Paul McCartney entered the ’70s with the Beatles in his rearview window. They’d obviously be quite an act to follow. Then McCartney founded Wings and saw 14 more singles reach the Billboard Top 10, including six No. 1 songs.
They’ll never be as celebrated, but Wings created music that defined the decade. In fact, every Wings single – 23 in all – reached the U.S. Top 40. They had 12 Top 10 U.K. singles, too. These hits found a home on celebrated albums, five in a row of which also topped the Billboard chart.
McCartney released some early solo songs, but seven of his nine ’70s albums arrived under the Wings banner. Two core members of Wings, Paul and Linda McCartney, also appeared on 1970’s McCartney and 1971’s Ram. Original Wings drummer Denny Seiwell was on Ram, too.
READ MORE: Top 10 Denny Laine Songs
In keeping, this list of Top 40 Paul McCartney ’70s Songs is dominated by material from Wings. You really can’t talk about this decade – or McCartney after the Beatles – without factoring in their sunny omnipresence.
No. 40. “Heart of the Country”(Ram, 1971)
If the opening song on Side Two of Ram sounds like it burst from an idyllic rural hillside, that’s because, well, it did. “Heart of the Country” celebrated the quiet life McCartney made for himself with Linda McCartney at High Peak Farm in Kintyre, Scotland, far away from the Fab Four mobs – and it did so in an appropriately simple way: McCartney only used six of the available 16 tracks at CBS Studios in New York, with future Wings co-founder Denny Seiwell playing a homemade drumkit constructed from a nearby plastic trashcan.
No. 39. “Rockestra Theme”(Back to the Egg, 1979)
Despite its all-star cast of sidemen (David Gilmour! John Bonham! Pete Townshend!), the Grammy-winning “Rockestra Theme” somehow starts out as a largely pedestrian piffle, like listening to a group of classically trained orchestra members try to somehow rock out. Until everything breaks down, and the rabble cries out: “I have not had any dinner!” No idea why, but it’s worth listening — every time — just for that.
No. 38. “Daytime Nighttime Suffering”(B-side, 1979)
At one point, this approachable ode to female empowerment was scheduled as the a-side on a stand-alone single that introduced what became the final edition of Wings. Things were still so loose that the McCartneys’ infant son James can be heard crying on the released song just after the two-minute mark. Then McCartney decided to replace “Daytime Nighttime Suffering” with “Goodnight Tonight.” His commercial instincts were correct: “Goodnight Tonight” went to No. 5 in America and the U.K. – even if “Daytime Nighttime Suffering” is the better song.
No. 37. “Tomorrow”(Wild Life, 1971)
For all of their future successes, Wings did not immediately take off. Their debut album was widely panned and barely crept into the U.S. Top 10 – a steep drop off from the chart-topping platinum sales of his first two post-Beatles albums. Still, Wild Life wasn’t without its miniature charms. No McCartney album ever is. “Tomorrow,” featuring a guest turn on backing vocals from Beatles engineer Alan Parsons, is both an album highpoint and a bit of a cheat. The track was actually begun in the summer of 1970, between McCartney and Ram – well before the Wild Life era’s brief creative lull set in.
No. 36. “London Town”(London Town, 1978)
As with Band on the Run, Wings was whittled down to a trio by the time they completed London Town. But the curiously laidback London Town was no Band on the Run. That’s clear from its album-opening title track, which walks right up to the edge of twee. Since-departed guitarist Jimmy McCulloch and drummer Joe English took part in the session, but can’t imbue this Denny Laine co-write with the energy and fun of their work on Venus and Mars and Speed of Sound. “London Town” reached the Top 40 on the Billboard Hot 100 but, more tellingly, also No. 17 on the U.S. Easy Listening chart.
No. 35. “Magneto and Titanium Man”(Venus and Mars, 1975)
Impish and ear-wormy, “Magneto and Titanium Man” finds McCartney happily inhabiting the Marvel Universe, decades before that was a thing. He’d nostalgically picked up a comic book on a whim during his regular Saturday trip to the market while on vacation in Jamaica – and found himself hooked all over again. “It took some skill – not to mention perspective and imagination – to pull off these illustrations,” McCartney said in The Lyrics: 1956 to the Present. “So, I decided it would be nice to bring these two comic book characters into a song.”
