Flaming Pie - Ultimate Archive Collection

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Track list

Disc 1

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Disc 2

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About

From the liner notes:

[…] Indeed “Soon” means SOON, and in this case, it means RIGHT NOW! Yes, it is time for a further installment of the not-quite-a-year-old Ultimate Archive Collection series. That is if you wanna, if you wanna, if you wanna do it again! This title was a long time coming, and up until a few weeks ago, it looked like this title wasn’t going to come out at all! I do take the work I put into making these as good as they can be quite seriously, and I didn’t want to have a flawed version of this out there with shitty sounding early mixes on it. I let Speed Of Sound go out like that only because at the time those were the best versions of those songs to appear. However, thanks to nando (hi, nando! ) and his incredible generosity, we now have the Speed Of Sound roughs in fantastic quality. Yes, I will at some point be upgrading the UAC of that title at some point! And now, we have yet another incredibly generous gentleman to thank for an extremely rare upload! This time, it was carose who came up with the goods – the goods in question being the extremely rare (30 copies made) 3-track promo sampler of Flaming Pie! According to ‘Eight Arms’, all three tracks are early mixes, different to what wound up on Flaming Pie. Not quite true. I’ve a/b-ed The World Tonight from both the cassette and the regular version, and they are absolutely identical! No mix variants to be found at all! So scratch that one from the list! It makes one wonder if the supposed early mix of Beautiful Night is different as well… At any rate, I am extremely happy to finally be able to offer excellent versions of the early mixes of both Young Boy and Somedays from that tape. I’ve cleaned both up (slight hiss reduction, light eq and speed correction) as best as I can. I’m also happy to include the extremely rare “censored” version of Linda’s The Light Comes From Within, taken directly from the original cd-r acetate. Add to that all six installments of the Oobu Joobu series that was doled out on the Flaming Pie CD singles, all three versions of The Ballad Of The Skeletons (the track Paul recorded with Allen Ginsberg), the two contemporary b-sides and Linda’s final two recordings (which means that the entire Wide Prairie LP is now available on various volumes of the UAC series), and that adds up to two completely packed CDs! I was going to include a cobbled together version of Beautiful Night as a placeholder, should the true early mix ever pop up, but there was just no room here. So, it will appear on Rarities, along with many other orphaned tracks of this sort! But let’s not worry about that just yet. Right now, I’m very proud to offer my version of one of Paul’s very best albums. Enjoy!

NOTES:

There’s a four year gap between Off The Ground (1993) and Flaming Pie (1997). That’s mainly due to a world tour and the work on The Beatles Anthology. The album was recorded in several locations over two years, 1995 and 1997.

Nevertheless, there’s two songs that were recorded in 1992, even before the release of his last studio album. On September 3 Paul recorded the basic tracks with George Martin, in his Hog Hill Mill Studio. ‘Calico Skies’ was written in August 1991, in Long Island, during a power cut caused by Hurricane Bob. With nothing better to do, Paul wrote the song on an acoustic guitar. The other song, ‘Great Day’ was much older: written in 1972.

Fast forward to two years later.

In February 1995, while The Treetles put the finishing touches on the second new Beatles single ‘Real Love’, Paul hands over a cassette to the producer Jeff Lynne. It’s a compilation with some demos, mostly recorded during a recent stay in Jamaica. While Jeff remembers there were ten songs on it, some reports talk of at least twelve songs that wouldn’t be used on Flaming Pie. One of them titled ‘Give Me The Right To Freedom’.

Later that month, Paul and his family, plus engineer Geoff Emerick fly to Idaho, where thet have a meeting with Steve Miller. 25 years after ‘My Dark Hour’ they renew their collaboration in Miller’s farm in Sun Valley. There they work for three days on some songs. On February 22 the basic track of ‘Find Love’ is recorded. Later it twill be recristened to ‘Young Boy’. Paul will finish the song on his own on March 21 with some overdubs, with mixing the day after.

In May Miller and McCartney reconvene in the Hog Hill Mill studios to record more songs. In about two weeks six songs are put to tape, beginning with ‘Broomstick’, which ends up as a b-side. Two more songs will find a place on Flaming Pie: ‘If You Wanna’ and the jam track “’Used to Be Bad’. ‘(Sweet Home) Country Girl’, ‘Soul Boy’ and one more title remain in the archives.

While the world is getting Beatle crazy once more with the release of the first Anthology cd-box and the television series, Paul starts working with producer Jeff Lynne. ‘Somedays’ is recorded on November 1, followed by ‘The Song We Were Singing’ on the 6th, ‘The World Tonight’ on the 13th and ‘Little Willow’ on the 21st. They are all one-day sessions at Hog Hill Mill.

