Recording "I Lie Around"

This day marked the beginning of the second week of work on the “Ram” album. The previous Friday, Paul had told David Spinozza and Denny Seiwell, the two session musicians he had recruited, that they would likely not be needed during the coming week, as he planned to focus on overdubs by himself. However, on Sunday he changed his mind, and Linda called the musicians to ask them to come to the studio on this day. By then, Spinozza had already committed to other sessions from Wednesday onward and was unwilling to cancel them. He therefore agreed to attend this day and the following Tuesday, but a replacement would be needed for the rest of the week.

The session was devoted to “I Lie Around,” a song that, like “Get On The Right Thing” recorded the previous week, would not appear on “Ram“. “I Lie Around” would be released as the B-side of “Live And Let Die” in June 1973.

The basic track, recorded in eight takes, featured Paul and David Spinozza on acoustic guitars and Denny Seiwell on drums. Seiwell then added percussion overdubs, while Paul contributed piano.

“I Lie Around” would receive further overdubs on January 28, 1971.

The date started out going really smoothly, but then what was happening was that although originally they had told me they wanted me for four whole weeks, days were getting cancelled out and they weren’t booking definite dates. So I had to keep asking, not to be a drag, but to keep my book straight and to know what other work I could take. I kept asking but I wasn’t getting a straight answer. Finally, after I hadn’t heard from them, Linda rang me up, on, I guess, a Sunday night and wanted me to do all the following week just like that. I couldn’t, because I’d asked if we’d be working and they had said probably not so I’d taken other dates. I’d told them that I couldn’t keep every week open because when McCartney goes back to England there are other people that call me all year, and they are going to keep me eating, not him, although I’d love to do his sessions. So she calls me the Sunday evening, and I said I could make two of the days but not all five, and she got very indignant, I guess. That’s the vibrations I got. I got vibrations like ‘It’s Paul McCartney’s session you’re supposed to keep your life open indefinitely’. Now evidently they’re not hip to the New York scene. Maybe in England it’s looser kind of studio scene. In N.Y. you take dates, you do them and you don’t cancel out on other people and you don’t keep weeks open not knowing. It’s a business as well as an art. So finally I just did those two days and the next week I still couldn’t get a straight answer, and it seemed I was dealing with Linda not with Paul. She just really speaks for him and handles the business and wouldn’t let me talk direct to him to sort out what he wanted.

Then she called me one day, having told me the night before we’d be working and just cancelled out the day after I had turned down work. She said they were going to do over-dubs. So I guess they got bugged at me trying to find out how I stood.

David Spinozza – Interview with Vicky Wickham – From Hit Parader, November 1971

[Linda] was a little insulted that I didn’t just drop everything and continue with them. And I said, ‘Welcome to New York. This is a freelance world, and when I take a job, I don’t cancel it when a better one comes along.’ That’s how the New York studio scene worked. I don’t think they understood that. I wasn’t in the Beatles, you know? It wasn’t like it was a Beatles session. I wasn’t going to make a million dollars off this record.

David Spinozza – Interview with Adrian Sinclair, 2019 – From “The McCartney Legacy: Volume 1: 1969 – 73” by Allan Kozinn and Adrian Sinclair, 2022

Session activities

1. I Lie Around

   Written by Paul McCartney, Linda Eastman / McCartney

   Recording • The basic track was recorded in eight takes. Overdubs followed.

Staff

Musicians on "I Lie Around"

Production staff

Going further

Paul McCartney: Music Is Ideas. The Stories Behind the Songs (Vol. 1) 1970-1989

With 25 albums of pop music, 5 of classical – a total of around 500 songs – released over the course of more than half a century, Paul McCartney's career, on his own and with Wings, boasts an incredible catalogue that's always striving to free itself from the shadow of The Beatles. The stories behind the songs, demos and studio recordings, unreleased tracks, recording dates, musicians, live performances and tours, covers, events: Music Is Ideas Volume 1 traces McCartney's post-Beatles output from 1970 to 1989 in the form of 346 song sheets, filled with details of the recordings and stories behind the sessions. Accompanied by photos, and drawing on interviews and contemporary reviews, this reference book draws the portrait of a musical craftsman who has elevated popular song to an art-form.

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The McCartney Legacy: Volume 1: 1969 – 73

In this first of a groundbreaking multivolume set, THE MCCARTNEY LEGACY, VOL 1: 1969-73 captures the life of Paul McCartney in the years immediately following the dissolution of the Beatles, a period in which McCartney recreated himself as both a man and a musician. Informed by hundreds of interviews, extensive ground up research, and thousands of never-before-seen documents THE MCCARTNEY LEGACY, VOL 1 is an in depth, revealing exploration of McCartney’s creative and personal lives beyond the Beatles.

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Eight Arms to Hold You: The Solo Beatles Compendium

Eight Arms To Hold You: The Solo Beatles Compendium is the ultimate look at the careers of John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr beyond the Beatles. Every aspect of their professional careers as solo artists is explored, from recording sessions, record releases and tours, to television, film and music videos, including everything in between. From their early film soundtrack work to the officially released retrospectives, all solo efforts by the four men are exhaustively examined.

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Maccazine - Volume 40, Issue 3 - RAM Part 1 - Timeline

This very special RAM special is the first in a series. This is a Timeline for 1970 – 1971 when McCartney started writing and planning RAM in the summer of 1970 and ending with the release of the first Wings album WILD LIFE in December 1971. [...] One thing I noted when exploring the material inside the deluxe RAM remaster is that the book contains many mistakes. A couple of dates are completely inaccurate and the story is far from complete. For this reason, I started to compile a Timeline for the 1970/1971 period filling the gaps and correcting the mistakes. The result is this Maccazine special. As the Timeline was way too long for one special, we decided to do a double issue (issue 3, 2012 and issue 1, 2013).