No. 34. “Beware My Love”(Wings at the Speed of Sound, 1976)
The lesser sibling in a suddenly stable two-album run for Wings, At the Speed of Sound overcompensated in an effort to make McCartney’s second band as democratic as his first, far more talented one. The result was sometimes too much Wings and not enough Paul McCartney. Not so “Beware My Love,” a muscular, surprisingly complex McCartney-sung rocker that simply leaps out of the speakers. Even here, however, he continued to stubbornly inhabit the team player role: McCartney held back a bolder version of “Beware My Love” featuring John Bonham rather than Wings drummer Joe English.
No. 33. “Cafe on the Left Bank”(London Town, 1978)
No surprise that this rare up moment on London Town also features ex-Wings members Joe English and Jimmy McCulloch, even if they don’t appear on the album cover. “Cafe on the Left Bank” was inspired in part by a hitchhiking trip that McCartney took to Paris with John Lennon in October 1961, and includes some of the resonant scenes the future Beatles observed as wide-eyed kids. The setting for the song’s eventual recording explains a lot about the low-key vibes surrounding London Town. Wings’ first pass was made in May 1977 on a 24-track console installed in a yacht called the Fair Carol, stationed at Watermelon Bay in the U.S. Virgin Islands.
No. 32. “Dear Boy”(Ram, 1971)
At this point in his disintegrating relationship with Lennon, fans could be forgiven for assuming McCartney was directing “Dear Boy” at his former bandmate. Instead, the song referenced Linda McCartney’s first marriage to Joseph Melvin See Jr., with whom she had a daughter, Heather. They divorced in 1965 and See later died by suicide in 2000. “‘Dear Boy’ wasn’t getting at John,” McCartney confirmed years later. “‘Dear Boy’ was actually a song to Linda’s ex-husband: ‘I guess you never knew what you had missed.'”
No. 31. “Bluebird”(Band on the Run, 1973)
No other solo LP so completely underscores the difficult freedom quest McCartney had to undertake, and none is more personal. The unifying theme of escape found throughout Band on the Run is more subtle (and thus more commercial) than the blunt confessional style of former partner John Lennon. McCartney instead uses broader storytelling brushstrokes, skillfully weaving his own desire to break away from the Beatles with outsider stories from those who perpetually wander, the roving eyes of ne’er-do-wells, and (in this case) the soaring freedom of flight.
No. 30. “That Would Be Something”(McCartney, 1970)
A groovy little lovestruck piffle, “That Would Be Something” is emblematic of this debut album’s general aesthetic. McCartney layers in every element, including the sung (not played) drum fills. Like a lot of McCartney, there also isn’t much going on lyrically with “That Would Be Something” – and yet it somehow charms anyway. In this way, McCartney had inadvertently set something of a solo standard. (See “Getting Closer,” found later in our list of Top 40 Paul McCartney ’70s Songs, among others.) Asked what a “pure McCartney song” might be during a 1986 BBC documentary, he at first demurred. Then McCartney admitted: “Something like ‘That Would Be Something,’ I think is very me.”
No. 29. “Too Many People”(Ram, 1971)
Ram, quite obviously, arrived amid a period of very public sniping between McCartney and Lennon. There was the utterly unsubtle cover image of two beetles copulating. Also, the rather silly conceit that his photographer wife was somehow stepping in for John Lennon as a songwriting collaborator. Then McCartney opened with “Too Many People,” a song clearly directed at his former bandmate that risked immediately tanking the whole project with haughty sermonizing. But “Too Many People” rises above its moment, catching a tough groove. It’s helped along by two electric guitar solos that McCartney completed in one take.
No. 28. “Let Me Roll It”(Band on the Run, 1973)
Thankfully, by this point, Lennon and McCartney had found common ground again. (But not before Lennon replied to McCartney’s “Too Many People” with “How Do You Sleep?,” a remarkably nasty diatribe from 1971’s Imagine.) McCartney now felt comfortable enough to appropriate not just Lennon’s instrumental primitivism but also his raw vocal style – right down to a favorite studio effect that Lennon referred to as the “bog echo.” Lennon would subsequently return the favor, embedding the riff from “Let Me Roll It” into his 1974 instrumental “Beef Jerky.”