On November 18-19 there’s some diversion, as Paul works at The Church, the studio of Dave Stewart, to finish ‘Whole Life’, a track they started working on together in May.

There’s a two-month break while Linda has chemo.

On February 19, 1996 Paul and Lynne start working again. ‘Souvenir’ is the first song, followed by ‘Flaming Pie’ – a song wrote only a few days earlier, while riding horse. It is recorded in a 4 hour session on the 27th.

After another three-month gap, Paul and Jeff continue the collaboration, this time with the aid of Ringo Starr. On May 13 they record a new version of ‘Beautiful Night’, a song Paul first attempted in August 1986 with Phil Ramone. The day after they record ‘Looking For You’ and a jam: ‘Really Love You’.

A 14-piece ensemble overdubbed their contribution to ‘Somedays’ on June 10, 1996. George Martin wrote the arrangement.

The songs are finished and mixed in September 1996. On the 16th, a last song is recorded by Paul and Jeff: ‘Heaven on Sunday’, for which son James adds a guitar solo.

On January 30, 1997 Capitol Records makes a 3-track sampler cassette – allegedly only 30 copies are made. This contains early mixes of ‘World Tonight’, ‘Young Boy’ and ‘Somedays’. However, on February 14 more work is done on ‘Beautiful Night’, which receives a 38-piece orchestra in Abbey Road, again in an arrangement by George Martin.

CD 1

Tracks 1-14 – Flaming Pie, released on May 5, 1997 in Europe and two weeks later, on May 20 in the USA.

15 – Looking for You – recorded with Jeff Lynne and Ringo Starr on May 14, 1996 and released in the US on the single ‘The World Tonight’, which was the first (and only) US single, on April 17, 1997. In the UK and Europe it appeared on vinyl single and cd 1 of ‘Young Boy’, on April 28, 1997.

16 – Broomstick – recorded by Paul and Steve Miller on May 4, 1995 and released on April 28, 1997 on cd single 2 of ‘Young Boy’.

17 – The Light Comes From Within – recorded on March 18, 1998, by Paul, Linda and James and released on October 26, 1998 on Linda’s posthumous album Wide Prairie and in January 1999 also as a single.

18 – Appaloosa – recorded on March 17, 1998, by Paul and Linda and also released on Wide Prairie.

19 – Ballad of the Skeletons – recorded in April 1996 – see below – this is the ‘explicit version’, released on October 16, 1996 as a cd single by Allen Ginsberg. Both other versions (CD 2 – tracks 10 and 11) are also to be found on this cd single.

CD 2

In January 1995, Eddy Pumer, producer at Capital Radio (London), was contacted by Paul’s promotion man Joe Reddington to make a radio series titled, “Oobu Joobu”. Originally it was to be 6 one-hour shows, but it grew to 17 hours. This radio series was transmitted by American radio network Westwood One, between March27 and September 2, 1995. As a bonus on the cd singles from Flaming Pie, Eddy Pumer compiled a series of home demos, interviews, and unreleased songs into six long tracks, that were over six 5” cd-singles – two each for each British singles from the album. They were distributed in the UK and continental Europe, but not in the US. The main point of attraction were the unreleased songs, taken from the mid-Eighties sessions (see Flowers in the Dirt – UAC).

1 – Oobu Joobu – Part 1 – containing ‘I Love This House’, recorded on September 25, 1984 with producer David Foster
2 – Oobu Joobu – Part 2 – containing ‘Atlantic Ocean’, recorded in March 1987 with producer Phil Ramone

Both released on April 28, 1997 on the cd singles of ‘’The World Tonight’

3 – Oobu Joobu – Part 3 – containing ‘Squid’, recorded on November 12, 1986
4 – Oobu Joobu – Part 4 – containing ‘Don’t Break the Promise’, written with Eric Stewart and recorded on June 9, 1988

Both released on July 7, 1997 on the cd-singles of ‘Young Boy’

5 – Oobu Joobu – Part 5 – containing the original version of ‘Beautiful Night’, recorded on August 21, 1986 with producer Phil Ramone
6 – Oobu Joobu – Part 6 – containing ‘Love Come Tumbling Down’, recorded in March 1987 with producer Phil Ramone

Both released on December 15, 1997 on the cd-singles of ‘Beautiful Night’.

7 – Young Boy – written on a Sunday, August 28 1995. Linda was preparing a veggy meal at the home of chef Pierre Franey, on Long Island, with a photgrapher and the New Yorker writer Bryan Miller watching. Paul was waiting in another room and had his guitar brought with him. The version released on the Capitol 3 track album sampler has the final chord intact.

