Seven Songs for the Week #92 - 8th Jan 25

I am barrelling through the 700+page book The McCartney Legacy Volume Two (1974-1980) and The Meters come up when Paul+Wings head to New Orleans. Cissy Strut, a fantastic bit of drumming, is one of those songs you know when you hear it, but maybe not the title.

The household got a new car in November, and one of its many new things to get used to is that you can dial up internet radio. A Beatles channel was one of the stations sampled and was reminded of what might be the best Beatles cover version?

A while back I picked up the 2020 8 CD Elton box set, Jewel Box as it was going for €50 and it looked like a nice package (Matron!) and thought it might be interesting. It's a hybrid set, it's neither one thing nor another. There are three CDs of 1960s pre fame demos; two CDs of hard to find b-sides from 1976 onwards (pre 1976 b-sides had been collated in a previous compilation, 1992's Rare Masters) and three CDs of previously released material broken down into 2 CDs of "Deep Cuts", so a parallel universe of non-hits drawn from overlooked album tracks from throughout his career, and a further one CD of songs related, somehow, to his autobiography. It's only on this last CD where you might find something immediately recognisable (Philadelphia Freedom!). The notion I had when I got this was that I might find, well, some Jewels. There's a lot to take in and to be honest, having taken a stab at the demos, I had left this on the shelf for a while. Giving the b-sides a go and on first pass this song stood out, initially because my kid & me found it funny: "You're a big man... innaliddle... SUIT!" clang-clang-clang go the ascending chords.

Elton is obviously a genius, but sometimes you can feel him reading the lyrics for the first time and cranking out the first melody that comes to mind. However the more I listened to Big Man Innaliddle SUIT! the more infectious it became.

This also appeared on streaming radio this week. They're so hot right now, or something.

I have been thoroughly enjoying the 1992-2001 Brilliant Adventures box set that I picked up on vinyl around Black Friday. Even though I have all the records on CD, they sound really good in this box, and it's been good to sit down and take them all in.

If you remember the joy that surrounded DB's return in 2013, the truth is that if any of the preceding three albums to The Next Day had been what came out in 2013, they would be more celebrated. When 'hours...' came out, DB was still being taken for granted, turning up one TFI Friday and plugging his single. Listening in 2025, this one has aged quite well. In particular this track, tucked away on the middle of side two and edited out of a spontaneous jam with Reeves Gabrels, is 100% in that wistful/eerie wheelhouse of Bowie instrumentals from the late 1970s. But because it's here, you'd miss it.

The McCartney Legacy Volume Two (1974-1980) open in January 1974 and Paul is helping his brother Mike write and record the Mcgear album, with a backing from Wings. The Mcgear album is a gem, but reading the book, it's amusing how casual they were about writing material for it, and not surprising at how adept Paul was at getting things done. TMWFGOTM is the closing track.

Summing it all up, wistful/eerie instrumentals, Beatles streaming radio offered up Flying. The only original Lennon/McCartney/Harrison/Starr composition released in the Beatles 1960s lifetime, and the only instrumental. There is a c.9 minute bootleg version that I would include here if a could. The Beatles catalogue is getting messy now, because Flying could do with a sonic tidying and a remix, like much of the Fabs catalogue has been getting since 2016, but now there is a whole trench of songs that don't seem to be in line for this. MMT is particularly precarious as it wasn't an album in the formal sense originally, although it's the only Capitol reissue that they gave permission for, so that counts for something. 7 of the 11 songs have already had a recent remix elsewhere (on the 2023 Blue 1967-1970 comp) and the tracks did get a surround mix on the MMT movie bluray, but how to get to those. Oh well.