Paul McCartney in “Club Sandwich 70, Summer 1991“:
A great song, ‘We Got Married’, for many it was the standout track on Flowers In The Dirt. But it wasn’t a single. It nearly was, but not quite. Capitol considered issuing it in the United States in 1990, when the World Tour was heading back to America for its first venture around the stadiums. Because of this, the label pressed up some promotional CD singles featuring an edited version of the album cut and MPL put together a promotional video. But then minds were changed and something else happened instead.
So the video for ‘We Got Married’ is another of rarities in the McCartney archive: well worth looking at but scarcely seen – hence a prime contender for another look-see in this column.
Directed by Aubrey Powell, produced for Propaganda Films by Steve Swartz and edited by Todd Chestnut (that must be an American name), the ‘We Got Married’ film prominently features in concert and on-stage footage. These terms do have different meanings, incidentally, for, while in the USA, Paul and Band took time out to perform more or less an entire show before a minimal audience, not as an advertised tour date but expressly so that close-ups and other camera angles could be shot for insertion into concert films. Knowing that nothing can irritate an audience as much as cameramen clambering all over the stage, obstructing the view and distracting the concentration, Paul realised it would be a good idea if the director get all of his fancy shots done in a private “mock up” show instead.
Like other films of the same era and ilk, ‘We Got Married’ also shows some off-stage moments: long limousines in the falling rain, fans wielding flowers, flocking to the concert venues and waiting on line outside the arenas, photographers jostling for the best pictures, and, highly appropriately, momentary monochromatic glimpses (from the deservedly popular pre-show film) of Paul and Linda on their wedding day – the silver anniversary of which, it would be remiss of us not to note, was celebrated this year, 1994.
But, as we said, ‘We Got Married’ never came out as a single in the USA. Imagine everyone on the video production team going to all that effort just so that Club Sandwich could review it four years later…
