Waterspout

Song facts

From The Beatles Rarity:

[Waterspout] a studio out-take from the Wings London Town sessions. Despite the album title, much of this album was recorded in the Virgin Islands on Paul McCartney’s yacht Fair Carol during May 1977 and “Waterspout” was most likely one of the tracks they worked on there. It was near this period when the line-up of Wings was reduced to just Denny Laine, Linda McCartney and Paul so it is not clear if drummer Joe English and guitarist Jimmy McCulloch participated in this recording that has never seen the light of day.

Waterspout – makes its first appearance on the 1981 collection. Recorded in August 1977 in the Spirit of Ranachan Studio, Campbeltown, Scotland, during the London Town sessions. Although some call it a demo, the catchy beat, Caribbean rhythm and gorgeous orchestration make it one of McCartney’s best unreleased songs and was planned to be released on the All The Best compilation in 1987, for which it received some horn overdubs (buried deep in the mix). However it was withdrawn before the album came out and remains officially unreleased.

From The Beatles Monthly Book, N°138, October 1987:

[McCartney’s ] TV-advertised double album of solo/Wings greatest hits — “All The Best” — is expected out in the U.K. on 26 October and in th U.S.A, (with a subtly different track listing) on 28 October. The two previously unreleased
songs on the 21-track collection, hinted at last month, are “Once Upon A Long Time Ago”, a 1987 song produced by Phil Ramone, and “Waterspout”, originally a Wings recording and long destined for a place on “Kold Kutz”. The two songs are highly likely to form the A- and B-sides of a new single.

Mark Lewisohn

Last updated on May 1, 2020