enjoyable.  Lucky for Paul, Neil Diamond once wrote a song called “Reggae Strut”, thereby saving “C Moon” the ignominy of being the worst reggae song recorded since the dawn of time.  But just barely.

Oh, yeah, and there’s that lame “One Hand Clapping” theme, whose repeated synthesizer riff redefines the word monotony, bedecked though it may be with directionless Jimmy McCulloch lead guitar futzing around.  I couldn’t wait for that track to be over with.

Is One Band Crapping worth the average McCartneyphiles’ time?  Sure, there are a number of new versions of old favorites that make this a more than worthwhile release.  But forewarned ye be, there are a lot of clunkers you’ve got sift through to get to ‘em.  When Paul isn’t screwing around on his lonesome, some of these songs demonstrate what a tight band Wings could be. Geoff Britton in particular shines, he was a great drummer. Jimmy McCulloch, of course, was the most exciting guitarist Paul ever worked with that wasn’t George Harrison. Denny Laine is his usual solid if unspectacular self. Linda isn’t bad. Wings comes across as a great little band. But there’s a lot here that doesn’t really work. If nothing else, this album illustrates what I will always regard as the Achilles Heel of the most melodically talented musician and songwriter the rock era ever produced – the dude has more raw talent than any mere mortal ought to, but the guy has always been woefully lacking in judgment on how to use it without his buddy John around to keep him on the straight and narrow.