How does it compare to the artist's other releases
Outstanding
Value for Money
Advantages:
Gorgeous, holistic, melancholy
Disadvantages:
The last time McCartney was great
Recommend to potential buyers:
yes
Full review
Hard to remember that McCartney was only 28 when he broke up the Beatles. After a couple of middling solo albums, he put together another band and went on the road. Wings toured the world, put out one great album among several and a handful of good singles. In 1980, McCartney tried another solo album – McCartney II – sparingly produced and mostly unmemorable apart from the haunting Waterfalls.
Tug of War is the aptly titled album that followed in 1982. Recorded in the wake of John Lennon’s death as McCartney approached his 40th birthday, it is an album that seems to be pulling in two different directions. Despite a second decade of success and touring, McCartney remained unfulfilled. He longed for the respect of his peers but he was unwilling to forgo commercial respectability.
The first single release from the album was the huge international success Ebony and Ivory. The song holds up today less well than the rest of the album with its childish description of racial harmony. The black and white keys work together on a piano so why can’t we all be friends? If you’re under 20 this was your father’s Where is the Love only less sophisticated and without Justin Timberlake on backing vocals. Significantly, McCartney wrote the song on his own before realizing that the counterpoint of a black co-singer would help it reach a wider audience. Stevie Wonder came in and recorded his part before sitting down with McCartney and co-writing What’s That You’re Doing. Ebony and Ivory is programmed as the last song on the CD and can be easily skipped.
The album starts with the title track. Tug of War is a melancholy reflection on life. “We expected more but with one thing and another we were trying to out do each other in a tug of war.” McCartney dreams of a utopian other where we could understand our place in the world and fulfill our potential. McCartney’s band mate from Wings, Denny Laine, joins him on guitar and backing vocals as he does on much of the album and it was only in the middle of recording, sometime in 1981, that a press conference announced the formal dissolution of the band. McCartney was happy to be working with friends but this was definitely a solo album. Apart from some notable exceptions McCartney plays bass, acoustic and/or electric guitar on almost all the tracks as well as drums and synthesizers. Even with Lennon dead, Paul was still trying to prove that he was the musical one.
The second track Take It Away features a couple of session drummers. Steve Gadd played with almost every famous act of the seventies and eighties being famously namechecked at Simon & Garfunkel’s concert in Central Park. Further down the mix but featured on the video was a chap called Ringo. The song is effortless throwaway pop that made it to the top 20 as the second single from the album. It was almost as if McCartney was trying to hide the nature of the album by releasing its least representative tracks as singles.
Somebody Who Cares remains one of the most overlooked songs in the McCartney canon, overshadowed even on this album by at least two other tracks. Nevertheless it is a tender ode to despair that includes a vital message of hope. “Like somebody had taken the wheels off your car when you had somewhere to go. Well it’s annoying not going to get very far, I know, but somebody cares.” With a terrific Spanish guitar break, the great Stanley Clarke on bass and the sound of pan pipes in the background, Somebody Who Cares is a near perfect album track.
What’s That You’re Doing is attributed to Wonder/McCartney which is a nice touch considering how Paul has recently tried to reverse the billing on some Lennon/McCartney songs. The song is little more than a jam session that has been tweaked and recorded.
In the old days the next track signaled the end of side one. Nowadays the stunning Here Today appears incongruously in the middle of the album. It was the best possible response to the death of an old friend. Here Today is a very personal song about grief and memory. Ostensibly written about John Lennon, McCartney tapped into something simple and universal. “And if I said I really loved you and was glad you came along, then you were here today, for you were in my song.” Cynically revived for his last tour of America, the version of Here Today on this album is definitive and an almost unbearably touching performance.
The second half of the album kicks off with a couple of the jokey tracks that McCartney seemed to think were a good idea in the eighties. Neither Ballroom Dancing nor The Pound is Sinking are bad enough to sink the album the way similar tracks did to McCartney’s follow-up, Pipes of Peace, but they certainly don’t show him at his best. Ballroom Dancing the album track is actually marginally better than Ballroom Dancing the laughable film sequence from Give My Regards to Broad Street. The Pound is Sinking is one of those songs that sounds as if it’s patched together from unfinished snippets. It wants to be A Day in the Life. Sadly it isn’t even as good as Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey although the silly voices are better.
The last great track on the album is Wanderlust. It would be an even better track if the lyrics made the slightest bit of sense. “Captain said there’ll be a bust. This one’s not for me.” Utterly incomprehensible. Saved by a charming melody and a worthy vocal. On this track as on many of the other backing vocals were performed by Linda and Eric Stewart formerly of 10cc. A couple of albums later Stewart was promoted to full songwriting partner, but few memorable songs came from the collaboration.
The next track Get It features a hero of more than one Beatle. Carl Perkins, who famously wrote Blue Suede Shoes, was an icon to George and John in the early sixties. The Beatles covered a number of his songs on their early albums such as Honey Don’t and the marvelous Everybody Trying To Be My Baby. It’s a pity that Get It is such a lightweight track as its sense of fun is contagious.
After the vocodered link Be What You See, there is time for one more novelty song before the grand finale. Dress Me Up as a Robber. It’s a silly love song like only McCartney could produce and it makes you believe that marital bliss is a wonderful thing for everyone except songwriters.
Finally we have Ebony and Ivory of which I’ve already said too much.
There is one other important element to this album which distinguishes it from what had gone before. Apart from his Bond theme, Tug of War was McCartney’s first collaboration with George Martin in over a decade. They would work together again on less successful projects, but under Martin’s production McCartney was able to relax and be more focused in the studio than he had been for a long time.
Paul McCartney has often been beaten with the very stick that made him great; he is a master balladeer accused of writing sickly sweet melodies with simple lyrics. In Tug of War, McCartney includes three of his greatest ballads – Somebody Who Cares, Wanderlust and Here Today – gentle, beautiful songs, their strength in their simplicity.
Looking back over the tracklisting, it’s hard to see how this group of disparate songs formed a coherent album. Maybe it was just 1982. Maybe we were all still recovering from the death of a friend and being older than we ever thought we’d be. Maybe we should just be happy being in love and working with friends.
“As for me, I still remember how it was before. And I am holding back the tears no more.”
Tug of War by Paul McCartney Available on CD from Amazon.co.uk for £7.99, or cheaper second-hand.
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