No. 27. “Get On the Right Thing”(Red Rose Speedway, 1973)
Another Ram-era leftover, this track has Beatles-esque pretensions — and that gives “Get on the Right Thing” much of its continued resonance. There’s a lot to love here. McCartney sings in the style of his old Little Richard send-ups for one of the last times on an original song. His vocals ascend into a rattling fervor, then whoop and call all the way back down, while still tracing a chaptered compositional style that recalls the best moments from Abbey Road. “Get on the Right Thing” also rocks in a way that drive-by fans might never have guessed after wading through the gauzy web of strings on “My Love,” heard earlier on Red Rose Speedway.
No. 26. “Soily”(One Hand Clapping, 2024)
Unreleased until its inclusion on a double LP celebrating the massive Wings tour of 1975-76, “Soily” was actually one of the group’s first original songs. McCartney couldn’t have come up with something that had more flinty brawn, and the song would have jumpstarted Wild Life. He probably shied away from releasing “Soily,” however, because it makes absolutely no sense at all. “A lot of the lyrics were off the wall, drug stimulated,” McCartney later admitted. “Things like ‘Soily’ – ‘the cat in the satin trousers says its oily.’ What was I on? I think the answer is stimulants.” The best released version of the song was actually from before Wings Over America when the group recorded a rockumentary in August 1974 – but that take wouldn’t be issued until some 50 years later.
No. 25. “Junk”(McCartney, 1970)
“Junk” dated back to the Beatles’ May 1968 Esher demo sessions at George Harrison’s house in Surrey. McCartney originally sketched out this song in Rishikesh, India, where the Beatles were studying meditation with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. They also made a pass at “Junk” during the Get Back sessions in January 1969 at Twickenham, but “Junk” wasn’t properly recorded and released until the subsequent arrival of McCartney. It’s easy to see why he kept circling back: On its surface, “Junk” can be easily mistaken as more patented McCartney romanticism but it’s actually a canny criticism of consumer culture.
No. 24. “Letting Go”(Venus and Mars, 1975)
From its first gnarled riff (courtesy of the underrated, gone-too-soon guitarist Jimmy McCulloch), “Letting Go” sets a roiling and strikingly dark tone completely at odds with their pop-perfect hit “Listen What the Man Said” from the same album. Instead, McCartney explores that narrow space between love and obsession to great effect – though much fewer sales. “Listen What the Man Said” went to No. 1, while this brassy, blues-soaked gut punch stalled at No. 39.
No. 23. “Getting Closer”(Back to the Egg, 1979)
Is there a more curious moment in the McCartney solo catalog than his use of “my salamander” as a term of endearment during this track? Seriously, a slimy, amphibian wall-crawler? (Later, in a moment of sweeping pop-song myopia, McCartney actually pleas for the DJ to “play a song with a point.”) Even so, because he’s Paul McCartney, “Getting Closer” is still propulsively enjoyable. Credit guitarist Lawrence Juber’s simply monstrous riff. In the end, this song might have crept higher on our list of the Top 40 Paul McCartney ’70s Songs if he hadn’t returned to a now career-long habit of tossed-off finishes. Here, he inexplicably abandons the song’s tightly packed construct after a couple of minutes for a swirling, utterly confusing fade out.
No. 22. “Big Barn Bed”(Red Rose Speedway, 1973)
On the preceding Ram, McCartney returned to “Ram On” with a reprise that connects directly to the first song on Wings’ second album: “Who’s that coming round that corner? / Who’s that coming round that bend?” is also the opening line of “Big Barn Bed.” In fact, this track’s history goes back even further. Yet “Big Barn Bed” is another example, and perhaps the best one, of how McCartney could put everything he had into a song – except a proper conclusion. Thankfully, the first half of this is so perfect, so joyous and loved filled, that it carries Wings past another bad end.
No. 21. “Let ‘Em In”(Wings at the Speed of Sound, 1976)
McCartney scheduled his first U.S. tour since the Beatles’ final bow in 1966 – but only after rushing out the doggedly democratic At the Speed of Sound. The LP shot to the top of the charts over seven non-consecutive weeks as Wings’ blockbuster tour continued into the summer of ’76, powered in no small way by two consecutive gold-selling Top 5 smashes, including the feather-light Grammy-nominated “Let ‘Em In.” Some of those found knocking at the front door were real friends and relatives and some weren’t. Ironically, McCartney later married Nancy Shevell, who has both a “Sister Susie” and a “Brother Jon.”
