Upcoming McCartney Archive releases rumoured

Red Rose Speedway – coming this autumn?

“Beatlefan” reports that “Wild Life” and “Red Rose Speedway” are in the works for the next McCartney Archive reissues, scheduled for this fall – according to their sources. No official confirmation on that yet.

Wings Wild Life

Austin City Limits Festival poster.

In the meantime, an announcement of the release date of McCartney’s new album is rumored to be coming in the next month or so, Beatlefan reports, and also additional concert dates will be announced shortly. It was recently announced that McCartney will be playing at this year’s Austin City Limits Festival, during the first of the two festival week-ends.

An indication that the information from Beatlefan is true, especially regarding “Red Rose Speedway”, is a May 4 tweet from Paul McCartney’s Twitter account. Displaying a very good “restored”-looking album cover of said album, the caption read: “This week in 1973, Wings released ‘Red Rose Speedway’ What are your favourite songs from the album?”

Of course, “Red Rose Speedway” was originally planned as a double album, and a few of the songs intended for, but cut when the album was made into a single album, were played by Wings during their 1972 and 1973 tours. Titles like “1882”, “Seaside Woman”, “Best Friend”, “Henry’s Blue” and “I Would Only Smile” could be heard on the tours. Only “Seaside Woman” and “I Would Only Smile” have been released in the aftermath, the first by Wings under the pseudonym “Suzy and the Red Stripes” in 1977 and the second by Denny Laine in 1980. A live version of “The Mess” was released as the B-side of the “My Love” single, pulled from the double album. Both sides of the single “Live and Let Die” / “I Lie Around” were also scheduled for the double album, as were a few songs recorded during the sessions for “Ram”. Several incarnations of the 2LP version were considered, and here’s one who made it to the acetate stage in late 1972:

Side 1

1. “Big Barn Bed”
2. “My Love”
3. “When the Night”
4. “Single Pigeon”

Side 2

1. “Tragedy”
2. “Mama’s Little Girl”
3. “Loup (1st Indian on the Moon)”
4. “I Would Only Smile”

Side 3

1. “Country Dreamer”
2. “Night Out”
3. “One More Kiss”
4. “Jazz Street”

Side 4

1. “I Lie Around”
2. “Little Lamb Dragonfly”
3. “Get on the Right Thing”
4. “1882” (live)
5. “The Mess I’m In” (live)

We’re certainly hoping that the 1973 “James Paul McCartney” TV Special will be included on the DVD of the DeLuxe Archive edition of the album. Other stuff we would really like to see as bonus video material from these two albums would be the Bruce McMouse Show – a film from the 1972 Wings tour of Europe with animated mice living under the stage, moving with the tour, and the ICA rehearsal film before the tour. We were treated to a few glimpses from the latter film in the Wingspan documentary, and Mark Lewisohn viewed and described the full film in an issue of “Club Sandwich”, the magazine Paul McCartney’s fan club, “Wings Fun Club” published. The video below has been put together of glimpses from the ICA film which has popped up over the years in various McCartney-produced TV documentaries. It’s time we get to see the full film.