Paul McCartney compilation albums

Creating a "best of" album might seem rather unnecessary. But this first one fills a noticeable gap. In 1975, the Apple Records contracts of the former Beatles members expired. The final releases from John, George and Ringo on Apple were "best of" compilations Shaved Fish, The Best of George Harrison and Blast from Your Past respectively. (Well, actually George's album was delayed and ended up released on Capitol).

As originally conceived, McCartney's compilation was to be a bit different than that of his ex-bandmates. Tentatively titled Cold Cuts (or alternately Hot Hitz and Kold Kutz), the album was to be composed of non-album singles and previously unreleased tracks. McCartney then began recording several new songs and overdubbing older unused tracks. But eventually the project was scrapped, and McCartney turned his attention to recording a new Wings studio album, Venus and Mars.

I don't know the reason there was no "best of" from Paul McCartney at the time, but it might have something to do with the fact that he released music under his own name, as a duo with his wife Linda, and with the band Wings. So unlike his former bandmates, it wasn't really possible to release a "solo" best-of compilation. However, if this was the reason, it didn't stop him from releasing just such a compilation in 1978 titled Wings Greatest, even though more than half the songs are not by Wings.

Ignoring that, I assembled a compilation album of all his A-side singles from 1971-1974 that were on Apple. That resulted in a record I've titled Wings & Things (which I think is a better title than Cold Cuts).

SIDE A
1. Another Day
2. Eat at Home
3. Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey
4. Back Seat of My Car
5. Love is Strange
6. Give Ireland Back to the Irish
7. Mary Had a Little Lamb

SIDE B
1. Hi Hi Hi
2. My Love
3. Live and Let Die
4. Helen Wheels
5. Jet
6. Band on the Run
7. Junior's Farm

I tried tinkering with the track order but finally decided to just keep them in chronological order. The only A-side I left off was "Mrs. Vanderbilt" because it wasn't widely distributed and because I thought four songs from the same album were too many. I went back and forth for a while with the idea of including B-sides as well. But that would have made it a double album, and in keeping with the other ex-Beatle compilations I left it as a single LP. I struggled a bit with a cover design, but eventually went with a stream of butterflies I found on the web and added titles.

Having assembled Wings & Things, I decided to redo Wings Greatest, re-titling it Wings Greatest 1975 - 1980. Unlike the original version, all tracks are actually by Wings:

SIDE A
1. Listen to What the Man Said
2. Letting Go
3. Venus and Mars/Rock Show
4. Silly Love Songs
5. Let 'Em In
6. Maybe I'm Amazed [live]
7. Mull of Kintyre
8. With a Little Luck

SIDE B
1. I've Had Enough
2. London Town
3. Goodnight Tonight
4. Old Siam, Sir
5. Getting Closer
6. Arrow Through Me
7. Coming Up [live]
8. Wonderful Christmastime

Like the previous compilation, I put all of the A-sides of the singles in chronological order, except for moving the holiday song to the end. With Wings ceasing to be a band by 1981, this acts as a nice end note. For the cover, I used the original and added the years.