No. 20. “Venus and Mars / Rock Show”(Venus and Mars, 1975)
Recorded in part at local impresario Allen Toussaint’s Sea Saint Recording Studio in New Orleans, Venus and Mars reflected the settled atmosphere surrounding McCartney (and Wings). He’d firmly established himself outside of the Beatles, so there was suddenly time to look toward the stars. “Rock Show,” featuring local impresario Allen Toussaint on piano, provided a winking travelogue to send fans home as McCartney name checked favorite concert venues. Record buyers pushed the third single from Venus and Mars to No. 12 in the U.S., but U.K. listeners were apparently not into astronomy. “Venus and Mars/Rock Show” didn’t chart at all there.
No. 19. “Dear Friend”(Wild Life, 1971)
Often thought of as a response to John Lennon’s Imagine-era sniping, “Dear Friend” actually dated back to the sessions for Ram – well before the acid-tongued “How Do You Sleep?” hit store shelves. We find McCartney reaching back across the divide, but in a haltingly conciliatory way: This moody, minor-keyed rumination begins with four unanswered questions, underscoring his sad confusion. A series of turbulent, well-placed fills from drummer Denny Seiwell, who’d be a cornerstone of Wings’ first incarnation, only add to the drama. Richard Hewson’s strings arrive with a crescendo, like a heart breaking.
No. 18. “To You”(Back to the Egg, 1979)
A blast of new-wave inventiveness, “To You” finds McCartney employing these Ric Ocasek hiccups and post-punk howls, while guitarist Laurence Juber furiously saws away over a fidgety beat – then runs his guitar, in a moment of smeared brilliance, through an Eventide harmonizer during these totally wackadoo solos. Nowhere else on Back to the Egg is there a greater sense of the fizzy future that never was for the final lineup of Wings. In a few years, of course, this sound would be airing wall-to-wall on MTV.
No. 17. “Little Lamb Dragonfly”(Red Rose Speedway, 1973)
Though included on Wings’ second album, this song’s history is given away in the personnel credits.Ram-era guitarist Hugh McCracken appears with the McCartneys, Denny Seiwell and Denny Laine. “Little Lamb Dragonfly” was initially inspired by a real life lamb that McCartney couldn’t save at his rural Scottish farm, but the song never came into focus. Then Laine stepped in with a lyrical assist, while Seiwell helped with the arrangement. The orchestration was then completed by Beatles producer George Martin, hinting at the wider reunion to come with “Live and Let Die.” Curiously, despite all of that teamwork, the songwriting credit only mention Paul and Linda McCartney.
No. 16. “Helen Wheels”(Single 1973)
“Helen Wheels” finds the McCartneys rambling in a trusty Land Rover from the farm to London. The single, a pun on “hell on wheels,” had its own circuitous journey. Wings’ three-piece edition recorded “Helen Wheels” during sessions for Band on the Run, then issued it as a stand-alone single. Imagine the surprise felt by McCartney’s American label managers when Band on the Run arrived without this raucous No. 10 hit. Calls were made and McCartney agreed to let Capitol Records slip in “Helen Wheels” as track eight, between “No Words” and “Picasso’s Last Words (Drink to Me).”
No. 15. “Back Seat of My Car”(Ram, 1971)
To be honest, “Back Seat of My Car” is pretty unfocused: It’s too overstuffed with ideas, too reliant on multi-tracked McCartneys, not as rustic as his solo debut and somehow tossed-off sounding anyway, and simply too long. Yet this song still underscores what makes Ram such a wildly inventive gem. It’s gutsy and un-precious at one point and then a testament to McCartney’s enduring pop sensibilities at others. As he bolts from ’50s-era rock to cocktail-lounge crooning to swooning violins, and back again – all inside of this one final track, mind you – there is a sense of limitless possibility.
