Several of the songs on Band on the Run reflect themes of escape and freedom, while the structure of the album recalled the Beatles' Sgt. At the beginning of the album, the guy is stuck inside four walls and breaks out.
It's a collection of songs and the basic idea about the band on the run is a kind of prison escape. The first track they recorded at Apapa was " Mamunia", the title for which McCartney appropriated from the name of a hotel in Marrakesh where Wings had stayed in April 1973. To make up for the departed band members, McCartney would play drums and lead guitar parts, in addition to his contributions on bass guitar, with Laine playing rhythm guitar and Linda adding keyboards. The band would be driven to the studio in the early afternoon where recording would last into the late evening and sometimes early morning. McCartney temporarily joined a local country club, where he would spend most mornings. The group established a routine of recording during the week and playing tourist on the weekends. McCartney, Linda and their three children stayed in one, while Laine, his wife JoJo, Emerick, and Wings' two roadies stayed in another. The band rented houses near the airport in Ikeja, an hour away from the studio. The control desk was faulty and there was only one tape machine, a Studer 8-track. EMI's studio, located on Wharf Road in the suburb of Apapa, was ramshackle and under-equipped. The band and their entourage arrived in Lagos on 9 August 1973. McCartney had chosen Lagos, as he felt it would be a glamorous location where he and the band could sun on the beach during the day and record at night the reality, however, was that after the end of a civil war in 1970, Nigeria was run by a military government, with corruption and disease commonplace. This left just McCartney, Linda and Laine to record in Lagos, assisted by former Beatles engineer Geoff Emerick. Seiwell left a week later, the night before the band flew out to Nigeria. During one rehearsal session, McCullough and McCartney argued, and McCullough quit. In August, the band – consisting of McCartney and his wife Linda, ex-Moody Blues guitarist and pianist Denny Laine, Henry McCullough on lead guitar, and Denny Seiwell on drums – started rehearsals for the new album at the McCartneys' Scottish farm. He selected Lagos in Nigeria and was attracted to the idea of recording in Africa. Keen to record outside the United Kingdom, McCartney asked EMI to send him a list of all their international recording studios. After completing a successful UK tour with his band Wings, in July 1973, he planned their third album as a means to re-establish himself after the mixed reception given to Wild Life and Red Rose Speedway. Paul thought, 'I've got to do it, either I give up and cut my throat or get my magic back.' īy 1973, three years after the break-up of the Beatles, Paul McCartney had yet to regain his artistic credibility or find favour with music critics for his post-Beatles work. In 2013, Band on the Run was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. It was McCartney's last album issued on the Apple record label. A contemporary review by Jon Landau in Rolling Stone described the album as being "with the possible exception of John Lennon's Plastic Ono Band, the finest record yet released by any of the four musicians who were once called the Beatles". In 2012, it was listed at 418 on Rolling Stone's revised list of " the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time". In 2000, Q magazine placed Band on the Run at number 75 in its list of the "100 Greatest British Albums Ever". After the band's return to England, final overdubs and further recording were carried out in London, mostly at AIR Studios. The studio was of poor quality and conditions in Nigeria were tense and difficult the McCartneys were robbed at knifepoint, losing a bag of song lyrics and demo tapes. McCartney therefore played bass, drums, percussion and most of the lead guitar parts. With no time to recruit replacements, McCartney went into the studio with just his wife Linda and Denny Laine. Shortly before departing for Lagos, drummer Denny Seiwell and guitarist Henry McCullough left the group. The album was mostly recorded at EMI's studio in Lagos, Nigeria, as McCartney wanted to make an album in an exotic location. It remains McCartney's most successful album and the most celebrated of his post-Beatles works. Although sales were modest initially, its commercial performance was aided by two hit singles – " Jet" and " Band on the Run" – such that it became the top-selling studio album of 1974 in the United Kingdom and Australia, in addition to revitalising McCartney's critical standing.
It was McCartney's fifth album after leaving the Beatles in April 1970. Band on the Run is the third studio album by the British–American rock band Paul McCartney and Wings, released in December 1973.
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