Roughly a quarter-century after the last time he undertook a look back to the band he and Linda formed after the Beatles broke up, Paul McCartney presided over a biography of Wings, tied in with a feature-length film. While this would have been the perfect occasion to finally issue the overdue Archive Collection editions and expansions of London Town and Back To The Egg, he decided people would want a double-disc anthology of previously released Wings music instead. Those who bought the Blu-ray version would have likely done so for the Atmos mixes, but beyond that, Wings is another Spotify playlist in a physical format. (A pointless single disc with a dozen songs was also offered.) For the first time, unlike Wings Greatest and Wingspan, nothing credited to Paul outside of Wings was included. It does repeat songs already collected on those, as well as All The Best! and Pure McCartney, which means all the hits and a few deep cuts from every Wings album—even the bad ones—with the only rarity being the runthrough of “Soily” from One Hand Clapping, chosen over the frankly phenomenal one from Wings Over America. In fact, none of the live work by any incarnation of the band is included. A few songs make their first remastered appearance in this century, like Denny Laine’s showcase “Deliver Your Children”, “I’ve Had Enough” and the title track from London Town, and “Getting Closer” from Back To The Egg. Those sport a copyright date of 2022, suggesting that just maybe those albums are just waiting for someone to give the okay already?
As an overview of the band, and what he hoped to achieve by forming it and sticking with it until it served its purpose, Wings works. There was some excellent music created over those nine or so years, and other people besides McCartney helped make it memorable. If new fans get to hear it and learn from it, that’s great. But for the rest of us, this was yet another missed opportunity to provide some real gems, instead of more of the same.
The Man On The Run film (also the title of an unauthorized biography published in 2014) was basically an update of the earlier Wingspan documentary, with the added bonus of insight from some of the other players. Longtime fans weren’t surprised with any real revelations—though the footage was terrific—nor should they have been surprised that, only months later, there would be a companion soundtrack album. It wasn’t comprehensive, filling up only two LP sides.
Since the film was about his life in the ‘70s as a whole, some non-Wings tracks were included, along with repeats of “Band On The Run”, “Mull Of Kintyre”, and “Let Me Roll It” from Wings. The previously issued demo of “Silly Love Songs” opens the album as it does the film, but hold and below, three tracks appeared for the first time ever on an official album. “Gotta Sing Gotta Dance” was the cringey tapdance number from his 1973 TV special; without the visuals it sounds like an outtake from a Mel Brooks movie. “Live And Let Die” was the live performance as seen in the Rockshow film, and different from the version on Wings Over America. The biggest surprise was the rough mix (no horns, and a scratch vocal in their place) of “Arrow Through Me”, further rankling those of us who kept pestering his PR team to release those missing Archive Collections already. While the album runs mostly chronologically, and certainly enjoyable, it’s awfully brief, and little more than a cash grab from people collecting vinyl variations.
Wings Wings (2025)—3½
Paul McCartney Man On The Run – Music From The Motion Picture Soundtrack (2026)—3½
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