No. 14. “Listen What the Man Said”(Venus and Mars, 1975)
“Listen to What the Man Said” presents as a breezy romp, but sessions for the smash single were actually a painstaking drag. That is, until a key contributor came in and nailed his part on the very first try. McCartney was trying to work through things with his core group even though Wings were at Sea-Saint Recording Studio in the New Orleans neighborhood of Gentilly, a locale that could have provided a wealth of native and visiting talent. Finally, someone in Sea-Saint mentioned that Tom Scott, the well-known jazz saxophonist, lived nearby. His turn gave “Listen to What the Man Said” the push it needed. Wings’ suddenly had their eighth consecutive Top 10 Billboard smash, and the fourth of their seven total No. 1 singles.
No. 13. “Another Day”(Single, 1971)
McCartney’s debut solo single was another everyman tale that became the first song recorded during sessions for Ram. Drummer Denny Seiwell once accurately described “Another Day” as “Eleanor Rigby in New York City.” McCartney had arrived with this in his back pocket after running through several embryonic versions with the Beatles in January 1969. The completed take, with serrated guitar contributions from David Spinozza, became a Top 5 hit in America and U.K. McCartney described it all as “thrilling,” in The Lyrics: 1956 to the Present, “though tinged with sadness. It also felt like I had something to prove, and that kind of challenge is always exciting.”
No. 12. “Call Me Back Again”(Venus and Mars, 1975)
McCartney refused to rest on his laurels after the outsized successes of Band on the Run. Instead, he set about rebuilding Wings in advance of a far more stylistically diverse recording. Venus and Mars didn’t always work but it remains an amiable artifact from a time of deep domesticity for McCartney, an era when – likely, in part, because of those recent multi-platinum sales figures – he finally seemed free of the weight of his Beatles fame. That allowed him to try out things like this simmering deep cut, which may be the best Wings song you’ve never heard. Tony Dorsey’s bright brass blasts send McCartney into howls of pain, as he shreds a lyric reportedly aimed at his missing friend, John Lennon.
No. 11. “Arrow Through Me”(Back to the Egg, 1979)
“Arrow Through Me” might be the most unjustly forgotten McCartney single. How did this R&B-infused soft-rock pastry – featuring a funky keyboard bass line and an endlessly inventive undulating poly-rhythm from final Wings drummer Steve Holly – somehow only peak at No. 29? Holly recorded two drum parts, one at half speed, while McCartney dove headlong into the emerging no-guitar New Wave aesthetic. Couple all of that with a bright blast of horns and the result is a long-awaited update of what had become Wings’ tried-and-true silly-love-song template.
No. 10. “My Love”(Red Rose Speedway, 1973)
Sure, the lyrics are saccharine – and the strings even more so. But McCartney just sells it, and then Wings guitarist Henry McCullough steps forward. He had to fight for that searing solo moment, and then nail it live in the studio. “Paul had this particular thing that he wanted me to play. That was the point of no return,” the late McCullough said in 2011. “I said, ‘I’m sorry, I can’t do this. I have to be left as the guitar player in the band. I want to have my own input, too.’ He says, ‘What are you going to do?’ I didn’t know.” McCartney’s no-doubt stunned response, he later admitted, was simply: “F—ing great.”
No. 9. “Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey”(Ram, 1971)
Paul McCartney’s first solo U.S. No. 1 single harkened back to the way he worked toward the end of his time with the Beatles. He’d been the principal architect of a medley that dominated the second side of Abbey Road. Originally titled “The Long One,” it featured a series of joined song snippets. John Lennon later trashed the concept as nothing more than a desk-clearing exercise, but something sparked for McCartney creatively. After following a more stripped-down, personal path on McCartney he completed “Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey,” a technicolor outburst of sewn-together ideas with ever-shifting cadences, styles, collaborators and melodies. This was the Abbey Road assemblage, taken to a fizzy kitchen-sink zenith.
No. 8. “With a Little Luck”(London Town, 1978)
After two monster mid-’70s albums and a celebrated world tour, Wings promptly began falling apart. By the time sessions for London Town were complete, the group was reduced once again to the trio of Denny Laine and the McCartneys – but five years later, they couldn’t pull off another Band on the Run. Instead, London Town often feels small scale and too precious, but not this R&B-influenced synth-driven U.S. smash. “With a Little Luck” taps into a well of emotion not heard elsewhere, hinting at McCartney’s feelings as his band split. Of course, what this project desperately needed was a jolt of punky attitude. McCartney must have realized it, as he subsequently set about restructuring Wings for a final time.