8 – Somedays – written on Friday March 18, 1994 , while Paul accompanied Linda to a photo session for her vegetarian cooking book. To pass the time he wrote ‘Somedays’. This is the early mix, released on January 30, 1997 on the Capitol 3 track album sampler. The differences become most apparent in the second verse with alternate orchestration, variations in the Mellotron (some answering flute “laughs” on the first line where Paul sings “laugh”) and the line “Somedays, I look, I look at you with eyes that shine” is repeated at the end.

9 – The Light Comes From Within – ‘censored version’, released in January 1999 on a UK 1-track promoonly CD-R acetate.

10 – Ballad of the Skeletons – edit

11 – Ballad of the Skeletons – clean version

Ballad of the Skeletons – in their own words

Allen Ginsberg: “I had a gig at Albert Hall in London [on Monday October 16, 1995]. A reading. I had been talking quite a bit to (Paul) McCartney, visiting him and bringing him poetry and haiku, and looking at Linda McCartney’s hotographs and giving him some photos I’d taken of them. So, McCartney liked it and filmed me doing “(The Ballad of The) Skeletons” in a little 8 millimeter home thing. And then I had this reading at (the) Albert Hall, and I asked (him) if he could recommend a young guitarist who was a quick study. So he gave me a few names but (then) he said, “If you’re not fixed up with a guitarist, why don’t you try me? I love the poem”. So I said, “It’s a date”.

Paul McCartney: “[Allen Ginsberg] came over to the house in Sussex to ask me if I knew anybody who would accompany him on guitar at a gig he was doing at the Albert Hall. So I suggested Dave Gilmour and Dave Stewart and a few others. Then when he’d gone it dawned on me that he wanted me to do it, so I rang him and said OK.”

Allen Ginsberg: “He showed up at 5 p.m. for the sound check. It was a benefit for literary things. There were 15 other poets (on the bill). We didn’t tell anybody that McCartney was going to play.”

Paul McCartney: “So we met up and I stuck a little Bo Diddley jinkity-jink behind his ‘Ballad of the Skeletons’, a really cool poem.”

Allen Ginsberg: “And we (had) developed that riff really nicely. In fact, Linda (had) made a little tape of our rehearsal. […] And he bought a box for his family. Got all his kids together, four of them, and his wife, and he sat
through the whole evening of poetry. We didn’t say who my accompanist was going to be. We introduced him at the end of the evening, and then the roar went up on the floor of the Albert Hall, and we knocked out the song. There’s a photo of us on the CD. It was a very lively and he was into it”

Paul McCartney: “He introduced me to the audience as his accompanist. He loved to be the Don, did Allen, the controller, and I loved to give him that.”

Allen Ginsberg: “He said if I ever got around to recording it, let him know.”

The studio version was recorded in April 1996.

Allen Ginsberg: “I did the poem at Carnegie Hall (in New York at a benefit) for the Tibet House, that followed the Albert Hall show. And… Danny Goldberg, (President of Mercury Records), was in the audience at Carnegie Hall, (and he) called up my office.. ’cause he heard it and liked it and said, “Do you want to record it?” I got together Marc Ribot, who I had played it with first, Lenny (Kaye) and David Mansfield. And Lenny was the session-maker… We made a basic track – and McCartney had said, “If you record it, I’d like to work on it. It would be fun”. So we did a 24-hour overnight-mail to him, and he got it, and listened to it, after a few days. He spent a day on it. He put on maracas, drums, (which was unexpected, which we needed), and organ, Hammond organ, trying to sound like Al Kooper. And guitar, which was very strong. Then the day it arrived, Philip Glass was in town, and he volunteered because he thought it was my hit, so he wanted to do something with it. He added on piano, very much in his style, and fitting perfectly onto the rest of the tape. Then Hal Willner wound up mixing it and brought out McCartney’s role and the structure that McCartney
had given to it, ’cause he gave it a very nice, dramatic structure. I had planned that after “Blow Nancy Blow” you would have four consecutive choruses of instrumentals. McCartney and I had planned the breaks the first time, and varied it a little..”

Allen Ginsberg: “[Paul] reacts to the words in an intelligent way. You can hear it on the tape. Like, if I say on the recording, “What’s cooking”, all of a sudden he brings in the maracas to get that really funny excitement. When I say, “Blow Nancy Blow”, he blows on the Hammond organ. He added a lot of enthusiasm and a lot of interpretation. And sometimes when I made a flub, he covered it. He left his lead sheet in his guitar case, so we had to share my lead sheet (at the gig), which was fun.”

One more thing

Two of the album’s tracks ‘Young Boy’ and ‘The World Tonight’ were featured in the Ivan Reitman comedy Father’s Day with Billy Crystal and Robin Williams. Apparently 5.1 mixes were especially made and ‘The World Tonight’ used over the end credits, was severely edited by one minute. As there’s no soundtrack album, this mix is only on the DVD.

Last updated on September 26, 2020