Broomstick

Song facts

“Broomstick” is a song recorded during the sessions of the 1997 album “Flaming Pie“, and released as a B-side of the single “Young Boy“. The song ended up being one of three Paul McCartney / Steve Miller contenders for the “Flaming Pie” album; the other two, “Young Boy” and “Used To Be Bad” made it onto the album.

We just made that up. I said, ‘Here’s a little rhythm track,’ and he started playing drums, and then he started singing. We didn’t know what we were doing – we were just jamming and not worrying about it… it was weird because it was just such a flight of fantasy, but one of the things about Paul is his imagination is so great, as a writer. When somebody sits down and tosses that off, you kind of go, ‘Wow, where did that come from?’

Steve Miller, talking about “Broomstick”, from the 2020 Flaming Pie Archive Collection book

“Broomstick” was included in the 2020 reissue of “Flaming Pie” but was not remastered. To promote this Archive Collection, an instrumental version was released on the RollingStone website:

[…] The previously unreleased version of “Broomstick” premiering here, which will not appear on the box set, is an all-acoustic instrumental jam that features just McCartney and Miller. As he did on both of his McCartney albums — on which he tracked the guitar, bass, and drums himself — McCartney handles most of the heavy lifting, while Miller plays guitar. This version also lacks the sound effects that closed out the more-familiar version. […]

The working title for the track was “Slow Blues“.

Last updated on September 26, 2020

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