No. 7. “Silly Love Songs”(Wings at the Speed of Sound, 1976)
Oh good, a pop star complaining about his critics. But this is no bitch session – thanks to a creator who’s in complete command of his muse. There’s artistry everywhere within this compulsively listenable confection, from the gorgeous layered vocals to the dancing interchanges between horns and strings. Then there’s a pushed-forward, endlessly entertaining bass line that bears a passing resemblance to “Sha La La” by Al Green. Fans clearly agreed that there was nothing wrong with that, sending “Silly Love Songs” to No. 1 the Hot 100 for five non-consecutive weeks.
No. 6. “Live and Let Die”(Live and Let Die, 1973)
A rock opera crammed into one overstuffed Grammy-winning single, “Live and Let Die” features, in order, a sad requiem for the ’60s, a thunderous George Martin score and a weirdly effective reggae-styled middle eight. Over the top? There simply is no top here. But that mirrors the James Bond viewpoint for which it was written, while pointing directly to the success Wings would have at mixing and matching seemingly divergent elements into a broader theme on the subsequent Band on the Run. Subsequently, “Live and Let Die” would become a fireworks-blasting mainstay of every McCartney concert appearance.
No. 5. “Every Night”(McCartney, 1970)
McCartney quickly came up with the first two lines before stalling out. He seemed to be getting closer to a conclusion during a couple of run throughs with the Beatles in January 1969, but “Every Night” was left on the cutting-room floor. Finally, a burst of inspiration struck in February 1970 during a mixing session for “That Would Be Something” for the McCartney album. He completed “Maybe I’m Amazed” (found later in our list of Top 40 Paul McCartney ’70s Songs) and “Every Night,” the latter of which boasts an intriguing song structure: There’s no chorus; instead, McCartney simply returns to “every night” at the beginning of every verse.
No. 4. “Jet”(Band on the Run, 1973)
It took a surprising amount of time, but with “Jet,” the early-’70s McCartney finally started sounding like the late-’60s McCartney again. Full of soaring Beatles-esque ambition, and no small amount of swagger, this power pop gem is as impossible to decrypt as it is impossible to ignore. Was Jet about a dog? A pony?? In the end, it didn’t matter. The first single from Band on the Run was just that good. Even cut down for radio, “Jet” zoomed into the Top 10 on the Billboard chart.
No. 3. “Junior’s Farm”(Single, 1974)
Following the success of Band on the Run, McCartney took the rebuilt Wings lineup into recording sessions at Nashville, where they stayed at a farm owned by Curly Putman Jr. – and the cool-rocking “Junior’s Farm” was born. Guitarist Jimmy McCulloch makes an explosive debut with Wings, eliciting a happy shoutout from McCartney. He’s joined by an absurd cast of characters that includes a poker man, Oliver Hardy, an Eskimo, an old man at a grocery and a sea lion. That was some farm, apparently.
No. 2. “Band on the Run” (Band on the Run, 1973)
From their lowest moment arose Wings’ greatest triumph, as a band searching for direction after a pair of member defections crafted an ageless Grammy-winning multi-part paean to escape. With the arguable exception of Ram, no McCartney album so successfully blended his interests in the melodic, the orchestral, the rocking and the episodic. Somehow all of that fizzy creativity is found in miniature within its title track, too. And to think, it all started with a throwaway complaint former bandmate George Harrison made as an Apple Corps meeting dragged on: “If we ever get out of here.”
No. 1. “Maybe I’m Amazed”(McCartney, 1970)
McCartney didn’t aspire to the Beatles’ layered achievements on Sgt. Pepper Lonely Hearts Club Band or Abbey Road, but instead came off as a loose, surprisingly unvarnished expression — like someone trying to work out his own sound. That can be the album’s strength, but also a notable weakness. Some of this, quite frankly, just sounds like noodling around. But then there was “Maybe I’m Amazed.” Begun while with the Beatles, the song finally emerged from a very different place: McCartney is simply boiling with emotion, both light and dark. Yet, this moment of tucked-away utter brilliance didn’t initially get its due. Until finally, in 1977, when it did – as a live remake from Wings went to No. 10.
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Gallery Credit: Nick DeRiso
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