Beatles ’73 pt10

With Paul McCartney's new LP Band on the Run, the former Beatle with so much to prove at last redefined his talents for not only skeptical Beatle fans, but a whole new generation of listeners ready for the Wings sound. While many hailed the masterpiece as a concept album, McCartney & co were themselves unaware of any concept hidden in the record, though Wings by definition were in fact a Band on the Run in the years prior to the album and therefore could inhabit the role of those eponymous "rabbits on the run". From the Denny Laine-penned No Words, to the Ginger Baker-backed Mamunia, to the the downright danceable Nineteen Hundred and Eighty-Five, this Wings album would become arguably the biggest of McCartney's entire career beginning in the Christmas season of 1973 and continuing on into 1974 to become a cultural phenomenon. While Paul was riding high, John Lennon continued his drug and drink fueled "lost weekend" in Los Angeles - separated from Yoko and acting out in unruly, and sometimes violent ways. Beyond his own personal struggles, producer Phil Spector seemingly skipped town with Lennon's "Oldies But Moldies" tapes, holding the recordings hostage for no ransom beyond his own personal madness. 1973 was one of the most prolific periods in the lives of the former Beatles, and it would not go out without a BANG (literally)...